Blueberry Pielets - with my Mom's recipe for the pie crusts

I have been on a pie rampage these last few weeks - I am a novice, but it's a fun new treat (which can be fairly healthy if you use honey instead of lots of sugar).

Blueberry pie-lets:

BLUEBERRY PIE FILLING

3/4 cup honey (that's a guess, 1 tablespoon per pie-let)
¼ cup flour
4 cups blueberries
lemon juice (one drizzle per pie-let)

Using a muffin tray, cut out circles about 2cm larger than a mug. Set into each muffin shape on the tray. Fill with blueberries which have been rolled in some flour (I had to dump out the ones in the photo to do this step, do it first). Add a tablespoon of honey, and a squirt of lemon juice. Top with another circle of the same size as before. Squish the top roof of crust to bottom crust decoratively. (I use first two fingers of left hand and right thumb inbetween, the left fingers push crust edge down, thumb opposite, up - and go all around making this pattern.)

*Obviously you can just make a blueberry pie - the filling is enough for 1 PIE.

I just discovered that my mom's crust recipe kicks butt on the other dumb one I was using. It is amazing! Even if you are half dead it makes great pastry.




AMERICAN PIE CRUST

Combine:

454 g / 1 lb. margarine or butter -- both is the best
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
5 cups flour
1 egg
2 tbsp vinegar
¾ cup cold water
Mix together and roll out.

I put the dry ingredients together, then added the egg, then squished in butter and marg (454g total) with my hands until uniforms. Then I added the wet.

Easy healthy and simple porridge for breakfast - how to prepare bulgar (instant wheat) and make it for a breakfast porridge

"Bulgar" is something I grew up with an awareness of as my parents made it.  I knew of it as hard clusters of cooked, dried wheat along a baking tray, but I didn't know its purpose.  I did know my Dad sometimes ate it on camping trips (when he hiked in the mountains, and slept in a tent).

My dad explained it to me on my visit home.  It's something they do in the Middle East, and you can buy it in shops, but my parents prepare it themselves at home.  The point of it is that after the wheat is cooked, it requires far less cooking time - instead of a cooking time of 10 minutes for uncooked ground wheat, it's pretty much instant - just add boiling water.

In the Middle East they use it as cous-cous in pilafs.  It can be used as rice is used; you can also add it to baking, add it to mince in burger patties, add it to soups.  But my dad usually just eats it as a healthy, simple porridge - and instant easy breakfast when camping (he even takes it in a plastic bag and just adds hot water in the bag and voila great survival skill).


Preparation: 

There are a few steps - very easy steps, but with a lot of time elapsing inbetween.

COOK THE RAW WHEAT

First you boil the wheat until it is soft and all the water is absorbed.  If you have a pressure cooker, it's easier as you pressure cook for 5 minutes, then just turn off the heat and leave it in the sealed pot for a few hours, or overnight (it will continue cooking in the pot).  If you don't have a pressure cooker you can also cook the wheat on low heat for a couple of hours (after the water gets up to boiling first, then turn it down to lower heat).  When both methods are done all the water should be absorbed into the wheat.

The right amount water varies for the pressure cooking vs the sauce pan way.  Here are the two ratios:

Pressure Cooker Method:  4 cups washed wheat to 6 cups water, pressure cook for 5 min then leave it in pot for a few hours or overnight.

Saucepan Method: 1 cup washed wheat to 3.5 cups water, cook in saucepan for 4-6 hours.

DRY THE COOKED WHEAT

After the wheat is cooked, soft, and all the water is absorbed, spread it out on large baking trays at 200-250 degrees F (93 degrees C) for 4-6 hours until completely dried.  You will need to stir it around once in awhile so it won't stick into clusters (how I often saw it growing up).

GRIND THE COOKED DRY WHEAT

After the cooked wheat has been dried, grind it coarsely.  It can now be used as a very easy to cook, far less sticky porridge - easier cleanup and it tastes better as a porridge too (than cooking raw ground wheat).  All the same nutrients are there, but it is now "fast food".

After eating this every morning at my parents house, taking part in this healthy, wholesome and happy lifestyle - I would like to prepare ground up bulgar each weekend to eat in the mornings at home during our busy lifestyle for our family, when both my husband and I are working.  The simpler wheat porridge breakfast (healthy with lots and lots of fibre, no packaging, and really cheap) will then be achievable.

EATING BULGAR

It's actually just a light, fluffy, healthy, yummy breakfast.

For every 1 cup of ground bulgar, use 3 cups of water.  First heat the water in a saucepan, and when the water boils, turn it down and add the ground wheat in a thin stream while stirring to prevent clumping.  My dad likes to add dried raisins to his bulgar, and 1 tsp salt.

Nonnie's Gourmet Butternut Pumpkin Soup

After a frenetic summer, although my use of my energy in gardening is not very efficient yet - I have managed to store away a few huge beautiful butternut pumpkins grown from seed in my garden for use in the winter.  After feeding them with worm compost a few times, after they were grown I let their skins harden in the very strong New Zealand summer sun for a few weeks before storing them.

Today, I went down to my food storage room in the basement and found the largest one, after returning home from work, and made butternut pumpkin soup.  When cooked with some ginger, chicken stock I had made myself (was stored frozen), with spices added, a few vegetables from the fridge (a leek, a carrot), a bit of sauteed garlic and onion,  a dash of curry spices, and a small chunk of cream cheese melted in it - salted with natural mineral sea salt - it was awesome.  

As I cut the pumpkin up - the colour was bright orange, showing alot of good vitamin/food content.




Nonnie's Gourmet Butternut Pumpkin Soup

Cut up 1 large butternut pumpkin into chunks, and add to a huge pot partway with water, and some chicken stock, after the water boils.  (Try not to use too much water, so you don't have to pour too much nutrition away at the end.)

Cut up most of 1 leek (or whatever good green veggies you have in your fridge) and add to pot.

Cut up 1 carrot, add to pot.  

Peel a large chunk of ginger and throw it into the pot (to be retrieved later).

Put the lid on, for it to boil until soft.  

THEN cut up 1 onion, 1 large garlic clove, and a few slices of a hot pepper (I used a few slices from a large jalapeno pepper I had grown in my garden) and fry in oil until soft.

When the pumpkin and veggies are soft as well, it's basically ready to go.  Turn the elements off.  Take a look at the boiled pumpkin and veggies - guess how much water you should pour off so the soup won't be too runny.  (I would save the liquid you pour off in case you pour off too much.  This water has vitamins from the veggies in it - so it's better to add it back rather than new water.)  Then add the garlic/onion/chili mixture to the boiled veggies.  Fish the ginger chunk out.  Sprinkle curry spice across the top of the whole thing.  Throw in a few pinches of sea salt.  Now just blender it all up, one blenderful at a time - ladelling it in.

Pour the blendered soup into a different pot, adding a chunk of cream cheese to melt in the hot, new, vibrant and healthy orange spicy butternut pumpkin soup!  I put some coriander leaves on the top of each bowl of soup, and served with buttered soft white bread.