Pear Pie–Needs Some Adjustments

Can you see the hidden shapes on top of the crust? I attempted to cut the vent holes with the same shape, but they stretched and lost their awesome.

I used the fantastic apple pie recipe I found online and it is almost perfect. But instead of apples I used pears from our farm. I forgot that I decreased the temperature of the oven the first time I used this recipe. So…my crust was well done and my fruit was still a little hard.

We’ll see what my coworkers think.of it today. I’m nervous and not entirely thrilled that I made such a silly irrevocable mistake.

Update
My coworkers made it disappear easily during my eight hour work shift. Everyone agreed the crust and flavor was great.

They made some legit recommendations about a future fix. First, being if I have particularly hard fruits, I could cook them down in a sauce pan with the sugar to help soften them up.
Second, they also agreed that 375°F was high for pie and I should lower the temp.
I also hope to cut up my pear chunks into more even sizes. I think the larger pieces were the undercooked ones.

What’s Up with Kat

Since I’ve been back from Spain I have been trying to get my rhythm. Not too hard, but it does take time.
I tried to save the weakest chick of nine thar hatched (just before I got home). Sadly, Mr. Chicklet didn’t make it but we had some happy times before he passed.

Been cooking with my girl. I assisted with cake decorating for a sports themed baby shower. What is even better is I didn’t mess up the cake. I didn’t do the fancy writing but icing that sucker was a task in itself!

Picked some fresh strawberries, mashed and mixed them to make strawberry pies. Folks at work made the one pie disappear in under 30 minutes. Maybe more pie next time.

My poppies and tiger lilies are blooming. It makes the backyard look super jolly!

Made a fruit tart for some friends with my girl and now that I know how easy it is I really want to do one! Maybe I can borrow her tart pan sometime :-)

We also purchased a wee soft shell turtle. We plan on letting him grow bigger and releasing him into our backyard pond. There are some sliders in there now and frogs and I don’t want Jubal to be bullied by the other creatures in the pond.

Those are the highlights of the last couple of weeks.
We have been enjoying hot days but not the too stinking hot days we are used to in June. Such a relief after last year’s scorcher.

Return of the Kat

I’m home!!

Had roughly 7 hours of sleep, food, coffee, water and even planned dinner for tonight.

Can you believe my productivity?
I just generally being lazy. I could do more if I wanted.

In fact today’s plan involved washing up my laundry from the trip, but I got sidetracked when I found baby chicken #9 was laid out in the rain.

Slaughtering an animal for food is one thing, but walking away from a baby animal that is on death’s door is not something I can do.

I brought him in and held him in a dry washcloth for a bit so he could get some of my body heat. This may sound irresponsible but it was the best I could do—I gave the chick some human baby electrolytes (like pedialyte).

Drop by drop he was drinking and currently he is holding on. Nursing baby animals, especially birds is not a strong suit of mine. At least I can say he will be warm, dry and somewhat hydrated if I lose him tonight.

In addition to being the Nightingale to the chicken I am getting supper ready.

Dinner is a little bit random because I don’t want to have to make a full shopping list and spend hours at walmart just after vacation.

Supper is spicy quiche! I will put rotel tomatoes, onions, dry red pepper (+other spices), cheese, milk, and eggs in it.

Dessert is flan! I am using a box mix that we got ages ago at the salvage store. It has set up well in the fridge. Fingers crossed that it tastes as good as it looks.

I’ve missed my readers very much.

How have you all been?

Is there something in particular you would like to read a blog about?

Day 347: Cactus Buds

My cactus has been quite happy since moving outside. I had my (many) buckets inside over the winter, but I can tell they have missed the sun.

It looks like there are either buds for new paddles or for flowers. I have plenty of paddles where they keep sprouting off my two oldest cacti. I just really want some pretty flowers!

Apparently, my herb buckets from last year did better than I thought. I have a bucket of cilantro and mint that was happy to return this year.

Day 345: Calm After

The calm after the storm. Our weather forecasts promised huge scary thunderstorms, but they mostly hit St. Louis and missed us.
We did get a lot of steady rain coming on down and it left the pretty flowers of the cherry tree on the ground.

This year we did not have the blossoms subtlety flying and drifting to the ground.
With the rain, came some cold weather (apparently the reason the storms were mild). It has been in the 40s and my sunshiney spring weather is gone again.