Cranberry Streusel Pie

Talking about Thanksgiving the other night, Trey reminded me that I have to make this one. It was new to us last year and we LOVED it.

Cranberry Streusel Pie

1 lb fresh cranberries, mashed
3/4 c sugar
1/2 c flour, divided
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c walnuts I was out so I used pecans
1 tsp butter

1 9-inch pie crust

Stir sugar and 1/4 c flour into mashed cranberries. Pour into pie crust.

Smash nuts into small pieces. Stir in brown sugar, 1/4 c flour and butter with pastry blender until crumb is formed. Sprinkle over pie.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

menu planning and grocery shopping

Last week as I was thinking about my big monthly grocery shopping trip for the beginning of the month, I made a list of meals I could make just from what was in the freezer and pantry. Wow is all I can say. Remember that we got a side of beef last winter and have been given some venison lately. I also have canned and frozen a lot from summer. And last week I got the first of our winter share from our CSA. My list...

Pot Roast with potatoes and carrots

Sausage and Peppers served with pasta

Beef Brisket with roasted potatoes, carrots and beets

Tangy Pork Chops over rice

Shepherd's Pie made Friday evening with ground venison

Chicken Divan

Potato Leek Soup

Beef Stew

Vegetable Soup

Chicken Pot Pies

Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs

Sri Lankan Curry

Walnut Chicken with Bulgur

Turkey dinner

Steak with roasted potates and green beans Saturday night's dinner with friends over

My grocery shopping reflected that. I buy just a little from the produce department (bananas!) and then stock up on some pantry items.

Now I don't necessarily have a concrete meal plan, but I can look at that list in the evening and figure out what we can have for dinner the next night based on what I know I have going on the next day and how tired I am.

And tomorrow I am finally making that turkey that has been in the freezer since last January. The kids will be so excited for a practice Thanksgiving dinner!

some canning pictures

It was a crazy summer here, not very hot at all. For certain crops, that wasn't good. The tomatoes were super late coming on here. Early tomatoes didn't come on until the end of August. I was nervous that we wouldn't have enough to can. We rely a lot on our home canned tomatoes throughout the winter and I was a little nervous.

But in the middle of September we had a hard freeze warning and Duane was able to pick lots of tomatoes. Here's a picture of red and yellow tomato sauce



It has been a GREAT year for peppers here in CO. I have soooo many frozen peppers of all colors: green, red, orange, yellow, ivory and even a few purple.

We made lots of salsa this year



And we pickled jalapenos, banana peppers and some anaheim peppers.



We included some carrots (orange and yellow) and some onion slices in the jalapenos, too. I think they are so pretty. And they taste YUMMY!!!