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My grandmother used to say, “Do it twice, it will become a tradition.”
Latest Crowd Pleaser
Corn Casserole. Total hit at Thanksgiving and on New Year’s Day, and shared with at least two friends and family members who needed a homemade dish this winter. Corn casserole is vegetarian and kid friendly and destined to be tradition at Hummingbird Farm.
Both these recipes work great. I am partial to Ali Sigale’s recipe, more of a scratch approach.
Breville BCI600XL Smart Scoop Ice Cream Maker
Yes, it’s pricey, but if you are looking to upgrade from a freezer insert style ice cream maker and you want to churn 2 or 3 quarts of ice cream in succession, this compressor model might be your ride.
I like the pre-freeze, keep cool, mix-in, hardness settings and chiming features. I churn my chilled custards first thing in the morning and add mix-ins between chores, get’s done in a jiffy.
My favorite 32 oz paper ice cream containers. Everyone wants a taste of goat milk ice cream when they visit. I buy 25 at a time.
My freezer-refrigerator setup is a workhorse that only looks fancy
Mine is a Kenmore Elite standard freezer (handle right) and a standard refrigerator (handle left) placed next to each other. Any number of brands like this placed side-by-side would probably do the same. I have an ice maker in the freezer. A cabinet maker built some cabinets above them and trimmed it so it looks built in. I store big platters up there.
I can freeze full sheet pans of frozen berries and chill eight half gallons of goat milk above the vegetable drawer.
I LOVE my double convection wall oven
Kitchen Aid Double Convection Wall Oven
I got a deal at Alan Weirs. I hope you do too.
The convection settings actually work, and it has all kinds of cool features like rapid reheating and bread proofing. The oven racks are really beefy and hold my 25 pound Holiday Ham with ease. The cobalt blue interior makes it easy to see spills that need cleaning.
Masterbuilt Electric Smoker
Incredible gift from my mother-in-law, Mary Mauren, may she RIP. The 40″ model can smoke 8 whole chickens in 2 hours. Add wood chips through handy pull out drawer, don’t have to open the open the oven and get a face full of smoke!
Get the cover to go with it and figure out where you will store this electrical appliance out of the rain!
Read my blog post, Rest in Peace Mary to learn more about her.
Kitchen Equipment
Chafing Dishes
Keep three at the ready, clean and stored in the boxes they came in. They keep stuff hot!
Folding Tables
Indispensable Lifetime folding tables, multiples in four, six and eight feet.
Traditions
This has been our party tent for the last three years, and given the cost of repairing our septic system , it is probably on it’s way to year four.
Quictent 10’x20′ Heavy Duty Carport Gazebo Canopy Garage Car Shelter White (with Windows)
We are dreaming about a sun room maybe something like this.
Always on the hunt for secondhand Easter Baskets and cheap plastic eggs.
The Easter Bunny visits the farm on Easter Sunday and deposits a wheel barrow full of filled eggs, Sometime after everyone has had their fill of pie, children of all ages grab a basket and make a run for it. Most of the eggs are filled kid friendly snacks like gold fish crackers or frosted circus animals with sprinkles, but you could get lucky and win a a prize. If you are 21 or under and you find the Bailey’s Irish Cream egg, you have to give it to your parents.
Pie Open House : The memories are worth the work.
1. Weeks in advance: Decide on the pie menu. Make and freeze all the crusts you ‘ll need (unbaked)
2. A week or two before: Assemble and freeze all the fruit pies.
3. The day or night before your party: Bake all those fruit pies and any blind baked crusts. While they’re baking, prepare all your custard, cream and savory fillings and chill them overnight.
4. Early the next morning on the day of your party: Assemble your custard, cream and savory pies and Lemon Meringue
Sit Down Thanksgiving at the Farm
This is our biggest event of the year (we seat 33 not including children). If we get an empty seat for any reason, I put the word out to fill it at the last minute (wish we had more room). It takes a month to prepare. We hold it the Saturday before or after the calendar holiday, giving our family and friends space to hold their own celebrations.
I’ll share a few menus here. There is nothing else quite like it, and I enlist days of help from friends and family to pull it off and only do it once a year. Everyone goes home with heaps of leftovers.
Tourtiere Pie, a French Canadian tradition served at Christmas
We aren’t French Canadian, but I was looking for a savory meat pie to serve on Christmas Eve a few years back and found this filling recipe from growagoodlife.com. I upped the poultry seasoning to well rounded teaspoonful, and now it’s a tradition with lots of ketchup.
I use Kate McDermott’s Butter and Shortening Crust from Art of the Pie and brush it with a whole egg before I bake it.