Giving Thanks

We are the first to say we are blessed here at The Acre. Having more food than you can eat is a problem not a lot of people have. The best part is, except for the turkey we pull most of the food from our shelves and Mason jars. It's a years worth of labor that we love.
Cooking and eating is a common theme in our updates, this week we had our version of The Superbowl and Daytona 500 all rolled up into one.

Fraidy Mutt got all dressed up for company

Fresh from the chicken eggs

Fresh dug potatoes

Homemade buttermilk pie crust

Lawman has the hang of this pie crust rolling thing now

Buttermilk pie and chocolate cake

Home grown corn for corn pudding

Scratch made honey dinner rolls

Lawman had the smoker on point at 0600 for the turkey

The spread

Earlier in the month, Lawman posted a picture of a turkey stuffed with an octopus. Apparently, Denephew Henry saw this picture, and worried Lawman to no end about where the octopus was in the spread of food. As it happens, Lawman had a few cans of octopus in the pantry, so he opened up a can and let the chirruns taste it. Henry seemed to really like it, Denise Katie, not so much.

Pop didn't seem to have a strong opinion one way or the other

As is tradition around The Acre, we had leftovers in cast iron skillets on Friday

We ended the week with the Floyd Parade, Jake on fire equipment, and chicken wings.
K&K

Punisher, Season II

Trapping season opened up in Virginia this week, and The Predator Punisher was eager to get into the swing of things. He boiled his traps in dye and wax early in the week, then picked out his premo spots. Wednesday he took a couple of hours and set the traps out. Jake also put a few sets out on the other side of the happy hunting grounds. By Friday we had eliminated six raccoons. Pop piled on with the largest raccoon of the bunch in a box trap.
Saturday morning Cupcake tagged along with him to do his checks, and we had the grandaddy of all bobcats caught.

This guy must have weighed 25-30lbs, he had been eating well. We don't believe he has been feeding on chickens. Yet. Our girls have not alerted us there was a predator in the area, so we think we may have nipped this in the bud. But we do have a neighbor within eyeshot with chickens that free range, and another neighbor with a pond full of ducks, so this guy may have been enjoying a buffet of birds?

Tools of the trade

The funny thing about all this was, Netflix released season one of The Punisher the same night we caught this guy. Predator Punisher, season II.
We did a little cooking this week, one day was fried chicken day.

And Friday evening, Cupcake had a late meeting so Lawman whipped up a batch of baked burritos for dinner. DeNephew Henry got a couple of the leftovers.

There was a little baking going on as well. Our first fruitcakes of the season came out of the oven this week.

Friday evening we had run out of boiled custard and chocolate cake, so Lawman made a fresh batch of scratch made chocolate chip cookies.

Sunday morning after rabbit gravy biscuits, we cleaned up the kitchen. Cupcake started cleaning the great room for the pending family get together Thursday, while Lawman made a double batch of boiled custard. Five quarts should be able to get us to Thursday.

We forgot to thaw our wings out Saturday night, so Cupcake called an audible and we had deer chili with corn muffins to end out the week. And not that Jiffy from a box stuff that Crazy Granny passes off as home made either.
K&K

Four Ever

This week we celebrated our four year anniversary. We took Wednesday off and drove down to Sam's Club to stock up on flour and sugar for the coming holiday baking. Then we had The Outback do the cooking for us, it wasn't Lawman's steak but we didn't have to cook or wash dishes. We made it home by dark. We party like that.
We celebrated Veteran's Day by taking down the large flag and putting up the smaller one. Lawman tried to keep a low profile this year, thanking veterans for their service makes him uncomfortable.
We had a visitor at The Acre this weekend. Denephew Henry stayed with Pop over the weekend. We did a lot of cooking for the visit. Henry requested baked burritos, they seem to be his current favorite meal.

He really likes the black beans and corn in his burritos, so that's what he got.

Before Henry came over, Lawman whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

Saturday morning, Pop and Henry came back for breakfast. Chocolate chip pancakes were on the menu.

Henry requested homemade pizza for dinner Saturday night, so we skipped our usual trip to Dude's and stayed in. Henry helped make the pizza, starting with picking the basil.

He wanted a supreme pizza, which sounded like Cupcake's favorite, meat lovers. Henry was excited at the amount of cheese we added.

Then he added the final touches, brushing the crust with olive oil before baking.

It was a big hit.

Henry had never tried boiled custard before, so we gave him a taste. He says it's his new favorite now. And he loved the sound of a chocolate cake to eat with it. Lawman whipped one up Saturday afternoon while Cupcake wrapped another round of Christmas presents.

Henry requested some custard to take home with him, so we fixed him up a couple of quarts. Sunday morning he came back for breakfast. Rabbit gravy was his new favorite gravy.

Besides cooking for Denephew, we tried a new dish this week. Cupcake found a recipe for olive bread she wanted to try. So we had spaghetti for dinner one night and Lawman made the olive bread. We really liked it and will be adding this to the rotation. We think it would go well with other meals besides spaghetti.

We ended the week with wings.
K&K

Bring Me My Hasenpfeffer

We had quite the treat this week at The Acre. We gifted one of our neighbors a hatching of guinea birds in the spring, and he promised us a few rabbits in the fall. This week was that time. We scored four dressed and vacuum sealed rabbits, which was probably twenty pounds of meat. We were amazed at how big these things were.
Lawman tried his hand at rabbit hunting when he was a chirrun, but it seemed like a lot of work for very little meat. We thawed one out and quartered it up, then put it in a two quart jar with some chicken broth cubes and fresh basil, then pressure cooked it for 90 minutes.

Saturday after pancakes, Lawman opened the jar and picked the bones out of the meat. After pressure cooking the meat falls away from the bone. We got a whole quart of boneless meat. Lawman then chopped some up with bacon and made hasenpfeffer gravy for Sunday breakfast.

It was a huge hit. Cupcake liked it so much she requested we try the rabbit meat in a batch of hasenpfeffer and dumplings one night. We will probably buy a few more rabbits and can them straight away. That way we will have meat for meal emergencies.
A couple other food related items this week starts off with boiled custard. Middle of the week was end of the month for Cupcake. That means long hours and stress. November first signals holiday cooking at The Acre, but Cupcake said boiled custard and fresh chocolate cake would probably take the sting out of end of the month. So boiled custard and chocolate cake she got.

Lawman made a double batch of English muffins and froze the extras for breakfast in the coming weeks.

And since Cupcake had to work long hours, we had a quick to fix meal Monday. Seafood boil. We dropped a couple of drops of scorpion juice into the cocktail sauce.

And there's always scratch made buttermilk biscuits upon request.

We've been picking/eating fresh from the garden turnip greens for the past month or so. Lately we've gotten enough rain to make the turnips take off, so we picked a few and slow cooked a pot full for dinner one night.

Then Sunday we started all over again by making another batch of boiled custard.

We ended the week by going to see the new Thor movie at the Imax, then came home for wings.
K&K