This is just a temporary post – Aunty wants to be an affiliate marketer for the Charlotte’s Web products – a post will be forthcoming one of these days. But, to prove that I am me, I need to have the words “pepperjam verification” on my home page.
So that is why this post is named such.
S0rry if that is confusing. It is confusing to me, too.
For Thanksgiving this year, we had the usual feast with a very small group of family – which meant there were a LOT of leftovers. Except for pumpkin pie. Lanakila Kitchen’s annual turkey fundraiser included a perfectly cooked 22 lb turkey with homemade stuffing, gravy, corn on the cob, sweetbread rolls, and seasoned roast potatoes, and one little 8″ pumpkin pie. Hardly enough pie to feed the family and nothing left to give away.
This made pie become an almost obsession for Aunty. I really wanted to have a big piece of pumpkin pie – and pal Kay’s picture of Art’s pumpkin pie started a quest to bake one of my own.
I started with my mother’s pie crust recipe. She used to make the BEST lemon chiffon pie from scratch, mixing the chiffon part into the lemon pudding for a wonderful light texture. Her crust was divine. MmmmMmmmMmmm.
She would refrigerate the knives and bowl – to ensure the crust is flakey.
Grannie’s Pie Crust (makes 2 very small or 1 large pie crust)
2 cups sifted flour
3/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup shortening
4-6 TBS cold water
Put sifted flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Cut in the shortening with 2 cold steel butter knives until sort of mixed. Add cold water, a tablespoon at a time and mix with spatula until dough forms. Roll into 2 balls. Flatten out with rolling pin. Drape over pie crust, trim, and form ridges along edge. Bake in a 450° oven for 15 minutes. Cool. I used just one dough ball and refrigerated the other for another pie another day.
The pumpkin puree can called for cans of evaporated milk – which I did not have. But, because daughter #2 loves to put sweet condensed milk in her drinks, I did have cans of that, so found an easy recipe from Baking Bites. I made some changes with the spices and also in how I cooked it at a consistent lower temperature for a longer time (because it was easier).
Sweetened Condensed Milk Pumpkin Pie
(or Four Ingredient Pumpkin Pie)
1 15-oz can pumpkin puree (approx 1 3/4 cups)
1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp pumpkin spice ( I used 1/2 tsp each of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger)
2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
1 tsp worchestershire sauce (update on 2nd pie)
Preheat oven to 325F.
In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin puree, sweetened condensed milk, eggs and pumpkin pie spice. Add in vanilla, if using. Pour into cooled crust.
Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until the pie filling is set and jiggles only slightly when the pan is jiggled.
My first pumpkin pie
How was it? Not sure. The crust was really flakey, which I like a lot. The pumpkin filling was “meh” because I baked it for 60 minutes and by the time I checked on it, it didn’t jiggle at all. Overcooked it. This recipe was double enough for an 8″ aluminum pie pan so I will bake another one soon and keep the cooking time down.
Still, I would consider it a success because it is edible and tastes like a pumpkin pie. And maybe it was easy, for a person who doesn’t really cook.
Update three days later
I backed another pie with the other half of the crust dough (me thinks I need to find a marble slab for rolling ease) and I added worchestershire sauce to the pie filling, just to try a zapper. I also didn’t bake it for an hour – just 45 minutes in the oven – and it still was past jiggling.
However, I think it was a success!!! Aunty can bake pies!
Pal Wandaful sent this touching video about ramen.
Enjoy!
Pal Kay of Musings 
had a post about getting tested for COVID-19. It seemed really easy to do – using a swab, rotate in each nostril for 15 seconds, insert in a tube with twist top, and you’re done!
What made it even easier was registering online prior to at: https://www.doineedacovid19test.com/
I entered my name, age, ethnicity, any health issues, etc. I then could chose where I wanted to take the test and I chose Palolo Recreation Center (my hanabata days playground). I even chose the time of day – which was noon because it wasn’t too early or too late, but just right for this aunty.
Why did I decide to take the test?
It was because of the 5 free cotton masks. I wanted to have them to check out because Kay said they were very comfortable. I have been making masks and trying to make them functional, comfortable and good looking. And these cotton masks made me curious enough to be willing to swab my nostrils in front of strangers in face masks and plastic shields to get 5 of them.
Was it worth it?
Yep, yep, yep. There were more stations open than people waiting to get the test and it was super fast. And, Aunty got her masks. All cotton knit with a sort of stretchy binding. They might be perfect to do some tie-dying and/or shibori with indigo. Another project to stack in the to do list.
Meanwhile
Esther (my centenarian friend) and I will continue to do our beach day on Thursdays, except now I can sit alone on the beach instead of pretend to fish while she swims to her heart’s content in the water. The most recent billboard at Hawaiian Rent-All on Beretania Street cracked me up: “Lockdown Update: People with no friends allowed to sit on a beach!” Those guys are fun, super nice and helpful. If you ever need to borrow a power tool or two that the Honolulu Tool Library doesn’t have, they are the place to visit and have a chuckle.
And, btw, I won’t know the results of my COVID test for a few days. Kay’s result was negative. Hopefully the same for me.
Update
Yippee!
It is crazy how the whole world is changed because of Covid-19.
We have stepped back and slowed down, and maybe that is a good thing.
I started making masks and in the process, began selling yards of elastic at Ben Franklin in a locker at the Kaimuki store. The sales people there all know Aunty by name and it feels like a warm and fuzzy family of friends there.
I go to the Hawaii Potters Guild with Esther Nowell, who just turned 100 years old this year. I call myself her apprentice, for she is like a wizard with her knowledge and skill in ceramics, drawing, painting, and life. She loves to go swimming at the beach – and so we have been going – and she gets into the water and swims down and back with me on the shore baking in the sun.
But, Covid is a b—–, and the newest rules say that I can’t sit while Esther swims. So now, I have become a fisherwoman with a fishing pole without line, hook or bait, standing in the water next to more serious fisher people.
And you know what? It is fun.
If anything, Covid has become a forced vacation from the normal, and it is actually rather nice.
Here are a few pictures during the Covid shutdown:
empty Kalakaua sidewalk!
Clean clear beaches!
Zoo tree, magnificent!
Kaimana Beach – uncrowded
Fishing, no more sitting!
For Aunty, it was yesterday. I had mailed some masks and pattern last week to pal Kay of Musings.
I wanted to use up my “ugly” forever stamps and knew the postage for a fat envelope was $3.80 if it weighed under 4 ounces, so I put on 7 of those stamps and popped it in the drive through mail bin. 7 stamps x 55¢ would be $3.85.
Yesterday, after opening my PO Box I was surprised to see the envelope addressed to Kay with a note about additional postage needed. I presented the clerk with the envelope and asked her about the note, and she was very nice at first and said that I owed more. When I asked why, she pulled out a book that showed the ugly forever stamp with a value of 41¢.
I was flabbergasted and I must have expressed it because I said it was a forever stamp that is supposed to be forever. She pointed out the fine print on the stamp that says “first-class forever” and not just “forever”. She then told me that I didn’t have to be so dramatic.
Pause.
I must admit, I really did have to pause. I was still in semi-shock about different levels of forever and her smack down was unprofessional. I had seen it before from her and another of her co-workers when dealing with customers they were irritated with. It made me realize that they were very unhappy working a job that they had to keep.
So what did I do?
I asked how much more I owed, paid, and apologized for not understanding, Yup, I wimped out.
And the first thing that popped into my mind was that I had a great new post that would be titled “When is forever not forever?”
Lesson learned – get rid of those old ugly forever stamps and avoid those two clerks.
Update: These “first-class forever” stamps will still work on letters and large envelopes. However, if the envelope is over 1/4″ thick, it becomes a parcel – and then those type of forever stamps are only worth 41¢.
Aunty likes the Korean kim chee from Costco – it used to be Choonga and now it is called Joonga. The big squarish bottle with the green plastic cover. SO ono but TOO much. I eat it with rice or saimin, or sometimes I would make it with spam – Ann Corum’s recipe. But I can’t finish most of the bottle so it starts to get old and more potent and sits in the refrigerator until I guiltily throw it away after a few weeks. So wasteful.
Jalna did a post about putting it in hamburger. It looked really good and I still have to try it.
Recently I was watching a new Korean drama on Netflix called Mystic Pop Up Bar. It is a cute show about a punished shaman’s daughter who has to save 100,000 people because of what she did 300 years ago. Anywho, one of the characters shared a recipe with her using old kim chee. It goes like this:
Rinse ripened kim chee. (I also squeezed it out so it was like a big golf ball). Chop it up finely and add shoyu and sesame oil. Plop it on noodles and pour anchovy sauce over the bowl.
Sounds good and easy, doesn’t it? So I made it tonight, but I didn’t have anchovy sauce. (What is that anyway?)
It was karai, sour, and sweetish. Strange but very delicious! Perfect for a hot bowl of noodles. And good for my digestion because kim chee is full of probiotics. So glad to find another good kim chee recipe, especially for old kim chee. No more waste, woo hoo!
Pal Fay sent this music video of musicians from Long Island. It reminded me of the Japanese videos after the tsunami and earthquake, with the difference being that everyone was in their home studios. I recognized none of their names (maybe it’s a Long Island thing just like we have our own Hawaii thing) but it made me happy.
Aunty doesn’t cook BUT Hawaiian Airlines has some neat local articles and one of them was chef Wade Ueoka sharing a recipe. I used to get take out orders from him at the Farmer’s Market way before he and his wife opened the popular MW Restaurant. That restaurant has unreal fancy food and desserts to die for. However, truth to tell, I liked the homestyle cooking from his humble tent better because I like simple and cheap.
The Hawaiian Airline’s site has other local recipes and even videos. I liked this recipe because the ingredients are what I have in the refrigerator. Chicken, carrots, daikon, onions, ginger. But it is not what I expected when the title said “shoyu chicken”. I figured shoyu chicken is easy – chicken, ginger, shoyu and sugar – so I checked it out, watched the video, thought to myself, that looks like easy Nishime, and tried it tonight.
And you know what? It was good – tasted healthy, light – and was easy! I like how he cut the carrots. I like how he shows us how he puts the chicken in and the other stuff and then takes the chicken out to chop. I added shiitake mushrooms because I like shiitake mushrooms. I also added tsukoshi (little bit) hondashi.
A really good cooking lesson. I know he doesn’t know me, but I want to shout out, “Tanks, eh!” to chef Wade and Hawaiian Airlines. He made a cook out of me!
Now that we don’t have DramaFever.com to binge watch Korean dramas anymore, I watch them on Netflix and Viki.com. Prime Amazon has a few good ones too (Escape Landing on You and Prison Playbook being my latest favorites). However, the pickings have been getting fewer and some of the dramas are more irritating than entertaining. I tend to like movies because they are over in one swoop and I waste just 2 hours rather than several hours watching a drama series.
This weekend, during a family Zoom meeting, our nephew’s girlfriend who is Korean mentioned OnDemandKorea.com but not all showings have subtitles.
And then, another option came up: KoreanCulture.org. For a limited time, from now until June 30, 10 movies are available to view, for free! Some of them are about the cruel occupation of the Japanese in Korea, some seem okay, so we shall see. I am currently watching one about “A Violent Prosecutor” that hasn’t gripped me yet, but I like the actors.
I am also watching series 3 of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” on Amazon Prime. I really liked the 1st and 2nd series and love the way the producers captured New York, Paris, and Vegas in the late 50’s. The characters are a blast and super fast talking.
What are you watching, and if not watching anything, what are you doing?
Aunty is chomping at the bit to go out like before and can’t wait for when Ross opens up so I can shop on senior discount Tuesdays again.