It's time for some pie.

So our last post was all about picking strawberries.  Well those berries turned into A LOT of jam, lots of snacks, strawberry cinnamon rolls, strawberry shortcake, and (my favorite) strawberry topping for some banana pancakes. But at church on Sunday, somebody left this on counter in the kitchen!

Rhubarb! I asked to whom it belonged and the kitchen manager said it was just left by somebody so if I wanted it - go for it!

My grandma passed away 15 months ago.  We all miss her dearly and it was the joy of her life to make and bake food for people. It was always the joy of my life to eat that food.  Her strawberry rhubarb pie was my favorite - it wasn't even close. She used to make these large flat pies that were the size of a large pizza and cooked on a pizza pan.  Very thin, but there was plenty of the best part - the crust!

Here's where we started:

Pie Crust

2 1/3 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Cold water as needed to make doughy (used about 1/3 cup)

Mix everything but the water til it's crumbly.  Add water till it was like play dough.

Wrap dough in plastic and stash in the fridge for an hour until its solid enough to work with.

After chilling, cut dough in half and roll out for the pie pan.

Okay, so my wife made the filling.  It's 2 cups of strawberries, 2 cups of rhubarb, 2 cups of sugars, and some flour/cinnamon/nutmeg/love/deliciousness.

Now a little lattice work, egg wash, and sprinkle sugar.  Ready for the oven at 400 for 50 mintes.

Looks good.  I'll give you the verdict tomorrow.

Doug



Berry Picking!

Our Summer is off to a great start. The kids have only been out of school for 2 weeks and we've already completed our first trip of the season. We went out to New Jersey to visit my family and celebrate my grandmother's 90th birthday. It was awesome! As we enter a week with not much going on, we decided to do some strawberry picking. We are so lucky to have Spooner Berry Farms so close to us. They have the most delicious strawberries! Having a lot of local, fresh produce is crucial to living a real-food lifestyle, so we are excited to stock up on frozen berries, homemade jam and even some treats like pie filling. The girls were very excited to go berry picking. JD wasn't too sure. If we do anything that doesn't involve some sort of game or competition, he usually doesn't want to do it. So...the whole morning he's begging me to go bowling. Once we got to the farm and started picking he exclaimed..."This is the best place ever" :-) It was a great morning getting out of the house and picking some yummy berries. Next on the list is blueberries. Doug found a great place that we hope to hit up this week. Talk to you all soon!

Where Does The Time Go?

Wow! I really can't believe it's June and I really can't believe the kids are almost out of school. Time sure does fly when you're having fun, or just super busy like us! Here are some updates on what's going on in the Enfield household and some things we are looking forward to this summer. The kids have all done really well in school this year. Bethany of course continues to be at the top of her class. She has been an Eagle leader (student leader) at school this year as well as the only girl in the highly capable program this year. Rebekah has had an amazing year of kindergarten. It's so awesome to listen to her read and to watch her do addition and subtraction. The end of her kindergarten year is so bittersweet. We are excited that she is moving on, but yet again it's hard to watch the youngest become so independent. We are also sad that this is our last year with Ms. McDaniel! She has been the best kindergarten teacher for all 3 of our kids. We have been so blessed to have her involved with each of our kids lives. JD had a wonderful year this year in 3rd grade. He was definitely blessed with his fabulous teacher, Mrs. Walters. It takes a special personality to deal with JD sometimes and she definitely gets "him". Sports of course has continued to be a huge part of our everyday life, as we try to find lots of ways to keep the kiddos active and healthy. Bethany and JD both did basketball this winter. JD is now in baseball and he is doing a fabulous job pitching. He is still working on hitting in the kid pitch league, but continues to improve. Rebekah loves soccer and we are doing that right now. One of the biggest changes around here is that we are trying to follow a whole foods/real food lifestyle here at home. We cleaned out the pantry, fridge and freezer of all processed foods, including anything with white flours and white sugars. I wish I had taken a picture to show you what we ended up donating to the food bank. It was a lot! It has been a very exciting change and now that we are over a month into it I think it will be a permanant way of life around here. Of course there will be the occasional treats here at home and outside of home, but overall this is a change for the better for all of us! I'm still working on how this will work with my couponing and freezer cooking, but I'm just trying to take it one step at a time:-) Lots of big things going on for the summer that I will be sure to write about. First off, we are headed to New Jersey in 2 weeks to celebrate my grandmother's 90th birthday. So excited to see my family that we haven't seen in several years. After that the kids will all go to camp, JD has baseball camp and then we head back out to North Carolina to visit with my mom and then the big trip to Disney World. 18 months in planning and saving and we are going! So excited! I hope to get back on here more often as so many great things happen every day! Love to you all!