Orange Hubbard Squash

Orange Hubbard Squash

Orange hubbard squash exterior flesh is bright orange.  The interior flesh is yellow/orange with a very hard rind.    It's finely texture is medium sweet to medium dry flesh.  Great for cooking.  This squash was popular squash.  Also see Blue Hubbard Squash.
This squash was popular around the turn of the century, and is was a staple for the fall and winter pantry. Very similar to a Blue Hubbard. It is finely textured and has a yellow-orange flesh that is medium sweet and medium dry with very hard rind.

Festive Party Chocolate Cupcakes

You can dress up cupcakes to look yummy by adding Andes candies, cherry filling, pudding, toasted coconut, nuts, melted caramel, chocolate shaved, sugar sprinkles, or any fun topping.

Chocolate cupcakes with Penuche Filling

A Betty Crocker recipe

Cupcakes

1 box Chocolate Fudge Cake mix

1  teaspoon vanilla

Filling and Garnish

1 cup butter or margarine

2 cups packed brown sugar

1/2 cup milk

4  cups powdered sugar

1 oz grated semisweet baking chocolate, if desired

Directions

·      Heat oven to 350°F.  Grease and flour muffin cupcake pan. Prepare mix as directed on box and add vanilla to the batter.  Cook and cool cupcakes

·      In 2-quart saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly; reduce heat to low. Boil and stir 2 minutes. Stir in milk. Heat to boiling; remove from heat. Pour mixture into medium bowl; refrigerate 1 hour or until lukewarm, about 90°F.

·      Mix powdered sugar into cooled brown sugar mixture with electric mixer on low speed until smooth. If filling becomes too stiff, stir in additional milk, 1 teaspoon at a time. If filling is too soft, cover; return to refrigerator 15 minutes to firm up.

·      Remove Cups from cupcakes pan. Using serrated knife, cut each cupcake in half horizontally, being careful not to break either half. Place heaping 1 tablespoon filling on each cupcake base. Replace rounded cupcake tops. Pipe or spoon rounded 1 tablespoon frosting onto cupcake tops. Garnish with grated chocolate. Store in airtight container at room temperature.

Blue Hubbard Squash

Blue Hubbard Squash
This squash has wonderful aroma of fresh cucumbers with very little sugar.  Interior flesh is a yellow/orange color with firm flesh and very little string.   Flesh that is medium-sweet and medium-dry with a very hard rind, hard to cut.  This squash is great for cooking and baking and was used in many traditional recipes.






Cool fact - named after Mrs. Hubbard in Marblehead Massachusetts in 1830.

James J. H. Gregory introduced the Hubbard Squash to the seed trade.  Originally brought to New England from South America or the West Indies, the variety had been grown in Marblehead as early as the 1830s.  A neighbor to the Gregory's, Elizabeth Hubbard known as "Marm Hubbard", recognized the properties of the squash and brought these seeds saying, "it was the best squash she had ever tasted in her life."  James J. H. Gregory later bred and released Blue Hubbard.  

To read more about James J. H. Gregory click here.

lumina Pumpkin

Lumina Pumpkin


Lumina Pumpkins outside exterior can ranges from pale golden yellow to slightly blue to glowing white or a ghostly white.  The interior flesh is orange. 
Excellent for baking into pies.  Keep pumpkins in a dark cool space to so they can last until used. 
Some people use this style of pumpkin because of the white exterior and it's orange inside creating a spooky effect once carved. 

PIE
This was one of the pumpkins tried as a pie and was one of our favorites. 

pumpkin pancakes

pumpkin pancakes

Decorative Gourds - Angel Wings

 Decorative Squash

Angel Wing

Hubbard Orange Soup

Hubbard Orange Soup

long Island Pumpkin

Long Island Cheese Pumpkin
This heirloom is widely remembered as a great Pie squash by people in the New York & New Jersey area. It was prominently used through out the 1800s. Its coloring and flattened shape suggests a wheel of cheese - thus the name. It has a deep orange moderately sweet flesh and a long storage life up to a year out of direct sun.

Galeux d'Eysines (Popcorn) Pumpkin

Galeux d'Eysines (Popcorn) Pumpkin

Galeux d'Eysines - HEIRLOOM Pumpkin Squash

First seen at the Pumpkin Fair in Tranzault, France in 1996.   Seed collected by Amy Goldman from La Ferme de Ste. Marthe, Cour-Cheverny, France.  The intorior flesh is orange, sweet and moist.  Great for baking and cooking with.  Great for soups because once cooked it becomes velvety smooth.  Pumpkins can weigh from 10-20 pounds and should be harvested before they mature, if left the peanut growths may cover the pumpkin.  The peanut warts are caused by the sugars in the skin of the pumpkin.  They can be stored up to 6 months. 

Jarradale Pumpkin

Jarradale Pumpkin

Jarradale is an Heirloom pumpkin native to Australia with wonderful blue grey skin and heavy ribbing. Decorative as well as flavorful. Jarrahdale has a flatten deep ribbed pumpkin shape with shiny light blue-gray skin. 6-120 pounds. Jarrahdale’s tasty flesh is thick, sweet and rich golden-yellow to orange in color. It has a very small seed cavity and thin but extremely hard skin. Some gardeners claim that they have stored this squash for up to a year! This Australian squash is a cross between Blue Hubbard and the Cinderella pumpkin.

Flower and Vegetable seed for the home gardener and small market grower.

Turks Turban Squash

Turks Turban Squash

Turks Turban flavor is a mild and great for any recipe.  Not a lot of flesh as other squash varieties.  Flesh inside is light orange with firm flesh and very little strings.  Seeds are fat and great for roasting. Very hard outside with many surfaces, not great for peeling or cutting.  Cooking suggestion is to cook it whole and then remove outside peel.  

Turk's turban, also known as "French turban", a heirloom predating 1820, and closely related to the buttercup squash.

pasta with slices of pumpkin

Pumpkin Bars from Sarah Jane's Bakery

Pumpkin Bars from Sarah Jane's Bakery

sneak peek - Sep 10th

sneak peek - photo shoot

Recent work - Cereal bowl and spoon with fruit

Cereal

Crisco is a great way to keep food in its place but using it totally grosses me out.  Something about not being able to get it off my hands gets me to wonder what is it doing to my body.  Crisco is nice for its color in that it kind of looks like milk but adding real milk on top of the Crisco completes the illusion.

This image is comprised of many layers.  The spoon was shot first with Crisco as the base holding the cereal and fruit in place, then a couple of layers of the spoon with milk in different places.  The bowl was added in much the same way, first the bowl with cereal but without milk, then a couple more layers of the bowl with the milk in different parts.  Also an overlay was used when shooting the bowl with cereal.

Adding milk is the tricky part, too much milk and the cereal flakes change their color and texture as they become soggy, too little milk and the image just doesn’t look right. 

I worked with Kimberly Colburn during this shoot. She is always my first choice whenever I seek a food stylist. With her help we are a team moving pieces of the puzzle around to create the most appealing final image possible. 

        

For this project I retouched the images myself but yes I do use a digital retoucher when needed.

501st Legion Central Garrison – more images

 

 

 

 

501st Legion Central Garrison

501st Legion Central Garrison