With the Holiday seasons around the corner, you may be already planing what kind of pies you will be baking this year. Bellow are just a few products that will help you to impress your family and friends. Even if you are not a baker, but know some one who is, some of the products bellow would make an amazing gift during this holiday season. I especially like the 9″ round red ceramic pie plate. It is pretty cheap, and if you want to you can give the pie with a plate as a gift. And of course every baker will appreciate a good recipe book. I also have a wonderful pumpkin pie recipe (scroll bellow) for you to try.

Autumn Pumpkin Pie Recipe
I got this recipe a long time ago from a friend of mine. You can make your own pie crust for this recipe or a store-bought crust will do just fine.

For this recipe you will need:

• 2 egg yolk slightly beaten
• 3 cups of Pumpkin (you can use canned pumpkin or fresh pumpkin)
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/4 cup of flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of cinnamon (you can put more or less depending how much you like the taste of cinnamon)
• 1/2 teaspoon of ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon of allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon of powdered cloves (optional, pie still taste great without it)
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup of evaporated milk

Mix ingredients in order given above. Pour it an unbaked pie shell. Bake at 400 °F for 45-50 minutes. You will know that your pie is done when the clean knife will comes out clean when inserted in the middle of the pie. Halfway through the baking time I use the aluminum foil to cover the edges of the pie to prevent them from burning. But a crust shield for pies seems like a very practical tool to have.

Your pie should look and taste just like the pie you see bellow which I made not so long ago:

If you decide to make the Autumn Pumpkin Pie using the recipe above I would love to see the photos of your pies. You can add photos when commenting bellow.

About three weeks ago my husband and I have purchased ZeroWater purifying system. I have suggested to my sister a while back, and it was not until my husband tasted her water that we decided to purchase the system.

We got our ZeroWater at our local Target, just to realize later there are much better deals (including Target) when you shop online…

In the past we have used very similar product from Brita. On of the things we did not like about Brita is that whenever you needed to change filter, you had to discard the first pitcher or two of water because it would come out black. The worst of all, the purified water that Brite would produced would still have the heavy chlorine taste of the tap water unless you let the water sit for at least 24 hours.

So is it any different with ZeroWater, you will ask? The difference is huge! To begin with the filter of ZeroWater is much bigger. But bigger is not always better, right? Wong. In the case of ZeroWater, bigger is better. ZeroWater filter has four different layers the water needs to go through- each playing an important role.

The end result is fantastic! Water tastes crispy fresh and has that unique softness of the bolted Fiji water- while costing you a fraction of what you would have to pay for bottled Fiji water.

ZeroWater does something else, that no other purifying system offers. Along with their purifying system they include a TDS digital tester. It measures the amount of dissolved solids in the water, TDS simply stands for “Total Dissolved Solids”. The highest the number the “dirtier” is the water. Our tap water measured at 070-075, which is still pretty decent. The bottled water measured at 030-035. Finally the ZeroWater filtered water measured at, you guessed it – 000!!! (By the way the in the Fuji botteled water the number of TDS is about 200- but at least they disclose so in right on the bottle).

So what is the big deal about this TDS thing? Well it is made by a third company. ZeroWater however is so confidence about the final result that they send you this digital tester so you too can see the results. It also serves another purpose, once the filtered water begins to measure 006 it is time for the new filter. The filter however should help us to filter about 40 gallons of water.

So how cost effective ZeroWater is?

If you were to by bottled water in your local supermarket or a grocery store you will probably spend $52 to buy 40 gallons of water. My husband and I usually bought 24 Pack of 1/2 Liter Bottles at a time at about $4.99 each. For nearly the same price you can purchase 4 filters for ZeroWater pitcher. Because our tap water is not as bad as it can be we are looking to changing the filter after 40 gallons of filtrated water. So what you spend on 40 gallons of bottled water, will buy us 160 gallons of water! Your savings may not be the same unless your tap water contains the same amount of total dissolved solids. The instruction on how to change the filter say that on average one filter will produce about 30 gallons of water before you need to change it.

Since we the TDS (total dissolved solids) electronic tester was included we have given a try. Bellow are the pictures of our tests:

Our tap water showed 75 TDS

The bottled we used to by from our supermarket showed 31 TDS

Finally, and as promised, the water that was filtered by ZeroWater showed 000 TDS

If you are using ZeroWater I would love to hear what you have to say about it. Please leave a comment bellow.