By request, pumpkin soup

You know those adorable pie pumpkins in the store during the holidays? They are easier to use than you imagine.

Wash the outside, then cut into quarters. Grab all the seeds and soak them in warm salt water (because you totally want to roast them, right?) and then use a spoon to scoop out the ooky stringy bits. Then set the pieces on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 until soft. Let cool until you can handle with bare hands, then scrape the fleshy bits from the shell and puree the heck out of it. TA DA! Fresh pumpkin.  Rinse the slime off the seeds and toss them with a little oil (coconut oil, vegetable oil, whatever) and season with salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, whatever. Spread on a cookie sheet and roast (the oven is at 350 still, that’s fine) stirring occasionally until they get brown. Cool before nibbling, trust me.

Now for the  soup. Curried pumpkin soup is an easy quick hot meal, and can be made vegan without becoming boring. Heat some oil in a stock pot and cut up a shallot or two . Cook the shallot Until clear and soft, then add curry powder (I use Spice Guys Madras, just use one you like) and stir to let the curry toast a bit. Add pumpkin and vegetable broth (proportions aren’t critical, I used one pumpkin, one shallot, 2 tablespoons of curry, and one box of vegetable broth).  Puree with a stick blender and bring to a simmer. Taste and add salt, sugar, or wine to balance the flavor. Bring to a simmer again and add yogurt, heavy cream, or coconut milk a little at a time until it tastes right (about half a can of coconut milk tastes right to me). Serve with toasted seeds.

You can scoop out a second pumpkin to use as a serving bowl for a special meal. People ohh and ahh, but it’s big pay-off for not much work. 

Better than pumpkin pie

Yes, I hear you… “how can that possibly be?” Let me tell you…

You take that classic pumpkin custard, make it less sweet, and pump it up with cream cheese, and add a shot of rum. Turn the bland crust into a butter cookie, and make it crunchy with an oatmeal pecan crumb top.

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup flour
¼ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
½ tsp salt
½ tsp allspice
¾ cup butter
1 cup oats
½ cup broken pecans

1 box (17oz) pumpkin puree
8oz philly cream cheese, softened
4 eggs
½ cup sugar
1 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp rum
½ tsp salt
1 tsp allspice
1tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp clove

Instructions:
Heat oven to 350
Line 9×13 pan with foil and butter.
Stir flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt, and allspice together, cut in butter, crumble in oats and pecans. Set aside a generous cup and press remainder into pan. Bake 15 minutes.

Use a mixer to whip cream cheese until smooth. Beat in sugar, then eggs, then pumpkin, flour, rum,and spices. Pour into hot crust, then sprinkle with remaining crumbs. Bake 25 minutes. Cool 10 minutes then remove from pan to cool on a wire rack. Cut into 6×4 grid.

 

Stolen (or gifted) Apples

I’ve ended up with a lot of apples this year, which is awesome. Here is what 30 pounds of apples looks like:

This is what 4 of those bags looks like:

Seriously. And that’s not even all since Awesome Neighbor gave me some and I raided a vacant house for others. So… apple butter!

First thing you want to do is wash the apples. Why, since they are organic and unsprayed? Bird poop. Fill the sink with warm water and add half a cap of bleach. Stir around, drain, let  stand wet for a few minutes, fill the sink again, add 1/4 cup of vinegar, drain, and rinse well. You don’t HAVE to go through all that, and you can skip the bleach, but I’d rather be safe.

Cut the apples in half, scoop out the seeds with a melon baller, and chop them into bits.  Don’t even bother to peel ‘em, most of the fiber is in the peel and we’re cooking them into oblivion anyway. So… fill your crock pot with apples. Here’s about 12 pounds before I trimmed them, and how much I actually threw away:

Pour some water, apple juice, cider (hard or otherwise) or wine in, about 8oz total. Add brown sugar and spices. Cinnamon, ginger, and clove are traditional, allspice, nutmeg, and cardamom also go into mine. Use about a half a cup of brown sugar, you can always add more later.

Cook overnight on low of during the day on high with occasional stirring. The apples will let down their juices and cook to mush.

This is with no more smooshing than a simple spoon can smoosh. Hit it with a stick blender and you’ll get this:

Looks delicious, but is it DONE? Add some of the last batch to be sure. Not only does this give you a larger variety of apple, and thus a rounder flavour, it also introduces some sugars that are already deep-caramelized and can get to nearly-scorched without actually scorching, which is what gives the apple butter its richness.

As you can see, it can get a LOT darker. Cook it some more, mine is usually on for about 24 hours. Give it another blending when you think it’s done. When is it done?

When it’s dark like chocolate and thick enough to stay on an inverted spoon it’s done. It can be hot-water canned or frozen, and it’s good in the fridge for months. I recommend 1 cup portions because that’s the amount that goes into my apple muffins.

Wherein my neighbor is awesome

So a couple of summer back I was going to plant a square foot garden. I didn’t. Last summer my neighbor asked if all the stuff was going to go to waste, or if she could use it and simply provide me with random produce. In a rare moment of intellect I said ‘Sure!’. So last summer and this one shes dropped random bags of produce on my porch, and I try to use it, with varying degrees of success. 

Today she brought me lemon cucumbers, tomatoes, a jalapeno, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, basil, and chocolate mint. More herbs than I can use, really, so i’ll be passing some on. But what to do with the other stuff? Well, the dinner plan was to cook a couple of lonely hotdogs and a chicken breast on the grill, so a salad works well. I cut up the tomatoes, sliced and salted the cukes as I always do for salad, chopped some parsley and basil, grated some pepper, dressed with olive oil and rice vinegar and just a pinch of sugar, and here’s what I’ve got:

 

It’s in the fridge thinking about what it’s done. What else do I need for a meal? 

I accidentally went to a farmers market today

Seriously, I was driving by and saw it and it caught me eye (and the sausage cart caught my nose) so I stopped. I totally couldn’t tell you where it was, either. I had some cash in the console, so I picked up some goodies. How friggin cute are these?

 

Got ‘em from a patchouli-scented dude with long blond dreads who told me that biodynamic agriculture “Is, like, organic farming on steroids, man. It totally enriches the spirit of the food”. Not sure how the science works, there, but I’m sure these are good for my soul. 

Anyway, I cut the fat ones in half and boiled them all in salted water for 10 minutes while the oven heated to 450. Chilled ‘em in ice water, tossed with bacon grease (Yay,  bacon grease!) savory, lovage, smoked paprika, salt, and pepper. Roasted for 15 minutes. Amazing finger food.

These little darlings aren’t the only thing I got, either. The same dirty hippy sold me a beautiful heirloom tomato, and at other stalls I got a packet of Madras curry powder, a jar of goat cheese in herbed olive oil, a loaf of bread, and 14 organic palisade peaches (last of the season, he said). Not bad for a trip I didn’t know I was going to make. Maybe I’ll report on those, too, if I’m not too busy licking the bacon grease and salt off my fingers.

Local Seasonal Food, DAMMIT!

Apple Muffins. Oh gods yum. You read Smitten Kitchen, right? Well, this is adjusted from her Pumpkin Muffin recipe (also amazing).

It starts with apple butter I had in the freezer from last year when I was gifted a bunch of tiny Lady apples. You chop the apples without peeling them, toss in the crockpot, add a little water, some spices, a bit of sugar, and then cook them into oblivion. Blend smooth, and cook some more, they should be a dark brown paste. Freeze in zippy bags in 1 cup portions for use in recipes or random special bread spread. 

 

Apple Butter Muffins

2 oz whole wheat flour (half a cup)

4.5 oz all purpose flour (1 cup)

1 tsp baking powder

1ish cup chopped apple (optional)

1 cup apple butter

1/4 cup oil (olive or coconut is preferable)

2 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Sprinkling sugar (raw is good)

 

Heat oven to 350. Prepare muffin cups by oiling or lining with paper.

Wisk flours and baking powder together in a small bowl. Add apples and toss to coat.

Wisk remaining ingredients in a large bowl until thoroughly mixed. Stir in flour and apples until almost smooth. Portion into muffin cups, you may have more than 12 muffins worth if you added apple, or you may just have really full cups. Smooth tops and sprinkle with sugar or cinnamon sugar if desired.

Bake for 20 minutes or until spaghetti noodle comes out clean (I never have toothpicks)

NOM!

The Unsung Snickerdoodle

Interesting fact: when I ask people what their favourite cookie is, or what they want me to make most say chocolate chip or peanut butter… but when I put out a tray of assorted cookies it’s ALWAYS the snickerdoodles that go first. What’s up with that? Anyway, my recipe is adapted from Alice Medrich’s ‘Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy’, which I can’t recommend highly enough. If I were stranded on a desert island… with an oven and ingredients… nevermind, terrible metaphor. A dessert island maybe? Anyway, if I were restricted to only one cookie recipe book for ever and ever this would be the one, no hesitation. Go buy it. Seriously.

Snickerdoodles

13 ½oz AP flour

2 tsp Cream of tartar

1 tsp Baking soda

½ tsp Salt

8 oz Unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened

10 ½oz Baker’s sugar

2 large eggs, warmed to room temperature

1/8 tsp Fiore di Sicilia (or ¼ tsp lemon extract)

8 oz cinnamon mini chips (optional)

2tsp Cinnamon

¼ C Turbinado sugar

Instructions

Wisk flour, salt, baking powder, and cream of tartar together in a medium bowl.

In a large bowl beat butter with sugar until smooth and creamy.

Mix in eggs and Fiore until just blended.

Stir in flour and mix until barely incorporated.

Gather the dough into a ball, flatten slightly, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until firm, at least 30 minutes. These cookies get even better (crisper, more buttery) when you let the dough rest for several days.

Heat oven to 400F. Line cookie sheets with parchment.

Mix cinnamon and turbinado in a shallow bowl.

Form cookies from level tablespoons into balls (20 grams) and and roll in cinnamon sugar.

Place 2 inches apart on cookies sheet.

Bake 11 minutes, cookies will puff and begin to settle. I find that switching the sheets at 6 minutes gives me more even browning.

Yield: 48 cookies

Notes:

Every time I make this I wish I’d doubled it. They are gone within a day.

Fiore di Sicilia and cinnamon mini chips are available from King Arthur flour. Both are optional. Even the lemon can be left out.

Turbinado sugar gives extra crunch to the outside of these cookies, but regular sugar works too.  Regular sugar can be used in place of the Baker’s as well.

If you chill the dough for several days you will have to dampen the sugar slightly to get it to stick.