Showing posts with label pumpkin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pumpkin. Show all posts

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Pumpkin Puree

Halloween may have just passed, but the excitement I feel when I come across a pumpkin display at a grocery store still can't be matched by any other food or decoration.

Seriously. It's like mesmerizing and I usually just stop for a minute to look. My friends can attest to this weird fascination, as they've been bombarded with a stream of pumpkin-related propaganda picture mail for the last month.

Anyway, there has been a lot of talk about a shortage of pumpkin puree for about the last year. I've yet to experience the scarcity myself, but I thought I'd give this a try. I followed this blogger's instructions.

Then I made some pumpkin muffins. Because while pumpkin puree is time-consuming and somewhat hard, muffins are the easiest thing in the world to bake.

I also made this tasty pumpkin seed and pomegranate salad.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Pumpkin Cupcakes


It was about time for me to bust out my cupcake pan, a Christmas gift from my brother, Will. I've been dreaming about cupcakes for weeks now. But I knew I wanted to make them myself, not buy them at the grocery store. After all, who even knows what they put in them to get that delightful texture and tasty sweetness. It's probably whale blubber or unicorn tears, right?

Regardless, this was the first time I have ever made cupcakes. So I went with a fairly easy recipe for pumpkin cupcakes. I don't have an electric mixer, but I suppose I didn't really need it.

The results were quite tasty. Since I followed the easy recipe almost verbatim, I won't be typing it all out here, but I will tell you a few changes I made.

Fist, I substituted a half cup of the white flour for whole wheat flour. It made me feel a little better and I could not taste anything unusual. The actual health benefits of this are negligible. Second, I added a few drops of yellow and red food coloring to the frosting, which gives it that nice peach color. Finally, I skipped the candy corn because its not fall, and that is by far the grossest candy ever. Worse than Swedish fish.



A few notes about the frosting. Maybe I added a little too much canned pumpkin, but the yield was way too much. I wanted to eat the half cup of frosting I had leftover, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Also, the recipe calls for a full tablespoon of vanilla, which was too much.

All in all, this was a good experience. Although I had some icing issues, the batter and cakes themselves turned out well.

Icing with issues

Sunday, November 8, 2009

More Pumpkin fun



The same book mentioned in a previous post also inspired me to get festive. I know it missed the boat on Halloween, but it's always a good time for gourd art!

Carbonada Criolla



Tonight I made this hearty stew for my brother and myself. The recipe is from a Joost Elffers book about pumpkins, and I was immediately drawn the recipe because it comes from Argentina, where I lived for a year.

The hollowing out the pumpkin was time consuming but rewarding. It looked fabulous as a serving vessel and the whole thing was delicious.

Ingredients:
1 medium pumpkin
2 medium sized yellow onions
butter
sugar
olive oil
4 garlic cloves
2 pounds lamb back ribs (or another cut if you prefer)
4 medium tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
stock
bouquet garni (I used rosemary and thyme)
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper
1 potato
1 can sweet corn
1 can peaches



First, cut a lid on top of the pumpkin, and remove the fibers and seeds. Scrape as much pumpkin from the inside as you can without letting the walls get too thin. Brush the inside with butter and sugar, then bake for 30 minutes.

Lightly saute the onions and garlic in olive oil. Transfer to a large sauce pan. Lightly brown the lamb in the pan, then add it to the onion mixture. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, the bouquet garni and enough stock to cover the mixture. Add a generous amount of salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes.

Add the pumpkin and potato and top it off with stock. Simmer for another 30 minutes before adding the corn and peaches. Remove the bouquet and ladle the stew into the pumpkin.



And there you have it. As easy as pumpkin lamb stew...served in a pumpkin...