A Pumpkin Trio

I saw a few large cans at the store and I may have bought all three. Just in case.


Whew...well, it's been almost a month, huh? That old I had turned nasty, then I injured my back. So I've pretty much been on the couch for three weeks. But I'm back! And I'm back with...pumpkin!

Remember the Great Pumpkin Shortage of '09? The empty shelves? The sad lack of pumpkiny goodness through the fall? It was a terrible time. I love pumpkin in nearly everything (except pumpkin pie, because I'm weird like that) and, as a New Englander, I feel that it's my right to consume mass quantities of apples in September and pumpkins in October. It is the right and proper way of the world.

Here are three pumpkin recipes for you to enjoy:

1. Crockpot Pumpkin Spice Lattes

adapted from A Year of Slow Cooking

I changed the original recipe by adding more coffee and less milk, which is how I like my coffee drinks. I don't like dessert-ish drinks, but if you do, add more milk and maybe some whipped cream on top. These are delicious, cheaper than getting them you-know-where, and are perfect for lazy fall Sundays, when you want to sip something warm and putter around the house.

1 1/3 cup milk
2 T canned pumpkin
2 T white sugar
2 T vanilla (yes, tablespoons)
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 cup espresso or very strong coffee. (You can go double-brewed here.)

garnish with whipped cream (optional)

Whisk all ingredients together in the crock and cook for 2 hours on high. Serves 2-3.

I made myself some this morning and sipped it throughout the cold, rainy, day. It was pretty excellent.


Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread

adapted from Allrecipes

This is my all-time favorite pumpkin bread recipe. I make it all fall and into the holiday season. It's even better the next day and freezes well.

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
2 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger


1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour three loaf pans, or two loaf pans and a 12-cup muffin tin. (Or, half the recipe, like I usually do.)

2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin, eggs, oil, and water. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Very carefully mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, being careful not to overmix.

3. Bake for 50 minutes in preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.


Pumpkin Oatmeal

I saw a few recipes for this hit TasteSpotting, and I could not believe I've never even thought of this before! Brilliant and very good for you. (This is the recipe for when you've had too many slices of pumpkin bread slathered with cream cheese. Ahem.)

This isn't a recipe, exactly:

1. Prepare quick-cooking (not instant) oats as you normally do, with whatever proportion of milk or water that you prefer.

2. Add 1/2 cup of pumpkin per 1 cup of oats to the pan after the oats are done cooking. (So, 1 cup of oats serves two -- if you're making enough for one person, be sure to half the pumpkin.) Stir in 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice and cook, while stirring, on low heat until heated through.

3. Add brown sugar or maple syrup to taste and serve!

Korean Rice Bowl

You guys, I have been so sick! And it's not the kind of sick where you're spectacularly miserable and in bed for days and people bring you soup. The kind where you're fighting a sore throat, and then a cough, and then a sinus infection, all while you're wrapped in a haze of exhaustion, but not really sick enough to stop going about your daily life.

So I haven't been in the mood for updating, but I wanted to break the silence with a dish that is guaranteed to knock any nasty bugs right out of your nervous system. Ginger and garlic are fantastic for fighting colds and anything spicy will clear those sinuses right up. This is delicious, good-for-you, comfort food to soothe your soul.

(See? I didn't even make the Seoul/soul joke. I am the very picture of restraint.)


Korean Rice Bowl adapted from Veggie Num Num


¼ cup dried shiitake mushrooms
250g (9 oz) tempeh
1 brown onion
2 garlic cloves
5cm piece fresh ginger root
1/3 cup soy sauce
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tbs sesame oil
1½ cup sushi rice (I used Uncle Ben's 90-second microwave basmati rice. It was delicious!)
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 cucumber, diced

Chilli Sauce

2 tbs tomato paste
2 tsp chili paste - I used Sambal Olek
½ tsp sesame oil
to serve

4 eggs, poached or fried (omit if vegan)
toasted sesame seeds


Place the shiitake mushrooms in a heat resistant bowl and cover with hot water. Allow to stand for 5-10 minutes until mushrooms are tender, strain.

Halve the onion and then slice thinly, breaking the segments apart, mince the garlic and ginger. Slice the tempeh thinly. Combine shiitake mushrooms, onion, garlic, ginger and tempeh in a large flat dish, pour over the soy sauce, sesame oil and sprinkle with the sugar. Toss the ingredients until well combined and set aside, refrigerated for at least 30 minutes. My tempeh soaked up all the sauce. I might double the sauce next time to go on the rice.

To make the sauce combine all the ingredients in a bowl, adding about 3 tablespoon of water, or thin to the consistency you prefer.

Prepare the sushi rice to packet instructions, keep warm and set aside.

Heat a good heavy-based frypan over a medium-high heat. Add the marinated tempeh mixture and fry for 5-10 minutes allowing the tempeh to slightly blacken and crisp. Remove from the heat, place on a warm plate and cover with foil to keep warm.


To assemble the Korean rice bowl, dish out the prepared rice in four separate bowls, top with tempeh mixture, then cucumber and red pepper, finish off with one egg (if using) a good drizzle of the chilli sauce and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.

Oatmeal Pancakes

There are a lot of reasons to use whole grains, but for some crazy reason, the first thing anyone mentions are how good they are for you. What about how yummy whole grains are? There are some areas where white breads are more appropriate -- grilled cheese, for instance -- and white flour is almost always the better choice in cakes or lighter baked goods. But thick, hearty, nutty, chewy breads with the depth of flavor that whole grains offer can stand up to big, bold sandwiches. And, in this case, elevates pancakes from being spongy, lifeless, forgettable vehicles for syrup and butter to warm, nutty, tasty little cakes that you could happily eat plain. (Not that I did. Those babies got the syrup, butter, and bacon treatment.)

One of my very favorite recipes for pancakes are the Four Grain Flapjacks from Joy of Cooking. I didn't have any honey on hand yesterday morning, so I adapted a recipe from Allrecipes. I adapted it so far, though, that I'm just going to call it my own.

Oatmeal Pancakes

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup quick cooking oats
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1-1/2 cups buttermilk (you can sub regular milk)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk dry ingredients together. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk wet ingredients together.

With a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients, being careful not to overmix.

Heat a griddle, electric skillet, or nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Spray with cooking spray (butter offers more flavor, but I find that cooking spray makes it easier to flip the pancakes and reduces the risk of burning). Pour the batter in scant 1/3 cup-fuls onto the hot pan. Flip pancakes when bubbles cover the surface of the pancake.

Back to School Brownies

One bowl. One spoon. Crayons. James Joyce and his manpain.


Ahhh, back to school. Back to consistent schedules and only one kid in the house for most of the day...and homework every night and getting up really early and, in my household, losing things. I wish I could blame the children. I can't. I lose school notes and mittens and hats and my phone, on the way out the door, and, more often than not, my keys. My husband has the amazing ability to lose things that he's been carrying around since he woke up with the specific intention of not losing them. The kids seem to have inherited this gene; Oldest Daughter lost her glasses a mere two weeks after getting them.

So while I love fall weather (still waiting for it -- 97 degrees? in New England?) and getting back into the swing of things after a long, lazy summer of eating fresh berries and slowly atrophying our brains in the sun, I'm always a little thrown by the constant and varied demands of the school year. 99% of those demands involve either (a) money, (b) time, or (c) baked goods.

This recipe? Will help you with all three.

These are brownies, made with things you probably have in your pantry. They are made in one bowl, with one spoon, and go in one pan. They're in the oven in less than ten minutes and cost pennies to make.

And oh. my. god. are they ever good.

The recipe comes from Smitten Kitchen yet again; Deb goes into great detail about why the cocoa powder is a better choice than melted chocolate, so I won't go into it here. These are very fudgy, dense, dark brownies, with a candy bar quality to them. They are not dry or boring or forgettable, like most brownies you come across! These are not brownies to slather in frosting or as a base to other things -- they are too moist and intensely flavored for that -- but they are killer with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

I rounded the cocoa up to a full cup and omitted the nuts. (I am strongly anti-nut in my brownies) The original recipe calls for some double boiler action, but I've included the microwave instructions.

And they take less time to make than it'll take you to find your keys to get to the store.

Cocoa Brownies adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

Makes 16 larger or 25 smaller brownies

10 tablespoons unsalted butter*
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs, cold
1/2 cup all-purpose flour

*It's blasphemy, I know, but I have successfully substituted salted butter and omitted the salt. they come out fine.

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Line the bottom and sides of an 8×8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper or foil, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides. (Or you can use butter/flour spray, or butter and flour the pan. The foil makes cleanup a lot easier, though.)

In a medium-sized glass or Pyrex bowl, melt the butter. Add sugar, cocoa powder, and salt, then stir to combine. The mixture will be gritty -- that's ok.

Add the eggs, one at a time, stirring well after each addition. When the batter looks glossy and smooth, stir the flour in vigorously until well-blended. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes. (I find that I need to bake them on the longer side, up to 30 minutes.)

Note: If you're the kind of person (like me) who chronically underbakes brownies so they'll be gooey, don't do that with this recipe. They are chewy and gooey on their own; underbaking them will just lead to them falling apart and a raw batter taste. No good.

Maine Cookbook: Swedish Almond Cake and Berry Compote

Here is another runaway hit from the Maine Vacation Cookbook, this time from my friend V.

My family, as I've mentioned, loves to cook. They also love to bake. My mom has made wedding cakes; she knows how to use fondant and fresh flowers and can whip up a pastry cream like it's a pb&j. It takes a lot to impress my family, baking-wise, but after the vacation, everyone was talking about this cake. It's one of those deceptively simple cakes, where the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. It doesn't have cream or ganache or jam filling or a glaze (though it would be lovely with those things), but it's memorable and complex and lovely with just a dusting of confectioner's sugar and some berry compote.

Note: I don't normally like almond extract. It always tastes harsh to me. But this cake tastes like it's made with almond paste -- rich and subtle -- and I'm surprised every time that it's not.

Swedish Almond Cake adapted from Cooks.com

1 1/4 c. sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp. almond extract
2/3 c. milk
1 1/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 stick (8 tbsp.) butter, melted
Beat sugar, egg, almond extract and milk together. Add flour and baking powder. Then add butter. Spray baking dish with Pam or any non-stick coating. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or until cake tests done with toothpick. Cool for 20 minutes, then remove from pan.
When ready to serve sprinkle confectioners' sugar (through strainer) onto cake. Cut cake into 1/2 inch slices. Can be served warm or cold. Recipe can be doubled and bake in a Bundt pan.

I am going to add my recipe for berry compote below, but feel free to skip that step, heat up some raspberry jam, and drizzle over the top. Just as good and so easy!

Berry Compote

This is not so much a recipe as a technique. I find that following recipes for something as variable as seasonal fruits can be discouraging and misleading. Experimentation is key! Don't be afraid to make mistakes!

2C fresh or frozen berries.*

Sugar to taste, about 1/4C

3 Tbs cornstarch

1C + 4 Tbs water

Squeeze of lemon juice

All measurements are approximate, because the amounts are really going to depend on if you use fresh berries or frozen, and how sweet those berries are. Here is the technique: heat fresh or thawed berries in a small pan on low with enough liquid to cover them halfway. Smash the berries with a spoon. Taste that and add sugar to your taste. You will have berries and grainy sugar floating in a thin liquid -- that's ok! Turn up the heat to med-high. Dissolve cornstarch in 4 Tbs water, add to the pot, and bring to a boil. Bring to a boil, then simmer 1 minute, or until thick.

If the mixture is too sweet: add more berries.

If it's not sweet enough: add sugar.

If it's too thin: add cornstarch 1 tsp at a time, dissolved in water. Bring to a boil again after ach addition.

If it's too thick: add water, 1 Tbs at a time.

*In the summer, you can use fresh blueberries or raspberries or blackberries. In the winter, you could use cranberries for an impressive holiday dessert. (Or breakfast. In fact, serve this cake with yogurt and berries and...yes, now I know what I'm making for breakfast this weekend.)

Whoops, forgot to post! Raspberry Brown Sugar Gratin

I'm sorry for not posting in so long! I had gotten out of the habit, and then not posting became a thing, so then I felt like I couldn't post again without something amazing.

So I am giving myself permission to make this short and sweet, just to get in the habit of posting again.

And this recipe? Short, sweet, and amazing. I first saw this recipe for raspberry brown sugar gratin on Smitten Kitchen, and I couldn't wrap my head around it. Three ingredients and one of them is sour cream? In a dessert? And sure, she went on and on about it, but...what does it really taste like?

Here is the recipe, such as it is:

1 pint sour cream (Full-fat only! This will not work otherwise.)

1 pint raspberries

1 cup dark brown sugar

You mix the sour cream and the raspberries in a shallow dish. Cover it evenly with brown sugar. Broil until it starts to caramelize, about 1 minute.

Yes, one minute. It has three ingredients and takes one minute to cook. I know. I know.

I used a pie plate; you could use ramekins or a baking dish as well. Deb at Smitten Kitchen suggests pushing the brown sugar through a sieve or colander, but that didn't work with my colander. I just spread the sugar over the top as evenly as I could and it worked out fine.

The flavor is...indescribable. (But I will try! How sad would it be if I ended the post there?) It's not like cheesecake or ice cream or yogurt or berries and cream. The sugar turns into a caramel sauce and snakes through the firm, tart sour cream, softening it. The berries are bright and explode with flavor. It's not like anything I ever had before. To be honest, my husband and I were eating it (right out of the pie plate at 11 at night; don't judge) and saying, "I don't know how I feel about that," for the first few bites. And then we kept eating it, and eating it some more, just so we could figure out the flavor. And then we pretty much polished it off. It's crazy good, but not in the way most American desserts are. It was so striking for the fact that it was a genuinely new taste to my palate, made with ingredients I eat every day.

Well, that and the fact that it's a company-worthy dessert that takes three ingredients and less than a minute to prepare.

Take the last of those summer berries and make this! On a weekday, even! Just because you can.

Patatas Bravas and a meal to remember

I haven't had the time to write, as I've been so busy with actual, paid work (what's up with that?) that I've barely even had time to cook. We had fish sticks and frozen ravioli last week, people. Who wants to read about that?

But I haven't been ignoring the blogosphere, oh no, as procrastination in the form of Internet surfing is a fine art Chez Food Wrangler. And once I saw this recipe for Patatas Bravas, I knew I had to get back in the kitchen.

See, there are a few things going on here. One, my husband loves smoked paprika more than nearly anything else in the world. Loves it. I've caught him walking around with his nose in the tin, inhaling the smoky scent with a pining look in his eyes. Two, a few weeks ago, he came home with bottle of Garnacha del Fuego, knowing how much I like Spanish wines, and we both went nuts over it. It's an intense, high-alcohol wine with a deep, smoky, "hot" flavor. We both thought immediately of smoked paprika when we tasted it. It's not really a summer wine, but it stands up very nicely to strong, grilled, meaty or spicy flavors. (And I'm not joking about the alcohol levels. Sip this wine.)

So when I saw the recipe for these traditional Spanish potatoes, I immediately thought of that wine, and this meal was born.

My initial thought was to pair it with Merguez sausage. I went to the only specialty foods store in my area that sells Merguez sausage.

It was $19.95/lb. Time for Plan B.

I ended up going for kielbasa from our local butcher, figuring that it would match the smokiness, but not the heat, which might be kind of overwhelming.

The mister grilled the kielbasa while the potatoes and tomatoes roasted -- the hardest part of the whole recipe was cutting the potatoes -- and I tossed them with the dressing just as we were setting the table. So easy! We served it all with a simple romaine/carrot salad with bleu cheese, to cut some of the heat. (This was a really nice contrast.)

The Verdict: WOW. No, really, just...WOW. This is a meal that's not only delicious and simple, but definitely good enough for company. Impressive without breaking the bank or breaking a sweat, and uniquely appropriate for both summer and fall -- roasting makes the most out of off-peak tomatoes, and you could cut the sausage up, saute it, and mix it with the potatoes for a hearty cool-weather meal.

We both wished for bigger stomachs by the end of the night!

Patatas Bravas (via Bitchin' Camero)

2 lb. fingerling potatoes
4 tbsp. olive oil
1 pint grape tomatoes
1 tbsp. smoked paprika (medium) (Note: I only had hot paprika. I used that and omitted the cayenne. They were quite spicy.)
1 tsp. sherry vinegar
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper (less or none if you don’t like spicy foods)
1 – 2 tsp. salt (to taste)

Preheat the oven to 375°. Cut the potatoes into rough 1-inch pieces. Toss the potatoes with 1 tbsp. olive oil and place on a cookie sheet in one layer.

If the cookie sheet is large enough, place the tomatoes on the same sheet, otherwise, put them on their own cookie sheet or in a small oven-safe dish. Bake the tomatoes and potatoes for about 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and golden and the tomatoes are melting. Remove from oven.

Transfer the tomatoes to a bowl and add the remaining 3 tbsp. of olive oil, along with the vinegar, paprika, cayenne and salt. Mix well with a fork, breaking all of the roasted tomatoes into the sauce.

Place the potatoes in a bowl and toss with the sauce. Add more cayenne or salt to taste.