Pumpkin Pie Bars

Feeling like it's fall yet? I hope these recent pumpkin-y posts have inspired you. If you hate pumpkin, I promise I'll be done soon! These pumpkin pie bars are designed to give you the goodness of a pumpkin pie without the fuss of a pastry crust. I'm honestly not sure it makes the process any easier, but the end result is delicious. I'll leave the choice to you because I, personally, would prefer these with the pastry crust. I am one who has never really made a great pie crust until I got a food processor so now that I can do it well I don't dislike the process so much. If you do pastry well, go for it. If not, opt for one of the easier crust variations. Also, the pan sizes are relative. Just use whatever you have on hand that it will all fit into or break it into small batches.

Pumpkin Pie Bars

Crust 1: Single Pie Crust
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup cold butter
4 to 5 Tablespoons cold milk/water

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Cut in the butter until the mixture looks like a coarse cornmeal. Add the water, starting with the 4 Tablespoons and adding more until you get the right consistency. It should look like a shaggy dough and with minimal kneading turn into something relatively smooth. To make rolling easier, wrap in plastic and chill for 15 minutes. Roll the pastry dough to a 9x13 or tart pan size and press into the pan.

Crust 2: Oatmeal Shortbread
1 cup flour
1/2 cup oats/porridge, uncooked
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter

Combine the flour, oats, and brown sugar. Cut in butter until it resembles coarse bread crumbs. Press into the bottom of a 9x13 or tart pan. Use a flat-bottomed drinking glass to press.

Crust 3: Gingersnap Crust
1 1/4 cup gingersnap crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
6 Tablespoons melted butter

Mix altogether in a bowl. Press into a 9x13 or tart pan.

Preheat the oven to 170C. When preheated, place whatever crust you have chosen into the oven and bake for about 15 minutes or until just starting to turn golden.

Pie Filling:
1 3/4 cups pumpkin puree
1 can evaporated milk
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (omit if using gingersnap crust)
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine the filling ingredients and pour over the cooked crust. It will sizzle, but it still turns out fine. Bake the filling at the same temperature for 45 minutes.

Crumble:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped
1 Tablespoon melted butter

Mix ingredients for the crumble and place on top of the bars. Cook for another 15 to 20 minutes. Cool the finished bars at least 20 minutes, cut into squares, and serve.

Pumpkin Bread

I've tried many different very successful pumpkin breads, but this one I tried recently from Baked Bree is one of my favorites. She also has an amazing pumpkin butter recipe that I tried out in America, but I've not yet figured out a way to make any of those fruit butters without using up large amounts of cooking gas. There were a few adaptations to make up for a lack of ready made ingredients and high sugar content, but it's still very simple.

Pumpkin Bread
1 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground or freshly grated ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
Scant 1 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup shelled pumpkin seeds (optional)

Preheat the oven to 170 C. Combine all the dry ingredients except the sugar (considered a "wet" ingredient) and pumpkin seeds in a bowl. In a separate bowl, combine all the wet ingredients, including the sugar. Make sure the contents of each bowl is thoroughly mixed. Add the wet mixture to the dry bowl. Stir just to bring it all together. If the mixture looks a little drier than a regular quick bread, you can add a splash of yogurt or sour milk just to moisten it. Pour into a greased 11x7 baking dish, loaf pans, muffin tins, or whatever you have. If desired, sprinkle the top with pumpkin seeds. I'm too lazy to de-shell the seeds so I just leave them out. Baking times will vary according to the size of the baking dish and your oven's temp. For muffins, check after 20 minutes. For anything in larger pan sizes, 40-50 minutes should be sufficient to bake but not dry out the bread. When done, a toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean.

In my opinion, a bread like this just says "autumn" and is a perfect accompaniment to a hot cup of tea or coffee. If you're really adventurous, some kind of caramel frosting or glaze would probably also be delicious on top, but the bread is flavorful enough to stand on its own.

Pumpkin Gnocchi with Creamy Sage Sauce

A couple years ago I tried making a pumpkin cream sauce for pasta, and it turned out nearly inedible. Later I realized that you can't freeze fresh pumpkin and turn it into cooked puree later. Something about the freezing changes the flavor of the pumpkin to something not even remotely enjoyable. A friend's recommendation for a Pumpkin Pasta with Sausage recipe inspired me to give pumpkin another try in the pasta department. When my failure to plan resulted in having no sausage on hand tonight, this was what I came up with instead. And guess what? It was pretty darn tasty if I do say so myself.

For the gnocchi part, follow this Taste of Home recipe up until the point that you cook the pasta. I would, however, make an effort to time the pasta and sauce to finish around the same time. Simply substitute pumpkin puree where canned pumpkin is called for and consider using 1/2 teaspoon of salt instead of the amount called for to give the pasta more flavor. I figured out that it's incredibly difficult to roll the pasta into "snakes" if you have too much flour on the counter and that the rolling with the fork part works much better if you hold each piece in the palm of your hand. Now, for the sauce.

Creamy Sage Sauce
2 Tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons dried sage, crushed in the palm of your hand
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 Tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1/4 cup parmesan cheese (optional)

Melt the butter in a saucepan, and add the garlic and sage to the pot. Keep the heat low and stir occasionally until the garlic starts to turn golden and the sage is fragrant. Add the salt, pepper, and flour. Stir into the butter and cook on low 2-3 minutes to cook out the flour taste. Add the milk to the pot and whisk until any lumps are gone. Raise the heat to bring the sauce to a boil. Then, reduce the heat and simmer just until the sauce looks thick. If desired, sprinkle in the parmesan cheese and stir until melted. Taste to see if additional salt is needed. Toss the pasta in the sauce and serve warm.

If you need more sauce than this, up the milk content to 2 cups and increase the flour/butter by 1 Tablespoon. If you don't have sage on hand, I think rosemary or thyme would also make a great flavoring for the sauce.

Pumpkin Puree

I realized that with the pumpkin recipes on the blog, I should probably just write a quick note about making pumpkin puree. It's not rocket science, but I have learned a few things in the past couple years.

• The Asian pumpkin varieties that have a greenish, bumpy outside and look as though someone sat on them tend to have really nice rich orange flesh. Some of the "tannish" varieties we see have a much lighter color inside. I just always ask the seller what color it is on the inside as some of the green varieties can also be white inside.
• You can make puree in the pressure cooker by cutting the pumpkin into chunks and adding a little water. The skin comes off easily after cooking, but I find that this method leaves the pumpkin quite watery so you have to almost wring it out before storing.
• The easiest method I've found for making puree is to cut the pumpkin into long slices and laying them on a lightly greased baking dish. Bake at 200 C for 20-30 minutes and test for doneness by poking with a fork. The fork should very easily slide into the flesh. If it does not, continue baking. The skin will peel off readily if it's cooked well. You can mash with a potato masher, puree in the blender with a little water, or cut into small chunks. I find this roasting process yields pumpkin more close to the canned version and caramelizes the natural sugars in the pumpkin to give it more depth of flavor, too. 

A 15 oz. can of packed pumpkin in the U.S. is approximately 1 3/4 cups of puree so it might be helpful to pack it away in preportioned amounts.

Autumn Fruit Salad

For those of you who are salad traditionalists (lettuce+cucumber+tomato=salad), this recipe may seem a bit unorthodox, but it's a delicious way to combine the crispness of lettuce with crunchy cool weather fruit. It goes really nicely with Pumpkin Ginger Soup for a fall evening meal or lunch. This is another adapted recipe from the Simply in Season book using local ingredients. The actual "recipe" isn't much at all. It's all the add-ins that make the salad interesting.

Autumn Fruit Salad
3 cups lettuce greens, torn into small pieces
1 large apple or Asian pear, thinly sliced and tossed with lemon juice

Add-ins:
1 packet Honey Almonds or Honey Sunflower Seeds
Handful of soft or salty cheese (feta, goat cheese, parmesan, etc.), crumbled or grated
Dried cranberries or golden raisins
Cucumber, diced

Dressing:
1/3 cup oil
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 Tablespoon sugar or honey
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 Tablespoon lemon juice

Place all the dressing ingredients into a jar and shake to thoroughly mix. If you want a really good emulsion that stays for a while, pulse this a few times in the blender. Adjust seasonings to taste. Place the apple slices and whatever add-ins you would like on top of the lettuce. Toss the salad with about half of the dressing, reserving extra for adding directly according to taste.

On it's own, the dressing is nothing magnificent, but something about the combination of that with the sweet fruit and crunchy greens brings it to life. The original recipe has double the salt content of this adjusted recipe, but I found it a touch too salty so I cut back. You can sometimes get the Dijon mustard on B1G1 promos, and the honey-flavored nuts are generally sold with snack foods like chips. I don't often have the precious cranberry stock so I just leave those out. Locally made soft goat cheese really takes this to another level, too. It's one of the cheapest "luxury" type cheeses.

Pumpkin Ginger Soup

Yes, I've made comments about the crazy amounts of soup people tend to eat in their first years overseas, but I really don't have anything against soup, unless it's the only thing I eat all week. When I first moved to India, I went through a period where the most creative thing I could think to do with vegetables and no oven was make soup. Even though that was a rough culinary patch, we do enjoy lots of comforting soup in the winter. It's one sure way to stay warm at least a little while!

This Pumpkin Ginger Soup is an adaptation of a soup from Simply in Season, same series as the More with Less cookbook, but in my opinion, tremendously more applicable to modern life in a place with very seasonal eating patterns. I've owned the book for a couple years, and it has really taught me to think differently and more creatively about the vegetables we have in season. Totally a worthwhile purchase if you're looking for a good "from scratch" type book. Anyway, this soup combines some of my favorite flavors of the autumn season into a bowl of gorgeous orange. A disclaimer on this, though, is that over the few years I've made it my daughter has never liked it. The rest of us love it so take that for what it's worth.

Pumpkin Soup with Honey Butter on Toast

Pumpkin Ginger Soup
1 Tablespoon oil
1 large onion, diced
2 cups pumpkin chunks or puree
1 large or 2 medium apples, peeled and chopped
2 inches fresh ginger root, peeled and minced
4 cups water
2 chicken or vegetable stock cubes
Salt and pepper, to taste

Heat the oil over medium heat in a soup pot. Add the onion and ginger and saute until golden. Add in the pumpkin, apples, water, and stock cubes. Bring to a boil and then cook over med-low heat covered until the pumpkin and apples are soft and mashable. If you use pumpkin that is already cooked, this process will only take 10-15 minutes. Add seasoning to taste. If you want a smooth soup, puree in the blender.

The cookbook suggests having this soup with bread smeared with honey butter. It's a delicious combination. This soup pairs really nicely with the Autumn Fruit Salad, too.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Macaroni and cheese is such a delicious comfort food. It's one of those dishes that I like to have regularly, especially in the cooler months. In my husband's home growing up, this macaroni and cheese was a main dish, and it totally can stand its own in that role. We eat it as a main in our house and occasionally add a green vegetable side to it. This time we had it with a side of Savory Greens. I adapted this recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook from the 70s. This recipe is a baked version, but it can very easily be adapted for stove top only.

Update: I discovered that the Amul tub cheese (yellow or blue tub) makes this macaroni AMAZING! It's not healthy, but you can substitute one tub for about half of the cheese. 

Baked macaroni and cheese with crunchy topping

Baked Macaroni and Cheese
8 oz. macaroni
3 Tablespoons butter
1 onion, chopped
2 Tablespoons flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon mustard
2 cups milk
2 cups cheese, grated
1/2 roll Ritz-type crackers, crushed (optional)

Boil the macaroni in salted water. If you're going for the baked version, drain it when it's slightly undercooked since it will finish cooking during baking. Otherwise, cook it to al dente. With the pasta in a strainer, melt the butter and saute onions until golden. Add flour to the pot and stir for 2-3 minutes to cook the flour. Pour in milk, stirring to remove any lumps. Add the salt, pepper, and mustard. If you're using a salty cheese, use only 1/2 teaspoon salt. Bring the sauce up to a boil and drop the heat to a simmer. When the sauce is thick and bubbly, turn off the heat and add the cheese. Stir until melted. Add the noodles to the sauce. If you're going for the stove top version, you're done! For the baked version, pour noodles with sauce into a baking dish. Top with crushed crackers. Bake at 170C for 35 to 40 minutes until top is golden and bubbly.

Baked macaroni with a side of greens

A quick shortcut on crushing the salted biscuits is to just crunch them up in the package. Open and sprinkle over the top.