Pumpkinpalooza

What to do with all that leftover canned pumpkin from Thanksgiving!!? Somehow the day before Thanksgiving we are all running to get the last minute ingredients we forgot or decided to add to the menu. It always happens but some how we're all still surprised to see empty shelves where canned pumpkin or yams are supposed be. This year we ventured to four stores in Toronto before finding pumpkin, and when we did, boy, did we stock up! As you can imagine after making our Thanksgiving dinner pumpkin souffle, we had so much pumpkin left to go through.

Pecan Topped Pumpkin Pie in a Puff Pastry Crust

We had leftover puff pastry from making tarts earlier and decided to nix the traditional pie crust used for pumpkin pie. You can never go wrong with the recipe on the back of the can - I feel a little better about using organic canned pumpkin when I put the spices and vanilla in myself - as opposed to buying "Pumpkin Pie in a Can," when I don't have time to cook and scoop out a whole pumpkin. Just roll out the puff pastry a bit larger than your dish to leave enough room for the crust. Pour in your filling, brush the edges with an egg wash, and bake at 375F until set. I decorated the pie with chopped pecans immediately upon removing it from the oven. I think I throw nuts in everything - vegetarians can never get too much protein.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Mini-Loaf

And still there was more pumpkin! My sister's kitchen has all sorts of lovely tools and pans she's inherited from our mom, her mother-in-law, and my college apartment, ha! I love this baking pan that's just perfect for the holidays when you want to make a bunch of mini-loaves of pound cake or pumpkin bread to give to the mail persons (?), your children's teachers, coworkers, etc.

The pumpkin makes these little loaves so moist and the chocolate adds such a pleasantly, sweet touch, especially when fresh from the oven!

[be back with the recipe, soon]

A Canadian Thanksgiving

Greetings from Canada!!

My sister Pooja, my brother-in-law Anish and I had the most delicious Thanksgiving last night! Against all odds, we didn't plan it out - we just went to the farmer's market literally after it closed, snuck in when some people were walking out, and grabbed as much fresh produce as we could.

Everyone complains about spending so much on Thanksgiving dinner ingredients (cough, cough, you know who you are) but everything was inexpensive because it was the end of the market! The vendors knew what they didn't sell now wouldn't last the holidays to be sold after. One of the ladies working the market gave us a box of free peeled garlic, too!

We cooked everything in about four hours. We got home after six and ate just after ten! Would have gone even faster if that PGA tournament wasn't on.... We made some seriously yummy dishes, and the most satisfying part of this Thanksgiving was that nothing was too complicated aside from one of the desserts. I'm not sure how your holidays go but usually in our kitchen with the good food, laughter, and thanks come arguing, burns, cuts, and tears. In fact the cooking was so simple and easy to replicate that my sister is going use these recipes for an upcoming dinner party. Honestly, we made a lovely meal from just chopping vegetables and fruit and throwing it together.

To start, we made a salad with chunks of yellow peach, chopped yellow tomato, creamy buratta cheese, baby arugula, chopped pecans and shaved parmigiano.

For a colorful side, we threw beets in the oven for a little over an hour inside packets of foil filled with olive oil. After letting the beets cool down, I peeled and chopped till my hands turned a lovely purply pink. We dressed the beets with a cup of Greek yoghurt that we had mixed with honey, lemon, and cayenne. To add a little decoration, we topped the beets with pistachios coated in salt, turmeric, garam masala, red chili powder, and coriander powder.

You can't have Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes. Pooja boiled sweet potatoes till tender. She kept the peel on - which is both nutritious and minimizes work - and mixed the potatoes with milk, butter, salt, pepper, and some sage, garlic, and thyme that she browned in butter.

Aside from Anish's lamb souvlaki (which by the way he picked up at the market marinated, 4 skewers for $5) our meal was vegetarian, and so we made a savory Wild Mushroom Leek Tart for our main dish. So tasty, but so easy! Pooja rolled out some thawed frozen puff pastry (I usually make my own dough but here in Canada it's easy to find puff pastry without lard or hydrogenated oil) to fit 10x14 sheet pan. She brushed it with a beaten egg and baked it for 10 minutes. She repeated this step with a mixture of shredded Gouda and 2 beaten eggs and baked for 10 minutes. The final step is to spoon out sautéed leeks and mushrooms leaving room for crust, sprinkle with some basil and thyme, and broil for a minute!

For the first dessert (because Thanksgiving can't happen with just one) we dumped a bag of Walkers shortbread cookies that Pooja brought home from a flight on Porter Airlines and butter in the food processor. Got the cookies down to crumbles, and then pressed them into two small "tartlet" dishes. You could really do it with any size, you just have to use a bigger bag of cookies. We hardened the empty crust in the oven for about 15 minutes. I sautéed three kinds of berries (blackberry, raspberry, and local gooseberry) with sugar and a pinch of cornstarch, let it cool, and filled it in the shell, and the tart was ready to go!

The only dish truly complicated was the recipe from an old issue of Gourmet magazine (I'm still mourning for this discontinued magazine) for a spiced pumpkin souffle. The recipe can be found here. The souffle was to be served with a bourbon molasses sauce but we couldn't find a mickey of bourbon anywhere in Toronto nor the jar of Grandma's molasses in Pooja's kitchen. At this point the tension started to build in the kitchen, but no worries. Anish brought out a bottle of Pondview Gewurtztraminer Riesling to calm us down (Anish and Pooja recently visted this winery at Niagra-on-the-Lake). Instead of the molasses and bourbon, we used local maple syrup and Jack Daniel's! The souffles soak up that caramel whisky sauce, and oh, was it delectable!

We were so busy having fun this weekend, we just didn't have time to find recipes. Anish was adamant about not spending too much time in the kitchen so we just didn't have time to stop and look at recipes while cooking. The moral of the story is buy fresh ingredients in season, be flexible, have fun, and everything will work out and come out well. Thanksgiving has and always will be my favorite holiday, and this year it comes twice! Just a month now ,and we'll have round 2 in the States.

Perfect Pumpkin Chip Cookies

Sorry dears, no picture this time. I hope you will still consider this recipe. In general, I strictly avoid recipes without pictures. I am rather visual and prefer to have something to serve as a guide and means of comparison, but I assure you these cookies (should) turn out a lovely golden brown with a hint of orange in color.

These chocolate chip pumpkin cookies truly are impeccable in their simplicity and spiced goodness. I went on a hunt to find a pumpkin cookie that still tasted like a cookie. I'm quite particular about my chocolate chip cookies. I want something chewy and gooey that still maintains it's freshness the next day and doesn't dry out and get hard. But when it comes to pumpkin cookies, I often find them to be cakey and taste more towards the likes of a muffin top. Every single recipe I found - and I did in fact venture out of my realm of trusted websites and blogs - presented recipes for such cookies and so none were suitable. I realized then that I was taking the wrong approach. I closed all of those windows and went back to basics. If I want it to taste more like a chocolate chip cookie, then well, I suppose it should have been obvious that I start with one.

Essentially I took this recipe for Guittard's Original Chocolate Chip Cookie - but really just take your favorite trusted chocolate chip cookie recipe unless you're making cookies for me, of course - and add everything that you find in pumpkin pie! The cookies were softer because of the pumpkin, but really lovely and with one bite, my friends and I drifted off to pumpkin heaven.

Perfect Pumkin Chip Cookies

Ingredients

- Fresh Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (You know, the amount that always says it makes several dozen, tiny cookies, but really makes about 2-3 dozen)

- 2/3 Canned Pumpkin* (I suppose you could try this with fresh pumpkin, but I can't tell you how this will change the texture of the cookie, could in fact help make to cookie less on the soft side and more on the chewy cookie side)

- 1.5 tbs. pumpkin spice** (a combination of ground cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, allspice)

- 2 handfuls of pecan halves (make the cookie taste like Thanksgiving)

Directions

If you've got the chocolate chip cookie going in the kitchen, I say before you add the chips to make things easier for yourself, spoon in the pumpkin and the pumpkin spice, and work it in really well. If you're not frightened of raw eggs, give the dough a go and see if it's spiced and pumpkin-filled to your liking. Go easy on the pumpkin. If you add too much, you'll get a muffin and we are not baking for moose! Follow up with a bag of only the best packaged chocolate chips - Guittard semi-sweet - or venture into bulk foods or imported chocolates section and find yourself something you trust. Then nicely chop the pecans to your liking and stir the dough till everything is mixed in evenly.

Spoon out dough about two inches apart on parchment paper lined cookie sheet if you have it, otherwise leave the pan ungreased. Bake for about 10 minutes until golden turning around halfway. I find that not everyone appears to make cookies on cookie sheets. Seriously guys, it makes a difference in how the cookies turn out. I like my shiny silver cookie sheet that, no matter how bad it's been scratched, never fails to bring my cookies to that perfect consistency.

*There's now a company besides Libby's that cans pumpkin, and it's organic! Farmer's Market Organic Pumpkin. I have seen it at Whole Foods, not sure where else you can find it.

**A word of advice. Buy your spices from the bulk foods section. It's definitely cheaper in the short run and the long run since you don't have to pay for packaging! Plus, spices taste better fresh. Who wants to eat ground ginger that's been sitting in your cabinet for God knows how long?

My friends enjoyed these cookies very much, one of whom was my best friend and coincidentally my best/worst critic. I know when it comes to sweets, if I have to ask her if she likes it, then the dessert is sub-par, but if she asks for seconds and tells me she likes it on her own repeatedly that it's a hit, and thankfully that was the case this time. Unfortunately the cookies did not live to see the next day - they did, however, make it to the 10 o'clock showing of Prince Caspian at the dollar cinema 'cross town - so I cannot tell you how they taste the following day or any number of days after. But when I make these again, assuming they last more than 2 hours, I'll edit this entry and let you know.

I also plan to experiment again and see if I can come up with a Pumpkin-less Pumpkin Pie Cookie that imitates a pumpkin pie but maintains more the of the chocolate chip cookie texture that we have all come to know and love. I think I'll try making chocolate chip cookies again, but only add the pumpkin pie spice or maybe toss in some dried pumpkin shavings if those exist.

Now, if anyone has any recipes calling for cherry preserves, I'll be off to the kitchen. And as they say in Kenya, tigara buya (stay well)!