pumpkin stuffed with everything good

I have always had a fondness for pumpkins, but this is the first year that I have actually cooked with them. So far Drew and I have made pumpkin risotto, he has made pumpkin enchiladas, and I have made pumpkin cupcakes. The sugar pumpkins are quite flavorful, but the ones that typically get carved are nice too. Last night, Drew and I made pumpkin stuffed with everything good. My former adviser and professor that I am currently TAing for, LD, passed along the recipe because he knows of my enthusiasm and fondness of all things pumpkin.

This is, well, pumpkin stuffed with everything good. It is very easy to make. You make a stuffing- this one has bread, scallions, carmelized onion, garlic, rosemary, thyme, veggie bacon, smoked gouda, salt and pepper. Then you hollow out a pumpkin, stuff it with the filling, and pour cream over the top. Here is the before shot:

Then replace the top:

And pop it in the oven for 2 hours! Here is the after shot:
Doesn't that look fabulous?
Mmmm, it was so good! I am going to make it every year now!

On a sidenote, I recently discovered a huge rosemary bush growing right outside our apartment. It is awesome. Fresh rosemary all the time! It's like having a personal herb garden. Well, with just one herb, but it still counts.

pie-atus

I've decided to take a pie-atus. It's been two weeks since I've made pie. After the pecan and the pumpkin pie, what was left? I was getting the hang of pie crust, and I needed a break to bake some cookies and such. I can't favor pie; it's not fair to the cookies, the muffins, and the cupcakes. During the pie-atus, I baked pumpkin whoopie pies, banana muffins, and ginger cranberry bars. I made cranberry applesauce. I even gave Drew a baking tutorial and so far, he's made devil dogs and snickerdoodles, treasured family recipes.

I will soon return to the pie. I plan to bake a real pumpkin pie, meaning that I'm going to get sugar pumpkins and extract the pulp. I'm also going to give pecan pie another go. And, the other day, I was at the public library, and I checked out two pie cookbooks. I'm a little weary of both of them; one is called Perfect Apple Pie: 100 Delicious and Decidedly Different Recipes for America's Favorite Pie and the other is Pie: 300 Tried and True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie. I don't trust either cookbook, and I've barely cracked them open. Seriously, how many variations of apple pie do we really need? Both cookbooks violate my personal cookbook rule: I don't believe in purchasing cookbooks that boast 100, 200, or even 500 recipes.

It is my belief that when a cookbook claims to have like 300 pie recipes, all it means is that the author failed to edit out the bad ones. Then I'm left guessing which ones are truly good and which ones are mediocre. If I wanted a subpar pie, I'd do an internet search and take my chances on the first recipe that pops up. Plus, cookbooks with way too many recipes have so many variations and weird combinations, it seems like the authors are just searching for ways to reach some magic number. Is it just me, or does Apricot-Mango Pie with Coconut Crumb Topping sound like way too many flavor combinations that it can't possibly be good? Or how about Blueberry-Peach Pie with Pecan Crumb Topping? Or Caramel-Coffee Hazelnut Pie? I think you catch my drift. You're probably wondering why I bothered to check out these cookbooks. Maybe there will be a few recipes worth trying out. I'll let you know.

On a positive note that is completely unrelated to pies but related to cookbooks, you have to try Get Saucy: Make Dinner a New Way Every Day with Simple Sauces, Marinades, Glazes, Dressings, Pestos, Pasta Sauces, Salsas, and More by Grace Parisi. You won't be sorry. Drew borrowed his mom's copy, and well, let's just say that we're going to have to purchase her a new one. So far, we've made alfredo sauce, honey mustard barbeque sauce, sesame ginger stir-fry sauce, sweet and sour sauce, ginger-orange stir-fry sauce, fried ginger stir-fry sauce. Sauces are so easy, and they really make the meal.

some updates

Over halfway through the quarter, and still surviving. I'm not burnt out and I'm taking measures so I stay relatively sane, but still, I will need to sleep for a straight week after the quarter ends. The last few posts have been about school, so here's are some unacademic updates:

Last night, I made Thai Curry Beef Skewers. Go ahead and give 'em a whirl. They were super easy to make, and they were yummy.

The other day, I made a marsala cream sauce with sauteed mushrooms, served over spaghetti. I was inspired by the mushroom marsala dish that Drew ate at Peppino's a few weeks ago. Here's the recipe I used:

1 medium chopped onion
4-5 cloves chopped garlic
3 T butter, divided
1 c marsala wine
1 c heavy cream
1/2 c grated parmesan
salt and pepper

Saute the onion in 1 T butter for about 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for about 1 more minute. Add the wine, and simmer until it's reduced to about 2 T liquid. Add the cream and simmer until it's reduced by about half. Stir in 2 T cubed butter, and keep stirring until it's melted. Stir in parmesan cheese, and season with salt and pepper. (To serve, Drew and I added in sauteed mushrooms and mixed the sauce with spaghetti. We found that this recipe makes enough sauce for about 1/3 box of spaghetti)

The key to making this sauce is patience. A lot of it. Before I tried out this recipe, I first tried to make chicken marsala. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. I was rather impatient and did not let the wine fully reduce. Then, instead of using heavy cream, I tried to substitute half and half. That was not a good idea. In a meeting with my adviser, I asked LD where I went wrong. He told me that I didn't let the wine reduce enough and that I had to use heavy cream. So, I did both, and mission accomplished!

Last night, I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Good movie.

• 1/2 c Grated parmesan

Added To Shopping List!

random updates

I promise you that I have not abandoned this blog. We are wrapping up the winter quarter, and finals week starts tomorrow. I have 3 short papers due tomorrow, and I've been busy writing a little bit each day. I was also sick last week- I came super close to evading the awful flu bug that's been going around this quarter. I guess the end of the quarter caught up to me.

Anyway, I went to the beach last weekend, took a nice long walk and had dinner with a friend. It was a bit chilly outside, but we're tough cookies. We watched the sunset, and it was really nice, calming, peaceful, and relaxing. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera. Hmmm, what else is going on? Speaking of cookies, I have been satisfying my Girl Scout Cookie fix lately- I've bought cookies along Ring Road, at the Asia Noodle Cafe, and outside Trader Joe's. And finally, my friend and I made vegetarian meatballs and homemade red sauce last night. Actually, he made everything; I made brownies and had clean up duty. Dinner was phenomenal. Homemade red sauce looked really easy to make- he sauteed mushrooms, onions, garlic, and a red pepper and added all of this to a can of chopped tomatoes, a can of tomato paste, salt, pepper, oregano, and basil. Mmmmm...

Okay, that's all for now!

things i am making

I don't have a whole lot to say right now. (I know, uncharacteristic, right?) I've been busy with grading, reading, writing, yoga, friends, you know, the usual. (Not necessarily in that order) I passed the belay test at the ARC, which means that now I can get a membership to the climbing wall and go rock climbing. I have not done this yet, but it's on the to-do list.

So, I guess this will be a visual post of stuff I've made and stuff I'm making. Last week, I made Sausage, Spinach, Ricotta Stuffed Shells for my friends. They were fantastic.

I am working on a baby blanket. Here it is in the beginning stages:

I'm also working on a sweater. I'm not very far into it yet, but here is the back panel:

Well, I'm going to go back to doing whatever it was that I was doing. You can do the same now. Have a fun rest of the day!

blue cheese mac & cheese

I have a confession to make: I like to eat macaroni and cheese from the box. Not Kraft, and not the stuff from Trader Joe's (not cheesy enough), but this organic macaroni and cheese that comes in white cheddar and cheddar. I forget the name of the brand. Anyway, I like to make mac and cheese from the box when I feel lazy and don't want to cook. I have it all down to a science now. I can't eat the whole box, and the leftovers are gross, so I toss out about 3-4 large handfuls of the noodles prior to cooking. This ensures a super cheesy cheese to noodle ratio, and its a pretty perfect serving size.

Upon hearing of my weakness for boxed mac and cheese, one of my friends was appalled and told me that I really need to quit the boxed crap and make the real thing. (I'd like to point out that this is a vegan friend) I knew it was time to kick my mac and cheese habit, especially when it's a vegan telling me to ditch the powdered "cheese" and replace it with the real thing.

Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, I got this recipe for Blue Cheese Macaroni and Cheese posted by one of my old college friends. I made this last night, with a few adjustments. I cut the recipe in half for starters. Because I wanted to cut down on calories, I used half and half instead of the whipping cream and 2% milk instead of the whole milk. I added 3 cloves of crushed garlic to the sauce. Then I added almost an entire bag of frozen broccoli. This made a lot of cheesy sauce, and I had enough to go around even with the veggie addition. The blue cheese wasn't overwhelming and it provided a nice kick. The mac and cheese was nice and creamy, and I bet it would taste really good with some crumbled bacon.

This mac and cheese recipe is pretty quick and easy, though you do have to be patient while it cooks in the oven. Even though I do find its powdered "cheese" slightly disturbing, I probably won't kick my boxed mac and cheese habit. But, it's nice to have a good recipe for the real thing when I'm feeling ambitious.

absence makes the heart grow fonder...for candy cane cookies

Before I talk about cupcakes and cookies, I would like to say a few words about purple potatoes. Purple potatoes intrigued me. They looked kind of strange, and I was a bit apprehensive about cooking with them. Well, now I'm a fan. They are fun, they taste just like all the other potatoes, and they add some neat-o color to your food. I used a combination of purple, red, and gold potatoes to make a chickpea potato curry the other day.

So, it's the holiday season. (This is what the calendar tells me; the weather tells me that it's September or October.) I really enjoy baking any time of the year, but I like it even more during the holidays. I have fond memories of baking cookies and making candy with my family. Each year, I always make sugar cookies and peanut clusters because these were holiday traditions in my home. I haven't held on to every tradition- I don't make peanut brittle or almond bark dipped pretzels. But, I have added a couple of my own. Recently, I have started to make gingerbread each year. This year, I made gingerbread cupcakes.

And, as I've mentioned earlier, I am obsessed with all things pumpkin. So, it would not be the holiday season without it. Below are vegan pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes with a cinnamon glaze.

Finally, the Oceanside crew has introduced me to these Italian Cookies. They are light, fluffy, and sort of resemble a sugar cookie.

It is embarrassing to admit that most of my baking failures occur when I am following a family recipe. My mom's fudge? While hers is this soft, gooey, fudgy perfection, I couldn't even cut through my version. My Grandma R's cinnamon rolls? My version was crunchy and barely edible. My Grandma C's candy cane cookies? Hers are these delicate, crisp, peppermint-y cookies. Mine are simply a disaster.

I never realized how much I loved my Grandma's candy cane cookies until I moved to California and didn't eat them every year. My Grandma bakes a lot, and you can always count on her for cookies. She bakes batches of cookies and bars and then she freezes them so that there is always something sweet on hand for her and my grandpa, or for unexpected guests. I guess that this habit runs in the family: I tend to do the same. After all, you never know when you're going to get hit by a cookie craving.

I'm calling my grandma this weekend to talk about candy cane cookies. I'm going to verify that I have the correct recipe, and I'm going to ask my grandma to share any helpful hints. While there are some family recipes that I could do without (anything with jello), candy cane cookies are one holiday tradition that I would like to continue.

feminist kitchen boycotts

I am headed to Oceanside tonight for Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to the break from school, the chance to spend time with the family, and some good Thanksgiving food. I have been craving stuffing and pumpkin pie for quite some time now. I know that I can make "thanksgiving food" anytime of the year, but I am convinced that I lack the ability to make good holiday food. I tried my hand at stuffing last year, and it just wasn't very good. I think it's because I was appalled by the amount of the butter that the recipe called for, and so I just omitted it. Apparently, butter is what makes the stuffing good.

This might come as a surprise to people, but I don't cook for the holidays. I made a pumpkin pie once, but I don't know how to make a turkey or stuffing. Friends have asked if I'm cooking for Thanksgiving, and they seem surprised that I'm not. The thing is, I've been boycotting the kitchen during the holidays since I've been old enough to be asked to help out. See, the feminist in me just doesn't think it's fair that the women slave over holiday meals while the men just get to carve the turkey. I don't believe in perpetuating the sexual division of labor and the gendered production of holiday meals. However, I think my attempts to make a feminist statement are futile. I'm not sure that my relatives realize that my boycott is feminist motivated and that I'm challenging gender norms; instead, they probably think that I'm just being lazy.

So how do women learn to choreograph big holiday meals? This seriously amazes me. Am I missing out on important holiday meal lessons by boycotting the kitchen? And while we're on the subject of turkeys, I don't understand this whole presidential turkey pardon. It seems strange to spare the life of one turkey while so many others suffer a different fate. What's the point?

Okay, I'm done now. Have a good Thanksgiving!

simply recipes=online recipe bible

I am obsessed with all things pumpkin right now. I've baked pumpkin cupcakes, pumpkin muffins, and now pumpkin bread. I ate some pumpkin chocolate bread at Peet's last Friday, and I knew that I could bake a better loaf. So I went home and found a recipe online. Against my normal baking practices, I tried a recipe from this unknown blog. The bread was awful and disappointing. So I modified a recipe from the Simply Recipes blog, my online recipe bible. I drizzled a layer of melted chocolate in between the batter. It was awesome. My roommate raved. I took 2 loaves (one with chocolate, one without) to my comparative legal institutions class on Monday. I don't mean to brag, but I'm going to--I got more rave reviews.

Thanks to Simply Recipes, I can now make Chinese food too. So, I used to not to make Chinese food myself because it intimidated me. Then I tried out a couple recipes posted from this guest blogger from the Steamy Kitchen: Modern Asian Cooking blog. So far I have made Sweet and Sour Chicken and Broccoli Beef. Oh and fried rice. I cannot express how happy it makes me to know that I don't need to pop open a bag of frozen veggies to make Chinese food. When I learn how to make Sesame Chicken, I think my life will be complete.