I am sure that by now,
you all have realized how much
I love cooking and baking!
This fall provided me with so many opportunities
to utilize my kitchen creativity!
Last year's CSA harvested so many
pumpkins that I ended up with
a patch of my own lining the counters
and kitchen floor!
I decided to be brave and try out a few recipes, namely:
*Pumpkin Butter
*Baked Pumpkin Seeds
and
*Pumpkin Bread
They all turned out great!
My only regret is that my blender broke
before I could make a second batch
of Pumpkin Butter and two whole
batches of preserved pumpkin were
spoiled due to Mommy Brain.
Let me share with you the recipe for
from Allrecipes.com.
 |
| Delicious! |
The only difference in my version is that I swapped
white grape juice for the apple juice
and totally omitted cloves (yuk).
My husband loves to put the butter on the
baked pumpkin seeds for a snack,
and I love to spread it on my
pumpkin bread!
For the
Baked Pumpkin Seeds:
Rinse the seeds from the guts and allow
them to air dry on a towel.
Make an even layer of them on
a baking sheet and coat them in olive oil
or vegetable oil and then sprinkle with salt
bake at 425*
and flip them over every 10 minutes
until they are golden and crunchy.
 |
| Toasted goodness! |
I love these because they taste like popcorn and french fries!
My favorite of all is my mom's recipe for
PUMPKIN BREAD!
2 cups of pumpkin
3 cups of white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
4 eggs
Mix together for 1 minute
and then add to mixture:
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
only until blended!
Grease 2 loaf pans (or 5 mini loaf pans)
and pour in batter.
bake at 350*
for 60-70 minutes for 2 loafs pans
or
45 minutes for small loaf pans.
Cool on wire rack .
I find that once the loaf pans are cool enough
to touch I can just shake and wriggle the
loaves neatly out of their pans without much mess
and then cool them on the wire rack.
 |
| Disposable loaf pans are perfect for gift giving! |
 |
| So golden and perfect! |
 | |||||||
| Cute little gift bags for a final touch! |
I seriously must have made 3 batches of pumpkin seeds
and 10 batches of pumpkin bread!
But it was all worth it!
I love telling the lucky recipients
that they will be eating not only home-made,
but organic and fresh pumpkin!
***
To preserve the pumpkins;
I first washed them off with cool water,
then sliced, gutted (separating seeds for toasting),
and baked at 425*
until I could run a knife smoothly through
the meat of it.
Once the pumpkin was cool,
I scraped the meat from the skin
and mashed it in a bowl
before blending it smooth.
I then used a measuring cup to
fill freezer bags and
labeled them with the amount
of pumpkin
so that when I wanted to
bake I could grab a bag
with the amount I needed.
I placed the bags flat in the freezer,
that way, when they were
frozen, I could easily stack them
or line them up without
taking up too much space.
 |
| Bake them skin up. |
~Michelle
Comments