because I'm not at all late to the pumpkin bandwagon

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I feel like the second the leaves start to lose the slightest tinge of green, we are pretty much bombarded with pumpkin EVERYTHING.  A recent foray to the Trader Joe's in Rochester cemented this for me - pumpkin macarons?  pumpkin scone mix?  pumpkin cream cheese?  Pretty much pumpkin ANYTHING.  I'm not all that gung ho for the ubiquitous orange blob, and generally leave my pumpkins for carving and seed roasting.

However, Lil Z found her own little pie pumpkin in the pumpkin patch, on a flash-lit pumpkin hunt with her Sparks troop, so I really had no choice but to do something with it, lest it rot and she be devastated.

So I decided to make pumpkin muffins.  And I discovered that it's really hard to find a reasonably healthy pumpkin muffin recipe.  I find that life is already full of too much white flour, excess sugar and blood-sugar spiking treats, so when I actually get my schmidt together to make something, I'd prefer it be healthier (and less like cake in disguise).  I eventually found a recipe that fit the bill - these were really tasty - they aren't particularly sweet, and I'd be tempted to replace 1/4c. of the pumpkin puree with oil of some sort, but they are quite delicious.  This batch would make about 18 muffins, but I made 12 muffins and 30 baked mini-doughnuts (just pipe the batter into the pan and bake for about 10 minutes.  I immediately dipped the mini doughnuts in cinnamon sugar, and next time, I'd do the same to the muffins - the recipe could possibly use a bit more sweetness (but not too much; remember, we're not making cake!).  You have to love the fun papers too, eh?  I picked those up from Dollarama - 60 for $1.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins 
recipe lightly modified from Badger Girl Learns to Cook

3/4 cup honey
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree (canned or homemade --> I would be tempted to replace 1/4 c of this with oil)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup water
1 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup oatmeal (I used oat bran)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp powdered ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin tin or line with paper liners (pro tip: you can spray the liners and they won't stick to your muffins).

2. In a large mixing bowl, mix together honey, eggs, pumpkin, vanilla and water (since I didn't puree my pumpkin, I just put these in a mixing bowl and whizzed it with my immersion blender).

3. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together flour, oatmeal, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, powdered ginger and ground cloves. Combine dry ingredients with the wet. Stir until just blended.

4. Fill each muffin tin 3/4 full. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Makes 18 muffins (or 12 muffins plus 30 mini-doughnut).  If you want to make cinnamon sugar, just combine 2 T of sugar with about 1/2 t of cinnamon.  Dip the muffin tops/doughnuts while still hot and steamy.

Lil Z thought the donuts were pretty much the best thing ever. And I agree. :)

mushroom pizza bianca (for the late-night munchies)

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I was hungry last night.  Usually when this happens, hubs will jet out and grab a snack (usually terrible for us) or we'll even cave and order in.  But something stopped me from doing that last night, and I'm super stoked about it.

One of my favourite shows on the Food Network is Chopped - I love the creativity the chefs have when they are confronted with an odd conglomeration of ingredients that don't really go together.  Now, I'm not going to say that this snack was Chopped-worthy, because there's nothing really odd in it, but I'm happy with what I came up with and it's DELICIOUS.  It's pretty quick to whip together as a late night snack (like 25 minutes start to finish; definitely faster than delivery!), but it would also be great sliced small as an appetizer, or alongside a green salad and/or soup as a light meal.

Essentially, all you need is some sort of flatbread (I had crappy white tortillas), some vegetables that you like (I had mushrooms and vidalia onion, along with garlic), something to make a sauce (sour cream and dijon), some cheese (cheddar and parmigiano) and then something green to cut through the richness (I had minced parsley, but arugula or any other leafy dark green would be great).

Sorry for the shite pictures - in a perfect world, the cheese would also be more brown, but the edges were starting to smoke, so I had to get it out of the oven before it set off the fire alarm and woke up the kids!

late-night mushroom pizza bianca


2-3 flatbreads (tortillas or pitas)
3-4 cups chopped mushrooms (could also use zucchini, eggplant, roasted peppers, artichokes, etc.)
1/2 small onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 T butter
salt, pepper
1/3 c red wine (or other booze - white wine, sherry, marsala, or half this amount of brandy or cognac)
1/2 c good sour cream (look at the ingredient list - it should just be cream and bacterial culture.  If there's other stabilizers, it's bleh.  I like Western Dairy brand and I use light)
1/4 c dijon mustard
2 cups grated cheese (aged cheddar, gruyere, emmenthal are all great choices)
parmigiano-reggiano cheese
1/4 c minced flat-leaf parsley

1. Put flatbreads in oven.  Turn it to 400F.  Let cook for approximately 6-10 minutes, until they are crispy, slightly toasted and not burnt (just check on it every couple of minutes).

2. Meanwhile, melt butter in a large skillet.  Add onions, garlic and mushrooms, cook over medium-high heat until mushrooms have released most of their liquid and have browned a bit.  Deglaze the pan with red wine, and let wine evaporate pretty much completely.  Season with salt and pepper.

3. Take your toasted flatbreads and put them on a foil-lined baking sheet (seriously, who wants to scrub burnt-on cheese???  not me!).  In the centre of each, add a large dollop of sour cream and a medium-dollop of dijon (I like mine with almost as much dijon as sour cream, for a bit of bite).  Use a silicone brush or a spoon to spread it all around.

4. Turn on the broiler.  Add mushrooms over flatbread (just divide the mushrooms according to how many flatbreads you have).  Sprinkle with cheese, then grate some parmigiano overtop.  Broil for just under 2 minutes (mine started to burn at the edges after about 1min45s.  As always with broiling any sort of bread, keep a very close eye on it because it will burn quickly.

5.  Once cooked, sprinkle with minced parsley, cut into wedges and enjoy.

I had no intentions of blogging this, but it was seriously just SO yummy that I had to snap a crappy picture and share it anyway.  Totally making this again.

In other news, I've had a recent spate of success with some delicious pumpkin recipes.  I can HIGHLY recommend this pumpkin-gingerbread loaf with spiced buttercream, as well as this pumpkin mac&cheese (weird but good, I swear), and concluding the trifecta of pumpkin with pumpkin pie french toast (like this recipe, except using more milk, and only 5 pieces of bread).  Bonus: you can make all of the recipes with just one big-ass can of pumpkin.  Thanks for reading!

pumpkin and coconut got together and it was very very good

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We had a frost warning a couple of days ago, and it's currently pouring rain.  

So I guess that means it’s time to break out those rich, delicious and comforting fall flavours – spice, pumpkin, rich stews and braises.  YUM.  I’ve got a few things in the freezer that are begging to be braised.  Can’t wait.

One of the fall flavours I like most is pumpkin.  I freaking looooooooove pumpkin pie (it’s a borderline obsessive relationship, much to the dismay of hubs, who thinks it’s gross).  Clearly he is wrong.

Anyway…I was browsing through the latest issue of Food&Drink (free magazine put out by Ontario’s LCBO).  Eventually, the recipes do appear online in the rather cryptic F&Ddatabase, but not usually for a couple of months.  So I just have to share this recipe with you, because if you don’t have this magazine, you just shouldn’t have to wait that long to make this.  ;)

Imagine a torrid culinary affair between pumpkin pie and coconut cream pie.  This is their love child.  Delicious and delicate pumpkin-coconut cream phyllo tartlets.  It’s so light and so amazing….the buttery browned phyllo just crackles apart with every bite, and the creamy pumpkin-coconut filling spills out, topped with lightly-sweetened whipped cream and the slightest touch of toasted coconut.

Be still my heart.

I had never made tarts with phyllo before, but I’ll absolutely be doing it again.  I’ve written COUNTLESS times just how much I hate working with pastry dough, and while you can buy tart shells, these cute little phyllo guys are super easy, impossible to screw up, and they look and taste phenomenal.  Even better, hubs had made tourtiere phyllo triangles over the weekend and I had precisely 5 sheets of phyllo left. 

I found the pumpkin filling to be a bit runnier than I would have liked.  I might increase the cornstarch a touch (maybe a ½ T) and cook just a bit longer.  I was expecting more of a pudding consistency, rather than a sauce.  This dessert can easily be made in advance (case in point: I made these yesterday and took pics today; the crust was just as explosively flakey, and the only casualty was that my whipped cream wasn’t holding its shape as well today).  The only caveat is that they must be assembled at the last minute.  But if you have the tart shells ready to go, it just takes a few minutes to spoon in the filling, pipe/spoon the cream and sprinkle the coconut.  

This recipe makes 12, but if you’re serving it as your only dessert, I expect most people would eat two, so I would consider that it serves 6.  The only change I made to the recipe was to add about ¾ t of pumpkin pie spice.  I really wanted the pumpkin pie idea to come through more strongly; I think the spice made the dessert, so I would suggest you do that same.  ;)

pumpkin-coconut cream tartlets

stolen from the Autumn 2012 issue of Food&Drink

FILLING

2 eggs

6 T granulated sugar

2 T cornstarch (consider adding an extra 1/2T)

1 can (400 mL) coconut milk

1 T unsalted butter

½ t vanilla

Pinch of salt

½ c pumpkin puree

¾ t pumpkin pie spice (or combination of ½ t cinnamon, and 1/8 t each cloves and nutmeg)

PASTRY

5 sheets of phyllo pastry, thawed

¼ c unsalted butter, melted (and slightly cooled)

2 T granulated sugar

TOPPINGS

2 T unsweetened coconut

1 c whipping cream

1 t granulated sugar

¼ t coconut extract (not necessary, but adds to the coconut flavour)

1. To prepare filling, whisk eggs with 3 T sugar and pumpkin pie spice in a medium bowl.

2. In a small saucepan, whisk remaining 3 T sugar with cornstarch.  Slowly whisk in coconut milk until evenly mixed.  Set over medium heat.  Bring to a simmer, whisking occasionally (I would bring it to a gentle boil).

3. Very, very slowly, pour some of the hot coconut mixture into the eggs, while furiously whisking (this tempers the eggs so you don’t end up with scrambled eggs).  Once you’ve poured about half the coconut stuff in, take the egg/coconut mixture, and whisk it BACK into your coconut pot.  Set back over medium heat.  Whisk until it comes to a simmer and thickens a bit.

4. Remove from heat.  Whisk in butter, vanilla and salt, then pumpkin puree, until evenly mixed.  Pour into a bowl and press plastic wrap onto surface.  Refrigerate until chilled.

5. To prepare pastry, preheat oven to 325F.  Grease a 12-cup muffin pan.  Unroll phyllo onto counter.  

6. Cover with damp kitchen towel.  Carefully remove one sheet to counter and recover stack of pastry with towel.  Lightly brush single sheet of pastry with butter.  Sprinkle with about 1 t of sugar.  Top with another sheet of phyllo (try to line up edges).  Repeat until you’ve used all sheets of phyllo.  Cut into 12 even squares (I used a fancy pastry cutter, but a pizza cutter works great, as will a sharp knife).

7. Press squares into muffin tin.  Bake in centre of oven for 10-12 minutes, or until golden (after 10 minutes, I turned the temp up to 400F and cooked another 2, because I wanted mine nice and toasted; watch closely though because burnt phyllo is bad news!).  Remove to  a rack and cool completely.

8. Toast your coconut (I toasted mine in a dry frying pan; you could use the oven as well).  Again, watch closely because it will go from toasted to burnt very quickly.  Let cool. 

9. Beat whipping cream until soft peaks form.  Add sugar and coconut extract, then continue to whip for stiff peaks.

10. To assemble, spoon filling into each cup.  Top with cream.  Sprinkle with coconut.  Serve immediately.

Because I had so much pumpkin left after this was done, I also made some pumpkin muffins.  

Check out this tasty pumpking-gingerbread muffin recipe from the Paleo Mom.  They aren’t overly sweet and fit the bill perfectly for Lil Z’s school snack – nut-free, healthy and yummy.