Pumpkin Sage Biscuits

Good things come to those who cook in a Tahoe cabin.

Fortunately, the edible parts can also be recreated when you come back to reality. And reality, I assure you, is better with pumpkin sage biscuits.

Ingredients
2 cups multigrain pancake mix plus extra for dusting
1 pastured egg
2 tbsp softened butter
1/3 - 1/2 can pureed pumpkin
1 tbsp chopped fresh sage
1.5 tbsp whole milk Greek yogurt

Preheat oven to 425°.

Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and mash with a fork until blended. Knead a few times with your hands, then form the dough into a ball (if it's much too dry, add a little water; if it's very sticky, dust with a little flour or pancake mix).

Place dough on a lightly floured wooden cutting board and pat or roll out evenly to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut out biscuits with a drinking glass or cookie cutter and lay on a lightly greased cookie sheet.

Bake for 8-9 minutes or until golden on the bottom.

Makes 8-10 biscuits.

Whole Grain Pumpkin Waffles

Waffle irons, I fear, get a bad rap. People see them as the sort of item one asks for in a fit of alimentary idealism, only to leave them languishing, barely used, on a high and dusty shelf.

The problem, I've come to realize, is a lack of pumpkin. If you put pumpkin in the waffles, the iron doesn't languish, on account of the fact that there was pumpkin in your waffles and you cannot stop thinking about them.

Don't believe me? Try making these. You'll see. 

Ingredients
2 eggs, divided
Scant 1/2 cup canned pumpkin purée
1 tbsp melted butter
3/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
2 pinches ground cloves
1 cup Bob's Red Mill 10 grain pancake and waffle mix
3/4 cups water
3-4 drops vanilla extract

Combine the egg yolks, pumpkin, melted butter, and spices in a large bowl. Add the waffle mix, mashing with a fork to distribute the wet ingredients equally. Slowly add 3/4 cups water, mashing as needed to get out any lumps. Stir in the vanilla.

Preheat your waffle iron to medium high (setting 4 on a Cuisinart Belgian Waffle Iron).

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites till stiff, then gently fold them into the batter.

Pour the batter according to waffle iron directions (I do just under 1 1/2 cups) and cook until golden brown and crispy on the outside.

Serve hot, with maple syrup. Marvel at the crispy outside and fluffy inside. Try to share with your table mates. Plan your next waffle adventure, keeping in mind that lunch is a perfectly reasonable time for an encore.

Serves 2-3.

Apple Pancakes with Ginger and Lemon

Sometimes, the world needs more pancakes.

Here's my go-to recipe these days...the secret to amazing fluffiness seems to be butter + pumpkin puree (rather than oil) and beating the egg whites separately. Plus you can customize them to the season. Pumpkin and chocolate-chip, anyone?

Ingredients for Apple-Ginger Pancakes
2 eggs, divided
1 tbsp melted butter
2 tbsp canned pumpkin purée
1 cup Bob's Red Mill 10 grain pancake mix
1 apple, diced
1 carrot, grated
2 pinches Meyer lemon zest
1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger

Variations:
Summer Strawberry
2 eggs, divided
1.5 tbsp melted butter
1.5 tbsp smashed strawberry
1 cup Bob's Red Mill 10 grain pancake mix
1 cup diced strawberries
2 pinches Meyer lemon zest
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip
2 eggs, divided
4 tbsp canned pumpkin purée
1 tbsp melted butter
1 cup Bob's Red Mill 10 grain pancake mix
Dash or two of cinnamon
Pinch ground cloves
2 tbsp chocolate chips
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Combine the egg yolks, pumpkin (or mashed strawberry), and melted butter in a large bowl. Add pancake mix, mashing with a fork to distribute the wet ingredients equally. Slowly add 3/4 cups water, mashing as necessary to get out the lumps. Stir in the rest of the ingredients that follow on the list.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites till stiff, then gently fold them into the pancake batter.

Heat a nonstick pan over medium heat. When hot, add a little pat of butter and move it around with a spatula to lightly coat the bottom of the pan. Add batter by the 1/4 cup. After a minute or two, the edges of the pancakes will start to look dry; that's usually a good sign that they are golden brown on the bottom and ready to flip. Cook until both sides are golden, then remove from the heat and place in a folded-over piece of aluminum foil to stay warm (you can also stick them in the oven, if you're doubling the recipe and cooking will take awhile).

Serve warm, with maple syrup for drizzling.

Serves 2-3.

Curried Pumpkin Soup with Ginger

This soup is straightforward and fairly quick as homemade soups go, and involves (are you ready?) both pumpkin and curry leaves. Needless to say, I adore it. It's good on its own, and downright heavenly if you pair it with toasted strips of whole wheat lavash bread—just take a sheet of lavash, slice it crosswise into 1-inch strips with a pizza wheel, and lay the strips on a baking pan that you've lightly coated with olive oil. Toast in a 400°F oven for 4-6 minutes or until golden brown and crispy, then use the strips to dip in the soup as a sort of edible spoon.

Which brings me to a point that's been bothering me for seven to ten seconds now: Why aren't all spoons edible?

Ingredients
Olive oil
10-12 fresh curry leaves
1 large sweet onion, chopped
Medium-hot, good-quality curry powder
Fresh ginger, sliced thinly and julienned (about 1 tsp or a bit more)
15 oz canned pumpkin (one can)
1/2 bay leaf
3 cups chicken and/or veggie broth
Ground cumin
Freshly ground white pepper
Pastured cream
Fresh cilantro for garnish

Heat a soup pot over medium heat. When hot, add a glug of olive oil. Add the curry leaves and let sizzle, stirring occasionally, for about 30 seconds, then add the onion and saute until golden around the edges, turning the heat down slightly if necessary.

Push the onion to the side of the pot, and add about a tbsp of olive oil to the empty side. Add a spoonful of curry powder and the ginger, and toast in the oil for 10-20 seconds, then stir to combine with the onion.

Stir in the pumpkin, broth, and half bay leaf (the half is so you can figure out which is the bay leaf rather than the curry leaves later on, to fish it back out). Cover, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer for about 30 minutes.

Turn off the heat, remove the half bay leaf, and blend with a hand blender until smooth or desired consistency. Add additional ginger, a dash or four of cumin, and freshly ground pepper to taste. Stir in a slosh of cream.

Garnish with the chopped cilantro, and serve warm (rather than piping hot, which actually obscures some of the flavor) with strips of toasted lavash or pita bread.

Serves 3-4.

Stuffed Baby Pumpkins

When I grow up, which could totally happen someday, I want to be a professional recipe breeder. We crossed this one with that one the other night and the product was out of this world.

Ingredients
2-3 miniature pumpkins
Olive oil
Small handful pecans
1/4 cup finely chopped leek
4-5 fresh sage leaves, chopped
Freshly ground white pepper 
1 oz. goat cheese, crumbled

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut the tops out of the baby pumpkins on a slight inward angle, and scrape out the seeds. Put the tops back on each pumpkin and bake for 30-45 minutes until soft.

Meanwhile, heat a small pan over medium-high heat. Break the pecans into pieces and toast in the pan until fragrant, then add a glug of olive oil, the leeks, and a pinch of salt and turn the heat down to medium. Saute until the leeks begin to soften, then add the sage and saute for another couple of minutes. Turn off the heat and sprinkle liberally with white pepper.

Fill each baby pumpkin with the leek mixture, top with some goat cheese, and serve hot.

Serves 2-3.

Roasted Pumpkin with Cilantro, Chickpeas, and Thyme

I should be posting something from this past week, which has been stuffed, one might say, like a turkey (or perhaps, like a homemade ravioli) with collective cooking and shared food...starting with a homemade pasta party on Sunday and continuing through yesterday with a vaguely Thanskgiving-themed gourmet feast.

But all this will have to wait, because, as everyone knows, the first question that pops into your head after you've cleared out your houseguests and leftovers and emerged from your post-Thanksgiving food coma several hours or days later is: Can I eat that? And if you're gazing at the pie pumpkin you bought up at Apple Hill several weeks ago because it looked like it would make a nice autumn-evoking centerpiece, the answer is a resounding and emphatic YES.



Ingredients
1 smallish pumpkin (ours was a pie pumpkin about 8-9 inches in diameter, or substitute an heirloom or butternut squash)
Olive oil
2 small yellow onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, pressed
1 large jalapeno, minced
1/2 tsp dried thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
A big handful of cilantro, chopped
1/4-1/2 cup veggie broth
1 tbsp brown sugar (or less if using a sweeter squash)
2 cups well-cooked chickpeas

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut pumpkin in half, scoop out seeds, and rub cut sides with a little olive oil. Roast face-down for 25-40 minutes or until just tender, turning heat down to 375 if it starts to get too brown. Let cool until it's easy to handle, then cut into 1-inch slices, peel, and cube.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large, wide pan with deep sides over medium-high heat. When hot, add the onion and saute until soft. Add the jalapeno, cook for another minute or two, then add the garlic. Saute for half a minute and then add the pumpkin, thyme, a pinch of salt, and a little more olive oil. Stir to coat.

After sauteing for another minute or two, add the cilantro and 1/4 cup of the broth, turn the heat down to medium-low, and cover the pan. Simmer for 5-10 minutes to let the flavors blend, and until the pumpkin is soft, adding more broth if it starts to dry out.

Next, add the brown sugar, another pinch of salt, and a dash of black pepper, and use a potato masher to gently mash the squash to form a coarse puree. Fold in the chickpeas and cook for another few minutes until heated through. Adjust salt and pepper to taste, and serve garnished with cilantro.

Goes well with brown basmati rice simmered with cumin and saffron.

Serves 4.

Miniature Pumpkins with Goat Cheese and Sage

Two baby pumpkins arrived in our CSA box last week (they called them miniature Chinese squash, but as far as we can tell, they're the same as the mini-pumpkins you see around Halloween time). Never knew you could eat them before. Something tells me we shouldn't try this on the two from last fall that we still have left over from Thanksgiving decorations. (Something also tells me we shouldn't still have Thanksgiving decorations out, but another, larger, lazier part points out quite reasonably that it would be wasteful to throw them out now when we're so close to an appropriate season again.) These are pretty easy to make (it took us only a few minutes to prepare them, and then they just sit in the oven for awhile), and, you know, they're cute.

Ingredients
2 miniature pumpkins
Olive oil
1/2 clove garlic, minced or pressed
2 leaves of sage, halved lengthwise and then sliced crosswise into ribbons
A few pine nuts or some crumbled pecans
2 pinches lemon zest (preferably Meyer)
Salt & pepper
Freshly grated nutmeg (or a pinch of ground nutmeg)
Grated parmesan
A little goat cheese, crumbled

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut tops off of pumpkins (save the tops) and scoop out seeds. Rub insides and the underside of the top with olive oil and garlic, then sprinkle with sage, nuts, lemon zest, salt, and pepper.

Put the tops on the pumpkins, and bake on a cookie sheet or baking pan for 40-50 minutes or until tender. Uncover, sprinkle with nutmeg and parmesan, and add goat cheese. Leave tops stem-side-down on the sides of the pumpkins, and bake for another 5 minutes or so until the cheese is hot and the pumpkin feels soft when you poke it. Let cool for a couple of minutes, and serve.