Pumpkin

I have so much pumpkin, I don't know what to do with it all. We've been getting giant pie pumpkins from the CSA every week!! I've done pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cupcakes, and pumpkin cake. I've also made pumpkin sauces for pasta. Now I still have about 4 cups of pumpkin puree in the refrigerator, and TWO more pie pumpkins sitting on the counter! Luckily winter squashes will last on the counter for awhile (because I also have butternut squash, carnival squash, and sweet dumpling squash), but at some point I'm going to have to cook those pumpkins. I'm open to any suggestions and ideas.......by the way, does pumpkin puree freeze well??

Anyway, while I like lots of savory squash dishes, I really do like pumpkin best in sweet, dessert type dishes. Following are my "veganizations" of two pumpkin recipes I love.

Pumpkin Crumb Bars

1 1/2 cup quick cooking oats

1 1/4 cups flour

3/4 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup Earth Balance, room temperature

2 cups pumpkin puree (or one 16 oz can)

2/3 cup hemp milk (or other non dairy milk of your choice)

1/3 cup light brown sugar

Ener-G egg replacer for 1 egg

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

3/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground allspice

Preheat oven to 375. Combine oats, flour, 3/4 cup brown sugar, salt, baking soda and Earth Balance in bowl of stand mixer. Mix until crumbly. Reserve 1 1/2 cups crumb mixture and press remaining mixture into a 13x9 baking dish that has been sprayed with canola oil. Bake crust for 10 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare filling. Combine pumpkin, hemp milk, brown sugar, egg replacer and spices. Beat until smooth and well blended. Spread over crust, sprinkle with remaining crumb mixture. Return to oven and bake for 25 minutes, or until filling is set and crumb topping is golden brown. Cool in pan and cut into bars. These can be served at room temperature, but I prefer them after they've been refrigerated.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup sugar

2/3 cup unbleached bread flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cloves

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 Tsp canola oil

1 6 oz container vegan yogurt (I used vanilla Coconut Milk yogurt)

1/4 cup + 2 Tbs water

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. In bowl of stand mixer combine dry ingredients. Mix to combine well. In a small bowl whisk together all wet ingredients. With stand mixer running, pour wet ingredients into dry. Combine just until moistened. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour batter into 9x5 bread pan that has been sprayed with canola oil. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then remove from pan and cool on wire rack until completely cooled.

A Lazy Sunday Morning

Sunday morning is pancake morning at our house. We have pancakes for breakfast nearly every Sunday morning. It's something Rob started doing for me when I was pregnant with Mairin. We've kind of kept at it, except that now I fix the pancakes.

Typically it's just 365 brand pancake mix from Whole Foods Market topped with maple syrup. Sometimes we mix it up a bit and use strawberry sauce to top them.

Today, we tried something totally new. We had Banana Cream Pancakes from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan (no, it's not the only cookbook I own, but it's the newest in my collection, so I'm trying as much of it as I can) topped with Warm Raspberry Sauce (you guessed it, also from ED&BV!!). The batter consists of spelt flour, bananas and coconut milk. They were delicious, and a very nice change from the norm. Mairin ate hers topped with whipped cream. Stella didn't eat hers at all. She loves pancakes, but she was less than thrilled with these. It was quite humerous to see her look at the pancakes (which look like your run of the mill pancake), pick it up to eat it, and get angry and spit it out when it didn't taste like the pancakes she knows and loves. But, don't let her reaction be your judge, get the book and try them for yourself, I think you'll like them.

After breakfast we proceeded to prep some green beans we got from the farmers market yesterday. Mairin and I snapped and washed them all. Then we blanched them, threw them in an ice bath, laid them out to dry and bagged them to be frozen.

Following green bean prep was pumpkin carving. I love pumpkin carving, there's something so nostalgic about carving pumpkins. One of my favorite parts is sticking my hand in the pumpkin and pulling out all of the goo. I love the way it feels and the way it smells....mmmm.

Apparently Mairin doesn't like it as much as I do. In her eagerness to help, she stuck her hand in the pumpkin and quickly let out a blood curdling scream, as she pulled out her hand covered in goo. We couldn't get her to the sink quick enough to satisfy her. Anyway, the carving continued, and the end results were quite nice. The princess of course belongs to Mairin, and the traditional jack-o-lantern is Stella's (it has 3 teeth, just like her!!).


While I did the carving (I know, it's typically Daddy's who do the carving.....I'm too much of a control freak to let that happen here), Rob washed the goo off of all the pumpkin seeds. We then laid them out on a baking sheet to dry for a bit. Before they were completely dry we sprinkled them with brown sugar, a touch of granulated sugar, and some cinnamon. Then we roasted them at 350 until the sugar carmalized and the seeds were crisp.


They taste like fall. And an added bonus was that our house smelled absolutely fabulous as the seeds roasted.

By then lunch time had rolled around. I know what you are thinking, and yes we did spend our entire morning in the kitchen.

We had left-over chili and hummus from last night. The girls had grilled cheese and tomato soup that was left over from Whole Foods Market yesterday. We eat lunch at WFM every Saturday and Mairin loves their Tomato Dill soup. This was Mairin's creation -----------> tortilla chips crumbled into her tomato soup. She insisted that we photograph it to post on the blog. And she's sure that you will all try this tasty concoctions yourselves.