Pumpkin-bourbon bread pudding with maple cream

Cobbled pumpkin goodness

Pumpkin Challenge No. 6!!! Are you guys getting tired of this yet? We only have a couple more to go, and my waistline would like to thank me for that fact. Why does pumpkin always have to be in the most rich, fattening recipes?

Alas, fattening = delicious. This is a recipe that I got from Smitten Kitchen. Although this time I made it, I used fresh brioche from Ollie’s Bakery. It was a hugely awesome change. That dense, eggy bread all baked in a custard … heaven. I also left the crusts on for added color, and because I’m too old to be cutting off my crusts (remember that, mom?).

Ollie's brioche

I also put way too much bourbon in. Probably 1/4 c. instead of the 2 T that they recommend. But I thought, we bought all this Maker’s Mark…why waste it? I would recommend holding off, because it can be really strong. Not the worst thing to happen, but still.

SK originally got this recipe from Gourmet (RIP).

Ingredients:

1 c. heavy cream plus 1/2 c. whole milk

3/4 c. canned pumpkin

1/2 c. sugar

2 eggs plus 1 yolk

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1/8 tsp. ground allspice

Pinch ground cloves

2 T bourbon

5 cups cubed day-old bread (3/4 loaf for me)

3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted.

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 with rack in the middle.

In a large bowl, whisk pumpkin, cream, milk, sugar, eggs, yolk, salt, spices and bourbon.

In another bowl, toss the bread with butter. Add the pumpkin mixture and toss gently to coat. Transfer to an ungreased 8-inch square baking dish. Bake until the custard is set, 25-30 min.

Dark parts are the brioche crusts

This can be served warm or cool. I whipped up a cup of heavy cream with a splash of maple syrup to put on top and I thought the maple was a nice addition. Reminded me of another recipe from the pumpkin challenge.

Brioche layers

Enjoy, friends! xoxo

French lentil soup with sausage

So far, it seems The South goes kicking and screaming into fall. A cool week, then an 80-degree weekend. We’ll have rain, then we’ll have sun to make everything muggy. The honeysuckles are still blooming, but the maple leaves are turning into their own kind of brilliant flower.

All of this brings me to soup. Thick, spicy, hearty, fill-that-tummy-up soup. We really don’t eat enough of this economical food in my home, so we recently decided to change that. What immediately came to mind is a soup that I love but never have made: lentil soup.

I browsed a few recipes on FoodNetwork.com, and decided on Ina Garten’s recipe, after reading glowing review after glowing review (tip: always read reviews of Food Network recipes – it is a rare luxury to hear others’ experiences of online recipes). She combines dark green French lentils with a ton of onions, leeks, carrots, celery, garlic, thyme, cumin, tomato paste and red wine. Oh, and kielbasa sausage (for the Polish in me).

It was a great combination of flavors, although I must say that  my Dutch oven was too small to fit all the chicken stock she asks for. No worry, just fill the pot as much as you can.

Ingredients:

1 pound French lentils

1/4 c. EVOO

3 large yellow onions, diced

2 leeks, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 T kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp. black pepper

1 T minced thyme

1 tsp. cumin

5 stalks celery, diced (I used hearts)

5 carrots, diced

3 quarts (boxes) chicken stock

1/4 c. tomato paste

1 pound kielbasa sausage, sliced into half-moons

1/4 c. dry red wine (I used a cheap Malbec)

Parmesan cheese

Method:

Cover the lentils with boiling water and let sit for 15 minutes. Drain and set aside.

In large Dutch oven over medium heat, add olive oil and saute onions, leeks, garlic, salt, pepper, thyme and cumin for 20 minutes. Add celery and carrots and saute 10 min. Add stock, tomato paste and lentils and cover. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and cook uncovered for 1 hour. Pour yourself a glass of wine and relax.

Once the lentils are tender, check for seasonings and add the sausage and wine. Simmer until the kielbasa is heated through.

To serve, drizzle olive oil over the portioned soup and sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Add a great loaf of bread and simple salad and you have a complete and healthy meal.

This will definitely make enough to freeze the leftovers, so I wouldn’t recommend doubling the recipe. It was a truly satisfying combination of flavors – exactly what we were looking for on a drizzling, gray autumn day.

Enjoy, friends! xoxo

Sausage and Gruyere egg bake

One of the virtues of being home more often is the ability to watch a Food Network show, become inspired and make whatever you witnessed. Yesterday was such a day. I watched Giada on “Everyday Italian” make what she called an omelet but what I would call an egg bake. If it were cooked on the stove first, I would call it a frittata. If it had bread in it, it would be a strata. So I guess it is an oven-omelet? Whatever.

Oh my GOODNESS I love Gruyere. It has to be my favorite cheese to cook with. Melts perfectly, has a nice nutty flavor, mmmmm. The Gruyere makes this dish, although Jesse says that each ingredient was a star, like you can really taste each in every bite. Instead of following Giada’s recipe exactly (I don’t like bell peppers), I made it my own.

I used spicy Italian chicken sausage instead of turkey sausage and I used tomatoes instead of bell pepper. I also used more cheese (oops!) because the Gruyere only comes in 8 0z. packages and she called for 6 oz. Oh wells!

Ingredients:

Italian sausage

parsley

2 tomatoes

1 small onion

Gruyere cheese

eggs

milk

S&P

butter

olive oil

Here’s what I did:

Preheat the oven to 425 and butter a glass baking dish (mine is 8-inches square).

Heat 2 T EVOO in a large skillet and sautee one chopped yellow onion until translucent. Add in 1/2 lb. sausage, casings removed, and brown. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat seven eggs (she called for eight, I had seven) with 1/3 c. milk (I used 1 percent). Add a large pinch of salt and some cracked pepper to taste. Stir in two tomatoes, seeded and chopped, 1 c. shredded Gruyere and 1/4 c. parsley. Stir in the onion mixture.

Pour that into the buttered pan and cover with more cheese. Bake until the center is set, about 25-30 min. and the cheese is amber and bubbling. Just make sure the center is set – these things can take forever to bake! If your cheese is getting too brown and the middle still isn’t set, put the whole thing in the microwave for a couple minutes, or put foil over the top and keep baking until done.

While that bakes, make some toast and spiced apples. I peeled and sliced two gala apples and added them to a pan with 2 T. melted butter, over medium heat. Then I added a few shakes of cinnamon and some freshly grated nutmeg. Then the juice from one lemon and two tablespoons of brown sugar. Stir and cook until thick and bubbly.

A sweet side dish

For the toaste, I just sliced the rest of our ciabatta bread and toasted it with garlic-olive oil.

When the bake is done, let it rest a few minutes and then cut into wedges, sprinkling with more parsley. In my opinion, the corners are the best because they have all that crusty cheese…

Baked cheesy goodness

Turns out, this meal was wonderful for dinner, but of course works for breakfast and brunch. You could even make it ahead and bake it off in the morning, although it really doesn’t take that long to prepare. I thought I didn’t like strata-type baked egg dishes, but this one proved me wrong. And it was dirt cheap – eggs go a lot farther if you mix them with vegetables, meat and cheese, then bake them. Nummy.

Enjoy, friends! xoxo

Marbled pumpkin cheesecake

Taking a bite into this silken wonder, I am transported to a cozy kitchen with a turkey roasting in the oven, cranberry sauce bubbling on the stove and fresh rolls steaming on the counter.

The roasted nuttiness of the pecan-gingersnap crust, the bite of cream cheese and the wonderful smell of spiced pumpkin – These are the things that make this recipe my favorite in the Pumpkin Challenge. Here we are at #5 – a recipe I’ve had for years and that people seem to LOVE.

And I must say, the swirled top does give it a rather professional look…

Here’s the recipe:

1.5 c. crushed gingersnap cookies

1/2 c. chopped pecans

1/3 c. butter, melted

16 oz. cream cheese, room temp.

3/4 c. sugar, divided

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 eggs

1 c. canned pumpkin (I used the whole can)

3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

Method:

Preheat oven to 350. In a bowl, mix cookies, pecans and butter. Press into a 9-inch springform pan and bake for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a medium bowl, use and electric mixer to combine cream cheese, 1/2 c. sugar and vanilla. Add eggs in one at a time, beating well after each. Set aside 1 c. of mixture. Blend in 1/4 c. sugar, pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg. Spread pumpkin batter into the crust. Drop plain batter in spoonfuls. With a knife, swirl the two around to create a marbled effect.

Bake the cheesecake for 55 minutes, or until the custard is set (just barely wiggles in the center). Run a knife around the edge of the pan and let it cool before removing rim. Chill at least 4 hours before serving.

Yum Yum Yum. I used 1/3 less fat cream cheese on this, but whatever floats your boat. Enjoy, friends! xoxo

Caprese panino

Attack of the giant panini!

Question: is there any discernable taste difference between sweet and Thai basil? In my opinion, not when you cook with it.

I found all this Thai basil stuffed in our crisper drawer from last week’s farmers market (oops) and hurried to turn it into a pesto, hoping to salvage whatever I could. Tasting the basil raw, it definitely had a more lemony, almost peppery flavor, compared to the sweet licorice of the “other” basil. Moreover, the physical differences are greater: Thai basil has more pointy leaves that are roughly textured, and are almost purple.

Still, basil is basil, in my opinion, and it all tastes good in pesto.

I made the quick pesto with roughly two handfuls of basil leaves, one palmful of pine nuts, four chopped garlic cloves, 1/4 c. Parmesan cheese and 1/4 c. EVOO. Blend with salt and pepper to taste.

I shmeared the pesto on the beautifully bubbly ciabatta bread we picked up today from Ollie’s bakery downtown. Then, I layered sliced fresh mozarella and heirloom tomatoes (don’t even bother with the non-heirloom variety here).

I pressed the sandwich in a hot skillet with a little butter, my substitution for a real panini press. It was delicious. I really think that ciabatta bread is the best bread for panini.

Just look at that bread!

Enjoy, friends! xoxo

Brownies with a pumpkin swirl

When chocolate attacks

Sometimes, you have one of those days when you accidentally put twice as much butter in a recipe as it calls for. Oh, and then you put in too much chocolate. Yeah, Pumpkin Challenge #4 is the result of these amateur’s errors.

You can find the recipe here. I’m not going to post it because…you probably don’t want to make what I made. Not that it tasted bad – quite good, actually – it’s just bad for you.

I was surprised that the brownies actually came out brownie-like. Same texture, very chocolatey, nice and moist. The pumpkin was easily overwhelmed by the chocolate, though, but that was my bad.

Still, they are pretty and a nice rich treat that will inspire you to run a mile.

Enjoy, chocoholics! xoxo

Falling into autumn

I’ve been really missing the Fruit Loop in Hood River, Ore. That winding road that takes you to alpaca farms, vineyards, pumpkin patches, breweries and all the apple, peach and pear stands you could want. So, to fill my appetite for fallish things, we headed to the Triad farmers’ market. We were delighted to see all the beautiful pumpkins, gourds and other fall bounty.

The fig trees were still there, tempting me. Although, at $15 per tree, it doesn’t take much to tempt me.

Figs!

One farm had these pumpkins that were obviously treated to make them shiny. $10 for a pumpkin? Really? In Oregon, we bought ours for 10 cents per pound at the Fruit Loop. I think this is a good indicator of what we’ll also fork over for a Christmas tree this year.

In the spirit of bounty (and fall eating), here’s my favorite fall lunch or mid-afternoon snack (Heidi, this is for you!): brie cheese lightly melted with fig jam, crisp apple (these were gala) and sea-salt crackers (or any other salty crisp cracker – salty goes well with the cheese and sweet fruit).

Miss Heidi's Special

Happy fall, friends! I can’t wait to explore more of the South this fall – through food. xoxo

Word associations

I had a dream last night where everyone I knew turned into a food product. It got me thinking about how we associate food with people.

Here is a list of some significant people in my life (in no particular order) and the food items that remind me of them:

1. Cari – pumpkin-spice latte. It’s all she drinks from September to January.

2. Marielle – champagne. Let’s just say they belong together.

3. Kitty – Goldfish crackers. She hates all human food except this.

4. Heidi – White wine. Remember that old bottle of chardonnay that was in your fridge for like two years, halfway empty? I’ll never forget that.

5. Jesse – (this one was hard to narrow down) Sweet Scrumptious Yummies. These were gummy treats from Newport Market in Bend that he always ate while playing video games.

6. Val – Fried chicken. She knows why.

7. Merissa and Luke – prunes. They left some in my cupboard. It was so them!

8. Chuck Smith – babaganooey (baba ghannouj). “The j is silent.”

9. Mom – hoppin’ john!

10. Dad – pierogies.

11. Lillian – pizza. From that time you somehow broke mom’s favorite lamp with a pizza box.

12. Chuck Chiang – processed cheese products.

13. Uncle Ples – Bud Lite. From that time I tattled to mom that you were drinking and driving, but really you were spitting tobacco into an empty Bud Lite can.

14. Kelly G. – spaghetti. We always had spaghetti at your parents’ house. I always hated spaghetti sauce.

15. Tris – Easy Mac. You would always walk into our dorm room and say, “It smells like Easy Mac in here!”

16. Darcy – chocolate, from that time when we worked at The Gap together and you got chocolate muffin all over your face. “It will only get worse.”

17. The Asian Cafe, circa 1995. Short-term Laotian restaurant near my parent’s house that made the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life. Chef’s Special #5 with chicken. I need to travel to Laos to find it again.

Pumpkin-ginger waffles

Pumpkin challenge No. 3!

A sweet brunch

I found this recipe in Country Living. It takes less than 30  minutes to make and is surprisingly healthy, according to the nutritional info in the magazine. I also like this recipe because it only uses 1/2 c. canned pumpkin puree, which is all I had left. The original recipe includes chopped up crystallized ginger, but I decided that I didn’t need it. It is still QUITE gingery without those chewy pieces.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c. flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

2 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

2 large eggs

1/4 c. buttermilk

1/2 c. canned pumpkin puree (about half a can)

1/2 c. sugar

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

3 T unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Get out your waffle iron and heat it.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon in a large bowl.

In another bowl, whisk eggs, buttermilk, pumpkin, sugar, vanilla. Whisk in flour mixture until combined. Stir in butter.

Scoop about 1/2 c. of the batter into the waffle iron and cook to your desired doneness. Keep the finished waffles in the oven at 200 degrees to stay warm.

With these, I browned up patties of chicken Italian sausage that was 50% off at Harris Teeter’s a while back. Horray for the discount meat bin! The sausage was a nice addition to the waffles, which totally smelled like pumpkin pie. They weren’t too pumpkiny, but were more spiced tasting.

Both Jesse and I  really, really liked the waffles. They were very sweet, especially with all the maple syrup we poured over them. You’ll definitely need a glass of cold milk to wash it down, and this recipe made enough for two mornings’ worth of breakfast (stretching those $$$).

Enjoy, friends! xoxo

Sage-pancetta wrapped shrimp

North Carolina's finest

I’m finally starting to really love North Carolina. I think it’s because we’ve found all the cute local hangouts that remind us of the boutiques in Bend or Portland’s NW 23rd.

On Saturday, we went to a little Bohemian coffee shop called Kranky’s, then bought a loaf of bread at the rustic French bakery in a brick building covered with flowers. Then we went to the market for dinner…

When I lived in the High Desert, I never felt like I had the luxury of going to the grocery store and shopping for “whatever’s fresh.” I suppose I never felt that anything in the desert was THAT fresh.

Travel where the vegetation gets green and you have that luxury. This weekend, we saw some of the most beautiful prawns at Fresh Market, never frozen. “North Carolina 18-20 count shrimp, $8.99/pound” the sign said. We bought almost two pounds and they took a surprisingly little amount of time to peel and de-vein, simply because they were so big and meaty.

I wrapped each shrimp with one sage leaf, then sprinkled them with grill seasoning (optional) and then a thin slice of pancetta. Jesse helped by securing the shrimp with toothpicks. Then, I seared them in a little olive oil on a nonstick skillet.

The pancetta will crisp up and add a smokiness to the shrimp. The sage will perfume each bite. They were really amazing. But be careful with the salt – you don’t need much. These would be an amazing appetizer, and of course you could use bacon instead of pancetta.

On the side, we had my favorite couscous (toasted pine nuts, golden raisins, scallions, parsley) and that artisan bread made with cheese and green onions (hello? amazing.).

The two of us couldn’t even eat a dozen of the shrimp, so there will be plenty more for tonight’s dinner. We may serve them over a salad or a simple bed of greens.

Next time you see really beautiful, big fresh (not frozen) shrimp, I encourage you to try this amazing and chic dish. Enjoy, friends! xoxo