pumpkin purée & roasted seeds

While canned pumpkin may make a showing when there is nothing else, I really do like making my own pumpkin purée. The canned stuff is not usually even from pie pumpkins (but from some butternut type of squash). It is easy, although it takes planning ahead if you want to make a pie or cake or bread. This time of year I find it easiest to stick a tray of pumpkin in to roast every time I use the oven - and the freeze it for later!

So, to start. Take a pie pumpkin. Not a huge carving pumpkin (not so tasty) but the smaller ones that will be called pie pumpkins. Clean. Cut off the top. Cut in half or quarters.


Scoop out all of the pulp/seeds (save those!). Place in a baking dish in a 350ºF oven (I usually do cut side down, but you don't have to), and bake for 30-45 minutes, until the pumpkin is soft.


Let cool. Peel back the skins, use a knife if you need a little help. Some pumpkins are more liquidy than others, so I like to put the scraped pulp first into a strainer and let sit for a bit for the extra juice to drip out. From there you can smooth however you like - whiz in a blender or food processor, run through a food mill, or simply use a potato masher. Put into a container and freeze, or use immediately!


Now, what to do with all of those seeds? Take the pulpy seedy blobs and run your fingers through to extract as many seeds as you can. Don't worry if there are tiny bits of pumpkin still in there. Take your pumpkin seeds and put into a saucepan. Just cover with water, and add a nice big pinch of sea salt. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Strain. Most recipes skip this step but boiling them with a pinch of salt first really gives them better flavor, and the outer husk part is not as tough so it is crunchy but delicious.

Place a teaspoon of oil (I used sunflower oil) on a cookie sheet, and pour your pumpkin seeds over it. Use your fingers to coat all of the seeds. Now, add your seasoning. Sea salt, brown sugar, paprika, chili powder...find your favorite!

Today I used 1/2 teaspoon of yellow curry powder, 1 Tbsp of dark brown sugar, and a pinch of sea salt. SO good.

Gently stir the pumpkin seeds to coat in your seasoning mix. Spread evenly on the sheet and place in your oven while you are baking the pumpkin chunks. Stir every 15 minutes or so, and continue baking in the oven until they are golden - about 30-45 minutes, depending on how many seeds you have on the tray (all pumpkins are different, so...). Remove from oven and let cool.

SO good! I am using these pumpkin seeds (well, what I have not eaten!) in a trail mix. And tomorrow I'm making a batch of pumpkin butter with the puree.

pumpkin seeds:: "Pumpkin seeds are a very good source of the minerals phosphorus, magnesium and manganese. They are also a good source of other minerals including zinc, iron and copper. In addition, pumpkin seeds are a good source of protein and vitamin K."

lemon balm ginger honey

We grow a lot of herbs in our garden for a lot of reasons. There are so many uses - culinary, medicinal, companion planting, and just plain pretty. Using the herbs we grow is something we are always working on expanding - learning more, trying more, gaining knowledge and experience.

I love medicinal honey. I don't know about your family, but getting children to drink a bitter and/or strong tasting tincture just isn't going to happen. With honey though, so many of the benefits of the herbs are available combined with so much good from raw honey.

Now, I am not a master herbalist, but there are so many excellent books out there with recipes and information and we often make salves, balms, oils, vinegars and honey. We use the power of herbs for eczema, tummy aches, coughs, colds, allergies, fatigue, headaches, stress and more. Doesn't get better than that!

I have a son who always is very intense and affected by what is happening around him, and he gets tummy upsets often. So, this honey is ginger lemon balm. This is a great honey - and a super easy place to start. This is such a great all around honey that you could make it just for flavor and add to your tea, but it also is good for soothing stomach aches, and helps with stress.


lemon balm ginger honey

1 cup local wildflower raw honey
1 cup lemon balm leaves, fresh (pick in morning, new leaves)
2" nub of ginger, chopped


In a saucepan, gently warm your raw honey and stir. DO NOT boil or overheat the honey. We are only raising the temp just enough to activate the oils in the herbs. Add the herbs and ginger to the honey - keep on very very very low heat for 10-15 minutes. Pour into a pint jar. Stir, and be sure all lemon balm is covered and not sticking out the top (or it will turn brown).


Seal and set in a dark spot for a week or so.


After a week you can strain the herbs out of the honey and store. If your house is cool and the honey is hard, just gently heat again (low! just enough to get fluid) and strain. Or, you can leave the herbs in it, and strain what you need as you go. The smell is wonderful, and my boys love in lemonade. I love it in tea.

| About Lemon Balm | About Ginger | About Raw Honey |

Don't forget--children under one year old should not be given honey!!!

++

There are so many great herbal books out there - the one I have found myself reading and referencing this spring is Homegrown Herbs. It has nice photos, is up to date, and easy to read!





Homegrown Herbs: A Complete Guide to Growing, Using, and Enjoying More than 100 Herbs










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Cherry Season.

We have cherries! We were only able to get one 10 pound bucket for now, but that was enough to get started! They are tart cherries - nice and tangy and super juicy. I froze several bags for fall, made 4 pint jars and 4 quart jars of cherry pie filling to use for baking, and am making cherry dessert topping as well as some yummy cherry syrup for drinks (to add to fresh lemonade, plain soda, or mixed drinks). Yum.


::cherry pie filling::

ingredients:
4 cups fresh cherries with their juice - pitted
1 cup water
1 cup sugar (or sweetener such as honey or agave)
1 cinnamon stick (optional)
2 Tbsp corn starch or arrowroot powder

directions:
Put everything but the corn starch into a pot, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Extract some hot juice into a cup, add the cornstarch/arrowroot powder, and stir until smooth. Stir back into the pot. Remove from heat. Remove the cinnamon stick. Can immediately, or let cool and put into containers for the fridge or freezer.



::cherry crisp::

ingredients:
2 1/2 cups cherry pie filling
3/4 cup organic brown sugar
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup steel cut oats
1/3 cup cold butter, cut into small chunks
1/2 tsp cinnamon
freshly ground nutmeg

directions:
Using a square baking pan - spread your pie filling across the bottom of the buttered pan. In a bowl, put the dry ingredients - cut in your butter using a pastry cutter or fork until the mixture is crumbly. Spread over the top of the pie filling. Bake at 350º for about 40 minutes - should be golden and bubbly. Let cool and eat.

Super good with homemade vanilla ice cream!


ingredient tip::
If you don't like genetically modified corn in your baking ingredients, here is a 100% certified organic and completely GMO-free cornstarch. We have found it at our local coop but you can also get it online!

Why use arrowroot powder?

"This starch thickener has several advantages over cornstarch. It has a more neutral flavor, so it's a good thickener for delicately flavored sauces. It also works at a lower temperature, and tolerates acidic ingredients and prolonged cooking better. Sauces thickened with arrowroot can be frozen and thawed with impunity."

stuffed baked apples.

We picked a lot of apples this year - there are so many things apples can be used in - soup, desserts, drinks, cereals, breads - the list goes on. We have to keep reminding ourselves to USE THEM though. Seems that since they are away in a dark cool place, we tend to forget. This weekend we remembered and made a delicious baked apple dessert - super easy, but great flavor.

I have made baked apples before, but thought it would be tasty to stuff them with something. It turned out GREAT. SOOOOO...here is our stuffed baked apple recipe.

Ingredients:
6 baking apples
1/2 cup quick cooking oats
1/2 Tsp. cinnamon
dash nutmeg
dash ginger
2-3 Tbsp. butter
1/2 Tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup maple syrup (or brown sugar)
3 Tbsp. good rum (optional)

Steps:
Peel the apples about 2/3 way down. Carve out the seeds of the apples, leaving a hole for stuffing. Don't core through the bottom!!!!

In a bowl, mix together 1/2 cup oats, 2-3 Tbsp softened (not melted) butter, 1/2 Tsp vanilla extract, 1/2 Tsp cinnamon, dash of nutmeg & ginger, and 1/4 cup (or less) maple syrup. Mix until thick and lumpy. If you use brown sugar it will be thicker - if you use maple syrup it will be more runny (you can add more oats if need be to get thick). Stuff mixture the holes in the apples. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on top.

Place apples in a pan, and bake at 325º for about 1.5 hours until soft. For extra steam, I placed a pan of water on the bottom rack during baking.

As an option, drizzle 3 Tbsp good rum over the top of the apples before baking - then after about 45 minutes baking take a spoon and scoop up liquids from the bottom of the pan and drizzle over the top and into stuffing. Gives a richer flavor.

Cool and then eat as is (don't forget to drizzle!) or with ice cream.

creamy acorn squash soup

We have been making meals to use all of the varieties of squash and pumpkins we received both in our CSA box, and which we bought at the pumpkin picks. I had baked 2 squash the other day, and had a whole bag of the puree. Soup sounded like a good idea - and it turned out delicious!!!!

First, you need to bake your squash. Cut 2 acorn squash in half, scoop out seeds, and place skin down on a baking pan. Cook 30 minutes at 350, turn over, cook another 30 minutes or so. It should be soft enough to scoop out the flesh easily.

Ingredients:
Flesh of 2 acorn squash (cooked, see above)
2 onions (chopped fine)
2 carrots (sliced fine)
2 Tbsp butter
1-2 cloves garlic (chopped)
2 Tsp sea salt
Oil
1/2 Tsp fresh ground pepper
1 Tsp curry powder (I used mild yellow curry powder)
4 cups stock/broth, warm (I used veggie, but you could use beef)
1/3 cup red wine
1 1/2 cups milk

Saute the chopped onions, carrots, and garlic in a skillet with a dash of oil. Let cook until tender - turn heat down and add butter and red wine to skillet and stir.

Make sure your smushed squash is warm, and put it in a crock pot. Add the onion/carrot/garlic/wine/butter mixture. Stir in the warm broth - stir until the squash puree is incorporated. Add the salt, pepper and curry powder. Cook on high for 1-2 hours. Reduce heat to low, add the milk (do a taste test and add more salt/pepper to taste) and let it all cook together in the crock pot another hour or two on low.

I used an immersion blender to make the soup extra smooth before serving, and cranked a little fresh ground pepper on top. OH my, it was good.

And extra bonus - everything except for the oil & spices were from local sources!

purple kraut.

I have been reading the book Nourishing Traditions as well as a few branch off books over the past year or so. We keep trying different recipes for food preservation, fermentation, as well as just good things like bone broth for stock. We had a few cabbages come in with our CSA recently, so I have been trying sauerkraut - using whey. This batch I used purple cabbage. Yummy.


Basic Sauerkraut

2 pint glass canning jars with plastic lids
1 Medium Cabbage
1 Tbsp sea salt
4 Tbsp of whey (you may use already fermented sauerkraut as an inoculate or simply add another tablespoon of salt.)
Optional -- caraway seeds (1 Tbsp)

Grate cabbage with a hand grater or in a food processor. Put it into a big bowl with the salt and whey, and pound it a little bit with a potato masher or meat mallet.

Press the mixture into a clean glass jar using a wooden spoon. Press firmly until the juice rises to the top and covers the mixture, which it will do when it is pounded enough. Leave at least an inch or more of space at the top of the jar.

Cover the kraut and store the jar in a cupboard or dark place for 3-4 days before transferring to the refrigerator. The sauerkraut may be consumed after a couple of weeks, though if you allow the fermentation process to continue for a month or so in the refrigerator the flavor will be even better.

It tastes great - the purple cabbage seems to be a bit mild, and the kraut is almost sweet and tangy at the same time. YUM. And the color...crazy.

Caramelized Apple Tart...mmmmmm...

The local foods potluck picnic today was a great time - good food, great weather, fun conversation, happy kids. I posted last night with what I was making, and today, here is the first of two recipes.

Caramelized Apple Tart with Cinnamon Custard

(recipe from Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating From America's Farmers' Markets, from Deborah Madison)

Ingredients:

For the Apples:
3 apples (I wanted super apple, so I used 6)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons sugar

For the Batter:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature, plus extra
1/2 cup sugar
3 medium eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch salt
1 cup all-purpose flour

For the cream:
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 egg yolk

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter a 9-inch tart pan. Peel and core the apples, then slice them into thin wedges. Melt the butter in a wide nonstick skillet, add the apples, and sprinkle them with the sugar. Cook over high heat, occasionally flipping the apples, until they start to caramelize, then reduce the heat to medium. Keep a close eye on the apples, turning them frequently so they don't burn. This will take about 15 minutes in all. Turn off the heat.

To make the batter, cream the butter and sugar in a mixer with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until each is incorporated before adding the next. Add the vanilla and salt, then stir in the flour. Smooth the batter into the tart pan with a spatula, pushing it up the sides to make a rim. Lay the apples over the batter.

Mix the ingredients for the cream together, then pour it over the apples. Set the tart on a sheet pan and bake until the crust is golden and starting to pull away from the sides, about 35 minutes. Let cool for at least 20 minutes before serving.

I altered a few things to keep it mostly *local* for the potluck. I used fresh ground whole wheat flour for the crust - yum. I substituted maple syrup for sugar. And in WI, finding local eggs, cream, butter and apples is easy. It was spectacular. And, a drizzle of our home made boiled cider on the plate before eating - oh.my.

Strawberries #1: Mixed Berry Scones

Here is our first delicious strawberry endeavor this week.

Mixed Berry Scones with Orange Glaze
Preheat oven to 400 degrees (F)

2 cups unbleached flour (plus a little more for rolling fruit in)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/3 c sugar
1/4 c unsalted butter chilled/cold and cut into chunks
3/4 c buttermilk (or you can use cream)
1 egg

Fresh berries: I used 1 c frozen blueberries, and 1 c fresh cut up strawberries

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a big bowl. Mix. Cut in butter using 2 forks or a pastry blender. The butter bits should be coated with flour and look like crumbs.

In a second bowl mix together the buttermilk and egg, and then add the flour mixture. Mix just to incorporate - don't overmix or you will have rock scones.

Roll berries in flour to coat. Fold the berries into batter, being careful not to bruise the fruit. Drop large tablespoons of batter on an ungreased cookie sheet, or use a scone pan.

Bake for about 15 - 20 minutes until brown. Cool before putting on the glaze.

Orange Glaze:
1 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 orange, juiced and zested (no oranges, you can substitute 1/4 cup or so of fresh OJ) Using lemons instead also makes a yummy glaze.

Glaze: Stir the butter, sugar, orange zest, and juice together. Microwave in 30 second spurts (stirring in between) until butter and sugar are melted and the glaze has thickened. Remove from microwave and beat a little bit to incorporate and thicken. Drizzle or brush on top of scones and let it dry.

Just a note: If you use frozen blueberries, they will bleed some color into the dough - fresh won't.