By Request….
Margaret
Since my massage therapist has strictly forbidden me to go out and undo all that she has done this day by raking up the hundred zillion leaves, I figured I could do something a little more lightweight.
I can’t remember who, but someone asked me for my cornbread recipe at the recent Pumpkin Pogrom. And Shawn just asked the other day if I could give him a copy of my recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.
So here goes.
Even though my mother denied it at the time, this is, in fact, my mother’s cornbread recipe:
Preheat oven to 400F
1 1/2 cups yogurt
2 eggs
1/3 cup butter (melted)
Mix all the moist ingredients together and add
2 cups cornmeal (I prefer polenta because I like the texture better)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
Put it in a big bowl because when you add the baking powder and the soda to the moist ingredients it will bubble a bit.
Mix it all up and bake in a greased 9 X 9″ pan.
Now I added some roasted sweet corn *YUM* to mine before I baked it which was the source of the sweetness, but you don’t have to add that.
Hm…
Bean soup……
I’ll have to think about that.
Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies
Preheat oven to 350F
5 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1-2 tsp (to taste) powdered ginger
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup butter (melted)
1-2 tsp (to taste) vanilla
3 1/2 cups (one 29 ounce can) pureed pumpkin
12 (or more to taste) ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
Sift together all the dry ingredients.
Mix all the moist ingredients well.
Add the dry ingredients gradually to the moist ingredients. When the batter is well mixed fold in the chocolate chips.
Drop on a greased baking sheet and bake 10 minutes or so until the edges are set.
Makes about 6 dozen depending on how big your drops are.
A few notes about this one.
First, be sure that your mixer is good and sturdy. The pumpkin mixture is heavy and I actually managed to catch my hand mixer on fire last year when I was baking these. Now granted, the hand mixer was a little on the geriatric side, but it does kind of put a crimp in your baking to have to bolt out of the kitchen and fling your mixer into the back yard to keep it from bursting into flames.
Second, be aware that these are extremely moist cookies. Eat them quickly (oh the pain, the pain!) and share generously because they mold easily.
I have nearly seven quarts of baked pumpkin to put in the freezer and several more pumpkins to bake. I’d be thrilled if someone had a pumpkin soup recipe to share. Or if someone wanted to just come by and confiscate some of the baked pumpkin that I’ve already got.
One Response to “By Request….”
Leave a Reply
All comments containing hyperlinks are held for approval, so don't worry if your comment doesn't show up immediately. (I'm not editing for content, just weeding out the more obvious comment spam.)
All portions of this site are © Andrew Lenzer, all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted.
November 30th, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Since you asked:
Roasted Pumpkin Soup with BACON*
1 3-lb pumpkin, scrubbed clean
1 medium-sized white-fleshed sweet potato, scrubbed clean
1 head of garlic
2 large shallots
high-heat oil, for roasting the above
6 slices thick-cut cured bacon (or more, if you are in to BACON)
1 large stalk celery, diced finely
1 teaspoon cumin seed, toasted, cooled, and then ground
1 1/2 – 2 teaspoons dried Caribe Chile, powdered, or equivalent hot dried chile to taste (ground pequins would work; as would cayenne powder)
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup (more or less) heavy cream
1 quart (more or less) chicken or vegetable stock
3 tablespoons (more or less) lemon or lime juice, to taste
salt and pepper to taste
1) Roast your pumpkin, sweet potato, garlic, and shallots, the latter two with bacon. If you’re not sure how to do this (or haven’t done it already), Preheat oven to 350. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Chop your clean pumpkin in half, scoop out the guts, and place cut-side down on parchment paper. Spray with oil and shove it in the oven for an hour, or until the skin starts to bubble and the flesh falls away from it easily. For the garlic and shallots, cut stem ends off, place in a foil pouch, drizzle over a teaspoon of oil, and then top with a 2-inch piece of bacon. Toss in the cleaned sweet potato right alongside it. Put the pouch on the baking sheet with the pumpkin and roast away for approx 45 minutes to an hour.
2) While things are roasting in the oven, cook your bacon in a skillet. Remove cooked bacon and place it on paper towels to drain. Keep that bacon fat in the pan.
3) Sautee your celery and the chile in the bacon fat. (Yeah. BACON. It’s what’s for dinner, kids.)
4) Into a decent-sized stock pot, scooop out the cooked pumpkin, the sweet potato flesh, and squish out the garlic and shallots like they were toothpaste coming out of a tube. Use some stock to deglaze the celery mix and pour it all into the stock pot, too. Add cumin, bay leaf, and some more stock. Bring everything up to a simmer and let simmer for five minutes or so.
5) Carefully puree pumpkin soup in a blender, or use an immersion blender in the pot. Your choice.
6) Return soup to pot (if you used a blender), add lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste. Mix well; add cream to taste. Taste again, adjust seasonings as necessary.
7) Ladle soup into bowls. Garnish with sliced or crumbled bacon that’s been sitting on the paper towels the whole time – unless of course Roo or the cats got to it first, in which case, cook more bacon, and don’t take your eyes off of it this time. 😉
Very, very tasty. If you have friends who won’t eat pork, you can use turkey bacon for this, or maybe go with some turkey sausage instead (it’ll taste different, but it’s a flexible recipe, you can gussie it up in all kinds of ways). If you’re making this for vegetarians, use vegetable stock, and instead of bacon, consider seasoning with some smoked paprika and/or smoked chiles. It’s all good.
*BACON will be harmed in the course of making this recipe. It will, in fact, be consumed. Such is the fate of bacon.