Roasted Pumpkin with Herbs and Garlic

This recipe came from an interesting article in the November 2012 issue of Food and Wine. The article is about Thanksgiving dinner at a fabulous sounding farm in Northern California. I want to live there! The only changes I made to the recipe was to cut it down to serve 3 or 4 from the original 10 to 12.

 

Here's what they had to say about it: "With patches of man-size pumpkins and green gourds hanging from trellises at Hudson Ranch and Vineyards, some kind of squash dish is a requirement at Thanksgiving dinner. This simple gratin features cubes of melt-in-your-mouth winter squash flavored with thyme and sage."

 

They are absolutely right about the melt-in-your-mouth part. I've eaten a lot of roasted pumpkin, but this simple recipe is really good.

 

 

Pumpkin Pecan Polvorones

These delicious little takes on Mexican wedding cookies from the website Cookie and Kate didn't last long when I took them to work one morning. And for good reason, they're really good. They are messy though, the powdered sugar leaving trails on the carpet all around the office. I used regular butter and replaced one cup of the whole wheat pastry flour with one cup of regular all-purpose flour. The Hub is a big fan of regular wedding cookies so he was all over these too.

Pumpkin Pie Pecans

This recipe is from the website thekitchn.com. It uses agave for the sweetner and a heavy dose of spices. I took these nuts to Philadelphia to put on Andrew's birthday cake, which called for a sprinkling of toasted pecans. They complemented the pumpkin poke cake perfectly. We munched on the rest as a snack.

Pineapple-Pumpkin Muffins

This recipe was featured in the magazine Eating Well in an ad for Pompeian olive oil. We enjoyed the combination of pineapple and pumpkin in the muffins. They use whole wheat pastry flour, low-fat buttermilk and egg substitute to lower the calories and fat content. It would be easy to undercook them, and I would make sure the pineapple was diced small.

Pumpkin Latkes

This recipe came from the vast collection at the blog Everything Pumpkin. There are plenty of pumpkin latkes recipes out there, some use pumpkin and potatoes and some use canned pumpkin. I liked this one because of its simplicity and use of fresh pumpkin as the main ingredient. As you can see from the fryer, we used way more oil than necessary, but we were using it for another recipe and decided to just go with it rather than pour the extra hot oil out. These turned out really good with the outsides crispy and the insides tender. I use a food processor to grate, which makes short order of grating just about anything, including pumpkin. The seasonings were perfect and all they needed was a little sour cream and a sprinkling of chives.

Seared Scallops with Pumpkin Soup

This recipe for a quick and easy dinner is from the website womenshealthmag.com. Here's a picture of my friend Kasia cooking as we went through pumpkin recipes one right after the other. This was her favorite of the five we made so I'm including her picture with it. While the scallops are searing, you make a soup of pumpkin puree, chicken broth, honey and butter. Then combine the two and top with toasted hazelnuts and chives. So easy and so good.    

High Protein Pumpkin Pancakes

As pretty much vegetarians, the Hub and I are always looking for easy ways to get protein into our diets. I thought this recipe might be a way to do that. The author admits the batter is thick and you have to thin it down with a "touch" of milk or water. Mine needed way more than that. And even then some of these were gooey in the middle. The recipe is easy and they tasted good, but the confusion over the really thick batter could cause some anxiety for beginning cooks. Mine needed at least 1/4 cup more liquid to pour, spread and cook easily. They tasted good though.

Pretty Pumpkin Wontons

This recipe from Taste of Home was the first we made in our pumpkin tasting dinner the other night with friends. Everyone like it. The filling is pumpkin, ricotta cheese and salt. I substituted cottage cheese for the ricotta to lower the fat. The sauce, which was too sweet for me but the others liked, is sour cream, powered sugar and apricot preserves. The wontons were easy to make, look impressive and taste good. I don't like to make and rarely eat fried foods so it was a real treat and worth the calories. I ate the leftover filling, which I liked by itself, with a pita.

Pumpkin Pie Play Dough

A guest blog from my daughter:

I am throwing a Halloween party for my 4-year old and was on the Pinterest search for an inexpensive yet cute party favor. Guess what I found? Pumpkin Pie Play Dough! I used the recipe and decorative packaging found here.

The recipe worked just as it was supposed to and we are both thrilled with the results! It smells like heaven!

Pumpkin Saute with Sage and Tart Cider Sauce

This recipe from the Seattle Times surprised all four us us who were tasting it. It was remarkably good; we all like it. We were sampling it a night when we were making five recipes and tasting them as we went along. I had all the ingredients lined up and someone (it was me) grabbed a cup of premeasured chicken broth instead of the cider vinegar/apple cider for this recipe. Hmmm what to do? We ended up adding the cider vinegar/apple cider too and cooking without the lid to get rid of as much liquid as possible. The end result was probably a little wetter than it should have been, but the flavors weren't diminished at all.