Pumpkin Butter Coffee Cake

This recipe from  the website seeyouinthemorning.com, is meant to be eaten on Thanksgiving for breakfast. The author admits it's decadent in the calories department, but figures since you would be pigging out later in the day anyway, why not. And since holidays can be stressful, you should treat yourself. I made some serious adjustments to justify eating it on any day.

If you use a commercial pumpkin butter you can save a lot of time in the preparation. I made the cake batter exactly as called for except for substituting egg beaters for the eggs. I used whole fat sour cream, but only because that's all I had. The streusel is where I really went to town, reducing the butter from  one stick to two tablespoons, switching out the flour with a cup of oatmeal and reducing the nuts from  a cup to 1/4 of  a cup. I skipped altogether adding another 1/3 cup brown sugar over the pumpkin butter.

I don't think my tampering hindered the taste of the coffee cake. It did reduce the calories from 336 to 221 per serving. It was good. Both the Hub and I enjoyed it. Eating cake for breakfast is a treat for us.

Pumpkin and Spinach Lasagna with Four Cheeses

I recently took a cooking class at Sur la Table with my daughter. Two of the recipes were so good, we went home and made them again for everyone that night for dinner. One was this rich and delicious lasagna. Since we were leaving the next day on a trip, we froze the leftovers for dinners for the Hub and me. About once a month I get out one of the packages of leftovers and I remember all over how good this recipe is.

Roger is a happy sous chef

 

Pumpkin and Spinach Lasagna with Four Cheeses

Courtesy of Sur la Table, adapted slightly

2 1/2 pounds diced pumpkin

Salt & pepper

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 cup flour

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1 1/2 cups half & half

1 cup grated Parmesan

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

2 10-oz packages frozen spinach

2 cups ricotta cheese

2 large eggs

Black pepper

1 10-oz package lasagna noodles, cooked, drained and blotted dry

2 cups shredded Fontina cheese

1 cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese

Dice pumpkin and toss with salt, pepper and olive oil. Cook on top of the stove 20 minutes or so until cubes are soft. Set aside.

To prepare bechamel sauce, melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add flour, stir with a flat whisk until the mixture is smooth, and then continue to cook, stirring for 5 minutes. Gradually add the milk and half & half while whisking constantly until smooth. Continue cooking over medium heat, whisking gently, for 5 minutes, or until the sauce boils and thickens. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the Parmesan cheese, salt and nutmeg. Taste and season with additional salt and pepper as needed.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the spinach and 1/2 cup of bechamel sauce. Taste and season with salt and pepper. set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, eggs, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and a few generous grindings of pepper. Stir with a sauce whisk until well blended. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and place a rack in the center. generously butter a 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Add a ladleful of the bechamel to the prepared dish, spreading it evenly over the bottom. Arrange 1/3 of the noodles side by side or slightly overlapping if they are wide, on the bottom of the dish. Spoon about half of the ricotta mixture on top and spread evenly. Top with half of the diced pumpkin, arranging them in a single layer. Sprinkle the pumpkin with salt and pepper, dust lightly with nutmeg, and scatter 1/4 cup of Fontina and Gorgonzola cheeses evenly over the top. Add the spinach mixture by well-spaced spoonfuls and then spread in an even layer. Arrange another 1/3 noodles on top.

Spoon the remaining ricotta mixture on top and spread in an even layer. Top with remaining pumpkin in a single layer. Sprinkle the pumpkin with salt and pepper and scatter 1/4 cup of Fontina and Gorgonzola cheeses over the top. Arrange the remaining noodles on top. Pour the remaining bechamel sauce evenly over the noodles. Sprinkle the top evenly with the remaining Fontina and Gorgonzola cheeses.

Bake until the top is browned and bubbly, about 45 to 50 minutes. Remove from the oven and let stand for 15 minutes before serving. Cut into squares to serve.

Pumpkin Football Cakes

 This recipe came from the October 1012 Better Homes and Gardens. Even though I have a hard copy of it, BH&G won't let you just go to their website and get it. I understand their reasoning, but it just means I have to type it in. (Luckily someone else had already done that and I could just copy and paste.) I thought these would be perfect for this weekend's big game.

It calls for an egg-shaped pan. When I went to find one, I found out there is actually a football-shaped cupcake pan, so I ordered that. But the egg appears to work better. The football pan has the laces on the bottom instead of the domed top, so you don't get to see them. The recipe calls for splitting them and adding frosting, which I thought was unnecessary. The recipe is a nice moist cupcake with plenty of sugar without the frosting. But here is a warning: If you do frost these wait right before serving. The pumpkin makes these so moist that the frosting almost immediately dissolves.

Pumpkin Football Cakes
Prep: 30 min
Bake: 20 min
Recipe from Better Homes and Gardens

Ingredients

Cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 15-ounce can pumpkin
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil

Frosting:
1/3 cup butter, softened
3 1/2 – 4 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly grease twelve 5-ounce egg-shaped muffin cups; set aside.

2. In a medium bowl stir together flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cloves. In a large bowl combine eggs, pumpkin, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vegetable oil; whisk until smooth. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture, one-third at a time, stirring just until combined after each addition. Spoon a scant 1/4 cup batter into each prepared muffin cup, filling each about half full*.

3. Bake 20 to 22 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly touched. Remove from pans. Cool completely on wire rack. Split cakes horizontally. If necessary, trim tops of cakes so they will sit flat when inverted.

4. For Buttercream Frosting, in a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Gradually add 1 1/2 cups of the powdered sugar, beating well. Beat in milk and vanilla. Gradually beat in enough of the remaining powder sugar to reach desired consistency.

5. Spread frosting over one cake half; top with remaining half. Pipe “laces” on top. Repeat with remaining cakes. Makes 12 cakes.

6. *Use any remaining batter to make cupcakes. Line 2 1/2-inch muffin cups with paper bake cups. Fill two-thirds full with batter. Bake in a 350 degrees F oven for 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

Black Bottom Pumpkin Pie

This recipe is from the November 1012 issue of Southern Living. It's a good pie for Thanksiving. It doesn't take up any oven room on the day of and has to be made 10 to 24 hours in advance. The crust is crushed cinnamon graham crackers, pecans, crushed gingersnaps and butter, then coated with melted milk chocolate, then sprinkled with crushed Heath bars. Really good and a dessert in itself. The filling is pumpkin pudding, which is kind of bland and I think I'd add some pumpkin spices to it next time.

Orange-Dijon Roasted Pumpkin

This recipe is from the November 1012 Good Housekeeping. It calls for acorn squash, which I switched out with pumpkin. I haven't seen a Good Housekeeping for a while and was impressed with the recipes in the November issue. Not only do they give you the nutritional info, but they list the time and give instructions to increase the recipe from six servings to 12 and to 20. Both the Hub and I enjoyed this side dish. I diced the leftovers and added it to salads. My only complaint is that now I have a jar of orange marmalade that I know no one is going to eat any time soon.

Pumpkin Moussakas

I loved this recipe from the blog Amatour Cook Professional Eater. It was slightly adapted from a recipe of Nikos Boukis, from the Greek cooking magazine " Umami." And I adapted it some more. I switched out the turkey and ground beef for crumbles and deleted the chestnuts. It calls for two tomatoes, grated. This must be a European thing because I've never heard of grating a tomato. I used canned, diced tomatoes, which I cut up even smaller and it worked fine.

The recipe layers slightly roasted sliced pumpkin, which I sliced with a mandoline, with the meat/vegetable mixture and then bechamel on top. YUM! I halved the recipe, which made one dinner for two and two lunches for one.

Peanut Butter Pumpkin Donuts

This recipe came from the website nutritionfor.us. Although it is a gluten-free recipe, I used regular flour. I had a lot of trouble getting the cinnamon sugar to stick to the baked donuts and ended up just drizzling a little glaze over the top. The donuts have a nice blend of ingredients that allow them to be sweet, yet contain almost 10 grams of protein. I thought they were a little dry for a pumpkin baked good, but I may have overcooked them.