Rescued foodage.
I've been having a lot of fun with dumpstered food this week. Very frequently, bruised apples appear on our kitchen table; usually more than we know what to do with. My new favourite thing to do with them is to make applesauce and use that as an egg replacer in baked goods, because it also allows me to reduce the amount of oil and sugar I use, and it doesn't have a particularly overpowering flavour like banana does. I also used some of the apples to make that American favourite, apple pie. The recipe for the crust came from Tomorrow Friendly Food, but with added cinnamon and ginger and less salt, and the apple filling was a mixture of chopped up apples, apple purée, a tiny bit of flour to thicken, some cinnamon and ginger, and the tiniest amount of brown sugar. The sweetness from the apples means that very little extra sugar is needed.
But back to pumpkin. I bought yet another can, and made a pumpkin milkshake. I don't have the exact recipe, but I think it was along the lines of 1 part pumpkin to 3 parts milk, with cinnamon and agave/sweetener to taste. Delicious. It also works well to use up overripe bananas, just adjust the amount of liquid accordingly or it'll be too thick. Pumpkin is wonderful. Also, being bright orange, it contains lots of beta carotene, which is good for boosting immunity, and apparently is also particularly good for depression.
One night, Garrett came home carrying a "present" for me. A GIANT PUMPKIN! He rules. I've read that the big field pumpkins aren't the ones that are usually chosen to be made into pies and purées because they tend to be more watery and stringy, but I figured I'd give it a go. I hacked off about a quarter of the beast, roasted it, and then puréed it with a hand blender, and it made about 4 cup's worth. The flavour is less intense than the canned version, but it still serves the same purpose, and plus, I think I just enjoy knowing that I'm using something I made from scratch.
So, I've had a lot of pumpkin to play around with recently. I've been doing a lot of baking, more than I have managed to take photos of. Sometimes, this is because by the time I have gotten round to taking pictures, most of them have disappeared. Take, for example, my version of Cake Maker to the Stars' pumpkin pretzels I baked. The recipe yielded two whole trays, but when I got to the kitchen...
Ah. I guess that means they went down pretty well!
Boiling pretzels before baking them made me think of bagels, and how awesome it'd be if I could replicate proper NYC bagels one day. Pumpkin, cinnamon and raisin bagels would be incredible. I'll have to work on that.
I also made a crapton of PB and grape jelly thumbprint cookies, from my own recipe, but again, they disappeared before I remembered to take photos. Last night I made pumpkin whoopie pies, again from my own recipe. I'm keeping these recipes secret as I may have something pretty exciting lined up, but I should really get around to posting photos to show them off a bit. I'm quite proud of the progress I'm making!
