Pumpkin time certainly eases the fact that summer is over, school is in full session, and the work has begun. Just as a side note, I am not completely side-stepping the fact that I have taken a bit of a hiatus from this blog. Soon enough I'll write about my tiny apartment, the city, and school
but right now I want to talk about pumpkins. I've been in a pumpkin/fall mood ever since
I saw my first pumpkin in the market three weeks ago. For my first pumpkin dish I started out simple. Just steamed and mashed with a bit of salt and pepper. Simple but delicious.
As the weeks went on, the pumpkins have gotten bigger and over the last few days my love for pumpkins has reached a whole new high! On the menu: pumpkin pie pudding, pumpkin chocolate chip bread (kudos to Amanda for inspiration), and sage and olive oil pumpkin seeds.
The pumpkin pie pudding stemmed from a craving for pumpkin pie and a general laziness as I had no motivation for making a pie crust at 11pm on a weeknight. While I do miss the buttery pie crust (I am a firm believer that pumpkin pie should have a pie, not a graham cracker crust) and the pudding somehow turned out a bit more like a delicious pumpkin mash, I would classify this as a relative success!
A gchat and in which Amanda and I talked about our mutual obsession for pumpkin and traded favorite fall
recipes inspired my pumpkin bread. What started out in my mind as steamed pumpkin buns with sticky caramel sauce morphed into pumpkin chocolate chip bread upon the realization that my baby toaster oven (think the size of a baby's shoe box) could actually fit a regular size tarte pan thus giving me the ability to bake bread! The pumpkin bread turned out very, very well but now as I talk about my original idea I kind of want to make that... No fear, the market is tomorrow so maybe I'll just pick up another pumpkin :) ---I realize that the picture of this look like a giant cookie but I promise, it's bread.
Where there is a pumpkin there will be pumpkin
seeds. To me, this is arguably the best part of the pumpkin and when they are sauteed at a low temperature with olive oil, sage, salt, and pepper until they turn golden brown, puff, and pop they are perfect.
I hope you have enjoyed my ode to the pumpkin! I know I certainly have!
