Pumpkin Pasta

So I had this pumpkin around since last September. It came in our CSA box, and we had so many pumpkins around that I never used this one. A few weeks ago, I suddenly got tired of looking at it, and took a knife to it. I made pumpkin and chickpea chili. I made a pumpkin curry. And I made this pasta sauce.

The sauce involved sauteeing onions and garlic in some oil, adding the pumpkin, and then cooking it down until it was mash-able. I added a can of apricots and some sausage too! Spices included: cumin, cayenne pepper, and fresh sage and green onions. I think I finished it with a little milk to make it creamy. It was pretty good--savory and a little sweet with a cayenne zing!

And now I'm ready for fresh spring produce!

Birthday Baklava

A few months before I turned 30, I made a list of "30 Things I Want to Do Before I Turn 30". I numbered to 30 down the page, carefully circling each number. I wrote a first entry: "Make Baklava".

I never wrote anything else on the list.

Dawn my 30th birthday. I haven't made baklava yet. I do have a recipe. And phyllo dough. What I don't have is pistachios and enough butter. I make a run to the store. I know I'm not going to get the baklava in the oven before 11:27 am (the time I was born). When I get home my husband is fiddling with the microwave--he's turned the clock back a few hours to give me more time to meet my goal. Sweet.

Another delay. I could only get pistachios in the shell. We spend about 10 minutes shelling 1 pound of nuts.

Yet another delay. No food processor to crush them in. I painstakingly clean out our coffee grinder and process the pistachios in miniscule batches until they're all chopped nicely. I add 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tsp. cinnamon, and set them aside.

I melt a stick of butter with 1/4 cup canola oil.

Assembly time! The first five layers of phyllo dough get just butter brushed in between them. Then I start layering them with butter and nuts until I've used all but the last five layers. I don't trim the sheets, just alternate which side of the pan I fold the excess over on. The top five layers get just butter again.

Next I score the baklava into diamonds (and triangles at the edges), and sprinkle a little nut dust in the middle of each piece. As I'm doing this, I realize that the nuts will probably burn while baking and I should wait until after the syrup is poured on, but it's too late now.

The pan goes into the oven at 325F for one hour. While it bakes I prepare the syrup: 1/2 cup water with one cup sugar. Bring this mixture to a boil and boil, stirring, for 5 minutes. Let cool.

When the baklava finally comes out, the cooled syrup gets poured over it. I dust with some fresh pistachios. Viola! Birthday Baklava! Too bad I have to let it cool before tasting.

Cook's Word: This was actually fairly simple and fun to make. I might skip the pistachio shelling next time and just use walnuts, but for such a special occasion, I'm glad I chose the better nut. =) If you like a more syrup-y baklava, just increase the amount of syrup. The friend I got my recipe from prefers to use the proportions I've used here, and I think that's a good idea.

Pi Day Remembered

I was at work on March 14 (3.14) when my co-worker comes in with a, "Happy Pi Day!" Mild panic. I'd forgotten all about Pi Day! I had no plans for a pi day dinner! Luckily my husband and I, along with Mom and sister had just canned cherry pie filling about a week prior. So. Cherry pie was definitely on the menu. I saw a friend and invited him to come share it with us later that evening. "Give me a call to confirm".

When I got home, I decided to do it up well, and have a main-course pie too. I scoured recipes and decided on a fish pie with mashed potato topping. Our friend called to confirm that he would come for pie, and I said he might as well join us for dinner too. As I closed the phone, I suddenly had a sneaking suspicion that I might already have other plans for the evening. I checked my calendar. Yikes! In less than an hour I was supposed to meet my sister-in-law for an outing. I reconciled myself to missing the dinner I was creating and went into high-gear production mode.

I called my husband to make sure he would be home in time to meet our friend and get the pies out of the oven. And I made him promise to leave me some leftovers.

I threw together the pies, got them in the oven, heated up some leftover chili for myself, and just had time to clean the table, brush my teeth, and say "hi" and "bye" to David before I had to go. Some Pi Day celebration! I guess the guys enjoyed dinner (David invited a third friend) because a lot of the food was gone when I got home (including 1/2 a carton of vanilla ice cream!).

Before turning in for the night, I had a bedtime snack of cherry pie.

Lavender Vanilla Soda

I was craving some soda a few weeks ago while doing some regular grocery shopping. Having agreed not to purchase items with high-fructose corn syrup in them, I was at a bit of a loss as to how to satisfy this craving. Then it came to me. Dry soda. We sell it at the restaurant I work at--a product developed by a pregnant lady to be able to enjoy a good tasting dinner beverage without feeding baby lots of sugar. I bought a bottle of club soda and determined to make my own.

I started with lavender, steeping 2 tsp. of the flowers in a cup of hot water.

When it had steeped for 10 minutes, I added 2 tsp. sugar, a pinch of salt, and a 1/4 tsp. of vanilla flavoring. Into the freezer for about 15 minutes to cool.

After chilling, I mixed the syrup with an equal amount of club soda, and that was it!

It could have been sweeter, less lavender-y and more vanilla-y. But overall I found it refreshing and simple to make. I tried adding whipped cream to make it like a cream soda, but found I didn't care for the effect.

Other flavor ideas: plain vanilla, orange, ginger, cherry . . . Got any to share?

St. Pat

A nod to our St. Patrick's Day feast this year. I did make a lovely Irish venison stew (with carrots, turnips, and potatoes) which stewed all day, cooled, and stewed again the next day. Loved the fresh rosemary! Served it up with some hot Irish soda bread and shamrock butter cookies (many of which I burnt--*sad face*).

Angel Food

This is a story about faith. About waiting and trusting that an un-seen, hoped-for result (as in the picture above) will take place. Like waiting for crocus to bloom in my yard after it seems everyone else's are up. And my all-too-often lack of such faith.

Armed with some brief instruction and a hand-written recipe on a slip of pink paper, I set out to make--for my younger brother and sister's joint birthday party--my first-ever Angel Food Cake. From scratch. I had deliberated about this, as it seemed like a complicated, unpredictable thing to make an angel food cake from scratch and the box mix costs just a few dollars. However, the list of un-pronouncable ingredients on the back of said box (along with some I can pronounce but prefer not to ingest), a little love of adventure, and not a little bit of pride helped to convince me to bake the scenic route (like that line?).

So to make angel food cake the "scenic route", you take a ton of egg whites, beat them into a heavenly frenzy with some sugar, vanilla (and almond, if you like) flavoring, and then--so as not to distress the airy batter--fold in some softly sifted flour/salt mixture, and bake it! Simple.

Let me tell you. If any part of this is going to cause you to have a nervous breakdown, sigh and moan frequently, and give in to a few curses, it will be the egg whites. Not that I know this from experience.

I whipped. And beat. And beat. And beat. Sugar. Beat. Beat. Beat. For about 30 minutes. This is not an exaggeration. I may be a wimp, but my arms hurt. And I was using an electric hand mixer! Whoever invented this recipe (if it was before the age of electric kitchen appliances) got a devilish delight out of calling it anything that refers to the heavenly realm!

Finally! It seemed I had achieved "medium peaks". And if they weren't medium, I didn't care!

Next, gently stir in the flour . . . a little . . . bit . . . at a time . . .

I had to test the consistency a lot.

Then--also gently--spoon the batter into the pan. No grease or that cake won't cling to the pan and rise properly!

You can see the lack of faith on my face, mingled with anxious hope.

I put it in the oven, turned on the timer, and left the kitchen. I'm not sure how I passed the time, but I did get up once to check on the cake. I made an audible exclamation which caused my husband to wonder if in distress or relief. It was a miracle! The cake was rising! Hooray!

Once it was done baking, the cake came out of the oven and was turned upside-down on the counter to cool. If cooled with the pan upright the cake can fall back down and ruin the effect.

To dress it up for the party, I bought a tub of whipped cream and some frozen blueberries to make blueberry sauce. Isn't it pretty?!?

And it tasted good too. Relief! Since I used raw sugar (whizzed to a fine powder in my food processor) it looked a little darker than a normal angel food cake.

Would I do this again? Maybe. But probably only for a special occasion!

Currently

Just because I didn't post at all in February doesn't mean I haven't been cooking. I did have a little dip in my interest-level in food, but now that the feel-good trimester has hit, I'm back to normal--ooohing and aaahing over this or that food . . . getting super-excited about the next meal I'm going to make . . . exclaiming, "this is going to be SOOOOO good!" as I stir a pot of Irish Stew . . .

Which brings us to the present moment. I'm sitting here in my living room enveloped in the warm, tantalizing smell of a slow-simmering Irish Stew. Venison chunks, onion, garlic, carrots, potatoes, turnip, red wine, broth . . . wow. I can't wait for tomorrow!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!