You may be one of those folks who believes eating turkey shall be limited to a few American holiday seasons. If you are, I'm afraid we may be in some disagreement on that point.
I love turkey dinner. Turkey with fixings like cranberry sauce, pickles and dressing. Turkey with pesto and pasta. Turkey with toasted ciabatta, spinach and garlic mayo. Turkey-juice soaked risotto. Turkey tetrazzini.
If you share my enthusiasm, NOW is the time to stock up. It's at Safeway for 99 cents/lb, Superstore for 96, Walmart for 97... and those are just the prices I scoped out in the flyers this morning. Last night I cooked up an 8-kilo bird and, bless him, he provided us with 10 cups of meat (most of which will be refrozen in small 2 cup bags) and another 10 cups of broth. Total cost: $20.
I'm currently working out a value for that lovely turkey soup-smell wafting through the house...
PS: On the subject of turkeys (and turkey sex), pick up Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal Vegetable Miracle. An easy read that expounds, with hilarious detail, her attempt to raise turkeys for food (and of course her attempts to multiply the flock's numbers). Who'd have thunk you could breed maternal instinct out of an entire species?
PPS: And on the the subject of fall deals, just a reminder that now's the time to pick up pumpkin. For $4 I picked out the largest pumpkin I could carry. Thankfully, it just barely fit in my oven and is currently roasting in its own skin. Check out this post for the process I use to cook and store it.
Showing posts with label pumpkin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pumpkin. Show all posts
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Monday, September 27, 2010
More Pumpkin Recipes
I'm not a fan of the texture of pumpkin soup, but the flavour in the recipe below is fantastic... I use it more like a dip with pita chips, which bypasses the whole mental problem over texture.
Both recipes come from those crazy Canadian ladies, Janet and Great Podleski (Loonyspoon girls). If you've got extra money in your cook book budget, their recipes are fantastic- flavourful and healthy.
Pumpkin Soup with Apples and Ginger
2 tsp olive oil
1 C chopped onions
1 t minced garlic
1 T grated ginger root
1 t curry powder
1/2 t cumin
4 C chicken broth
2 C peeled and chopped apples
2 C canned (or cooked) pure pumpkin
1 C chopped carrots
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper
3/4 evaporated 2% milk, or light 5% cream
1. Heat oil in large, non stick soup pot over medium heat. Add onions and garlic. Cook and stir until onions begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Add ginger root, curry powder and ground cumin. Mix well and cook for 20 more seconds.
2. Add broth, apples, pumpkin, carrots, salt and pepper. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer. covered, for 12 to 15 minutes or until carrots are tender. Stir occasionally.
3. Use a hand blander and puree until smooth. Stir in milk or cream. Serve hot.
(From Eat, Shrink and Be Merry)
Pumpkin and Carrot Muffins
1 1/2 C flour
1/2 C wheat bran
2 t baking powder
2 t pumpkin pie spice (I mix nutmeg, all spice, ginger, cinnamon up equal parts)
1t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 C cooked/ canned pure pumpkin
1/2 C grated carrots
1/2 C buttermilk and honey
1/4 C butter or margarine, melted
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1 t grated orange zest
1/2 C chopped walnuts (optional)
1. Preheat oven to 375. Spray a 12- C muffin tin with non stick spray and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, wheat bran, baking powder, pumpkin spice, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together pumpkin, carrots, buttermilk, honey, butter, egg, vanilla and orange zest. Add wet ingredients to flour mixture and stir just until moistened. Batter will be thick. Gently fold in walnuts, if using.
4. Divide batter among 12 muffin cups. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove muffins from pan and let cool on wire rack.
(From Crazy Plates)
Both recipes come from those crazy Canadian ladies, Janet and Great Podleski (Loonyspoon girls). If you've got extra money in your cook book budget, their recipes are fantastic- flavourful and healthy.
Pumpkin Soup with Apples and Ginger
2 tsp olive oil
1 C chopped onions
1 t minced garlic
1 T grated ginger root
1 t curry powder
1/2 t cumin
4 C chicken broth
2 C peeled and chopped apples
2 C canned (or cooked) pure pumpkin
1 C chopped carrots
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper
3/4 evaporated 2% milk, or light 5% cream
1. Heat oil in large, non stick soup pot over medium heat. Add onions and garlic. Cook and stir until onions begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Add ginger root, curry powder and ground cumin. Mix well and cook for 20 more seconds.
2. Add broth, apples, pumpkin, carrots, salt and pepper. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer. covered, for 12 to 15 minutes or until carrots are tender. Stir occasionally.
3. Use a hand blander and puree until smooth. Stir in milk or cream. Serve hot.
(From Eat, Shrink and Be Merry)
Pumpkin and Carrot Muffins
1 1/2 C flour
1/2 C wheat bran
2 t baking powder
2 t pumpkin pie spice (I mix nutmeg, all spice, ginger, cinnamon up equal parts)
1t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 C cooked/ canned pure pumpkin
1/2 C grated carrots
1/2 C buttermilk and honey
1/4 C butter or margarine, melted
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1 t grated orange zest
1/2 C chopped walnuts (optional)
1. Preheat oven to 375. Spray a 12- C muffin tin with non stick spray and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, wheat bran, baking powder, pumpkin spice, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together pumpkin, carrots, buttermilk, honey, butter, egg, vanilla and orange zest. Add wet ingredients to flour mixture and stir just until moistened. Batter will be thick. Gently fold in walnuts, if using.
4. Divide batter among 12 muffin cups. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove muffins from pan and let cool on wire rack.
(From Crazy Plates)
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Cooked me a Pumpkin
'Tis the season that you can finally buy (or are harvesting) Jack O'Lantern's head.
When Madi saw one among the grocery bags, she immediately begged to make pumpkin soup. I was a little surprised because at four years old, veggies and/or soup is not her thing. Pleased that my daughter's palate was becoming open minded, immediately upon her request I tossed the 2 foot wide squash into the oven.
With the oven rack set as low as it could go, Jack the Pumpkin filled the space. He sat on a ridged cookie sheet for at least 2 hours, roasting at 300 F. He slowly sagged and sweated in the heat. Madi forked him every half an hour, "Is the soup ready yet?" she asked continually. I think she thought that we'd open the pumpkin up and soup would be inside. A nice idea- huge orange bowl of pumpkin soup... perhaps this could be done with a little clever manufacturing (suck out the seeds and insert the spice?).
Once the fork pierced the flesh easily, we pulled out the tray and let Jack cool. On numerous occasions, I have nearly cut my hand off while trying to chop up fresh squash. It was only last year that I began roasting them whole; I'll never know how many fingers this method saved me, but I guarantee a few.
Slicing Jack in half took about half a second and the inside stringy bits and seeds were easy to remove. From this large pumpkin, bought for $4 from Superstore, I gleaned 18 Cups of cooked pumpkin (about the equivalent of 8x 540 ml of canned pumpkin or about $24 worth!)
Another way to visualize our harvest is to imagine my kitchen filled with:
- 4 dozen pumpkin/carrot muffins
- 8 servings of pumpkin/apple/ginger soup
- 5 pumpkin pies
- 1 cup of roasted seeds
What a feast! Gleaning Jack's flesh required us to get our hands dirty (slimy might be a better descriptor), but it was great value for little effort. What pumpkin I didn't use, I packed in 1 Cup baggies and froze.
See below for my roasted pumpkin seed recipe (for nutritional information see here for seeds and here for pumpkin). I'll post the soup and muffin recipes tomorrow.
Roasted Pumpkin Seed Recipe
1. Wash and dry seeds. If all the strings don't come off, pick them out after roasting when they are crispy and easy to sift out.
2. Toss seeds with (olive) oil and (sea) salt. You could also use seasoning salt, cajun spice, fajita spice...
When Madi saw one among the grocery bags, she immediately begged to make pumpkin soup. I was a little surprised because at four years old, veggies and/or soup is not her thing. Pleased that my daughter's palate was becoming open minded, immediately upon her request I tossed the 2 foot wide squash into the oven.
With the oven rack set as low as it could go, Jack the Pumpkin filled the space. He sat on a ridged cookie sheet for at least 2 hours, roasting at 300 F. He slowly sagged and sweated in the heat. Madi forked him every half an hour, "Is the soup ready yet?" she asked continually. I think she thought that we'd open the pumpkin up and soup would be inside. A nice idea- huge orange bowl of pumpkin soup... perhaps this could be done with a little clever manufacturing (suck out the seeds and insert the spice?).
Once the fork pierced the flesh easily, we pulled out the tray and let Jack cool. On numerous occasions, I have nearly cut my hand off while trying to chop up fresh squash. It was only last year that I began roasting them whole; I'll never know how many fingers this method saved me, but I guarantee a few.Slicing Jack in half took about half a second and the inside stringy bits and seeds were easy to remove. From this large pumpkin, bought for $4 from Superstore, I gleaned 18 Cups of cooked pumpkin (about the equivalent of 8x 540 ml of canned pumpkin or about $24 worth!)
Another way to visualize our harvest is to imagine my kitchen filled with:
- 4 dozen pumpkin/carrot muffins
- 8 servings of pumpkin/apple/ginger soup
- 5 pumpkin pies
- 1 cup of roasted seeds
What a feast! Gleaning Jack's flesh required us to get our hands dirty (slimy might be a better descriptor), but it was great value for little effort. What pumpkin I didn't use, I packed in 1 Cup baggies and froze.
See below for my roasted pumpkin seed recipe (for nutritional information see here for seeds and here for pumpkin). I'll post the soup and muffin recipes tomorrow.
Roasted Pumpkin Seed Recipe
1. Wash and dry seeds. If all the strings don't come off, pick them out after roasting when they are crispy and easy to sift out.
3. Spread out seeds evenly on a cookie sheet and roast in 200 F oven until they are crispy like you like them (plan for a few hours). Stir them occasionally for even roasting.
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