For one? Second Annual Pumpkin Week in Spring Day Three

Welcome day three of the Second Annual Pumpkin Week in Spring!
Boo-yah. Merriment, etc.

Let us get started.

I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been dating my career this year, and she is one foxy wench.

Demanding. She consumes my mind, body and soul and I love her.

So clearly, I want to keep her. So I cook for her.

Fortunately she’s a small eater. I can cook for one person who has a big appetite and it is enough. Which is good because I spend a lot of money on her for other things,

This recipe, which I reduced to be “for one” was also actually a request of my friend. She wanted to see soup on the pumpkin week menu. It is thanks to this friend I made this Indian Potato Salad so when she requested that I make a soup part of Pumpkin Week in Spring, I obliged.

My woman got jealous, but I soothed her with a good staged reading, so that saucy minx career of mine would shut the hell up.

Here you see the romantic candlelit dinner I made for me and my work:


Note that we share a spoon. We’re that close. As one. She completes me.

I consulted a few recipes for this but decided on using the basic recipe from The Joy of Cooking and elaborating. To make it more trendy-um, I mean vegan, I used almond milk instead of broth or cream. I wanted to get my date hot so I added some hot sauce. Then just a dash of my favorite spice, cumin. Topped with a smattering of cilantro.

Pumpkin Soup for you and your not-too-hungry Love(adapted and reduced from The Joy of Cooking)
Olive oil spray
1/3 c. chopped onion
a couple Tbsp. celery, chopped
1 c. pumpkin
1/4 c. water
1/4 c. almond milk
1 tsp. sugar
salt
freshly ground pepper
Dash of hot sauce(I use Bufalo Chipotle)
Pinch of cumin
Cilantro
Spray a small pot and heat over medium. Add onion and celery and heat until translucent. Stir in pumpkin, then remaining ingredients except the cilantro. Break out Bad Boy, I mean your immersion blender, and blend that sucker up. Get as hot as you want(delicious both hot and chilled!), garnish with cilantro and serve to your lady.

Something’s coming

Duuuuude, I’m taking next week off from the blog.

I’m swamped. On set as we speak. Write. Read?

But! Coming up a week from Monday is the Second Annual Pumpkin Week in spring!

Just when you least suspected.

The picture is of my pumpkin colored walls. Due the the way the light filters through my curtains it’s always sunset in my bedroom. Except at night.
For color ceases to exist sans light.

I think I had approximately 2 readers for last spring’s pumpkin week so I’ll recap how the first year went.

Day one: cracked open a can of pumpkin and grilled that mother.

Day two: shook it up

Day three: still shake-ish but prettier

Day four:
Not even.

Day five: the grand finale

There have been other delights of punkin’ nature:
Pumpkin Chia Pudding

As well as pumpkin bars, time dos:

A muffin:

And of course, pumpkin pie:

So take the next week to relax, buy some pumpkin, catch up on your reading, go hiking and get ready. Pumpkin week is on it’s way.
Got a favorite pumpkin recipe? Feel free to link to it in the comments! Yah.

pumpkin chia pudding

Purty. Purty purty pudding. Autumnal goodness abounding. Healthy too. Really. I am this pudding’s bitch.
I just wish I’d had the suggested cookie crumbs to layer with it that Angela of Oh She Glows recommends.
This recipe for pumpkin chia pudding
from Oh She Glows is healthy, and charming, and cute. Much like Angela, creator of the blog. What if all bloggers only made food that resembled them? What would I make? Would it be one endless stream of black rice, dark chocolate, black coffee and black jelly beans to reflect my attire? Or perhaps the stark opposite: cottage cheese, endive, cauliflower and other anemic foods to be my pale skin? Or nerd-y food? Whatever they ate in my favorite books like The Great Gatsby! Oh wait, did that. I dunno.
What food resembles you?

I want to know. So please leave a comment and tell me. In the meantime, if you dig easy, tasty, pumpkin-y goodness and don’t mind the crunchy little chias(I personally love it, some folks do not)then give this pudding a whirl. An thank goodness for easy, seeing as this is my last weekend of playing the dancer who gets her leg ripped off(literally and physically), I did not have a lot of time for fancy cuisine.

Pumpkin Chia Pudding(adapted from Oh She Glows blog by Angela Liddon)
1 c. almond milk
1 c. pumpkin
2 Tbsp. chia seeds
2 Tbsp. vanilla protein powder
3/4 tsp. cinnamon(I increased this from 1/2 tsp.)
1/4 tsp. ginger
pinch nutmeg
2 Tbsp. maple syrup
1 packet Equal(my addition, bad me!)
Mix it up. I used my immersion blender. Cause I could. Chill a couple hours then eat up. Feel healthy. Look in the mirror and see if you are getting Angela’s “glow”. Repeat.

Pumpkin Time Again

I’ll explain the picture in a minute.
I finally succumbed to the autumn urge to pumpkin it up. And now I will pump(clap, point) you up! Sorry, SNL moment. Hans and Franz.
Since I held out on pumpkin recipes for the last post, this time I am showing you two. One vegan, created by the ever-lovely Katie, which you see at the top of the post. These pumpkin bars are so friggin’ fantastic. I barely managed not to eat the whole pan the first night I made them.
Then the next night I had a night shoot playing a goth, AGAIN:

Night fell, the shoot went on forever and at last at 4 am I arrived home with fake blood crusting on my neck, having been killed by vampires. Delicious image, no? I was starving and gulped down half the pan of these. Glad I had saved some. In honor of the goth-y state I was in when I consumed these, I took a picture of them with a comic about goths I clipped way back in the 90′s from a zine. Remember zines? Yeah, nineties grrl power. And goth power. And stuff.
Anyway, black attire or no, bloody or not, hop on over to Katie and check out the recipe for these bars.
And now, the non-vegan pumpkin bar:

This is the one that opened the floodgates of pumpkin. The gateway bar. Once you start, you can’t stop. It is addictive. I had been wanting to make this recipe for Pumpkin Bars from the Poppin’ Fresh Homemade Cookies cookbook, published by Pillsbury since…oh since I bought the book at a sixth grade book fair. A lot of other pumpkin recipes from other sources as well as a six year bout with anorexia distracted me from getting around to it.
Well done on this recipe, Pillsbury authors!
Incidentally, the Pillsbury Dough Boy(along with the Michelin man) was the inspiration behind the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. And I know him. The man who built and wore the costume. he’s not puffy. He says he filled in as Slimer occasionally during the film shoot. These are the folks I met at the parties when I was seeing a professional propsmaker. Ah, Hollywood. I digress.
I wish I had had cream cheese, I’d have frosted these suckers. But I did not.
Observe this picture of these bars:

Yep. That is some light Smart Balance I am putting on them. Incidentally, this variety of it is vegan. Not all Smart Balance is even vegetarian. One variety(the light heart right kind, I think?) has fish oil in it. Gross!
Now we’ve covered Katie, zines, goth-iness, vampires, fake blood, Ghost Busters characters, Hans and Franz, and fish oil.
So eat. Write a zine. Pump yourself up. Do a little dance. Make a little love, if you like.
Which of these activities are you doing tonight?
Let’s get to the recipe.
Pumpkin Bars(adapted from Poppin’ Fresh Homemade Cookies by Pillsbury)
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup splenda or stevia(or just use a full cup of sugar)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
2 eggs
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Sift dry ingredients together. Add wet and mix it up. Mix it good. But not too good, no need to beat this stuff. Pour into a sprayed 9×9 pan and bake til…done. I don’t remember how long I cooked these. I’m guessing a half hour more or less. But I took them out when slightly underdone because that is how I like them. Bottom line, take them out when they reach the state of done-ousity you prefer.

It Ain’t Pumpkin

In fact it is not even a pie. It is a Tart.

But it looks vaguely pumpkin-ish. If pumpkin was pinker.
Calling it a tart makes it sound elegant but this tart totally feels earthy and hippie to me. Hmmm, another Mark Bittman recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian that strives to sound elegant yet is…not. Like the beans and taters I made awhile back.
Anyway, to make up for the fact that is is November already and I’ve been a bad little blogger and holding out on autumnal pumpkin recipes, I promise next post will have two pumpkin recipes. TWO! Contain yourselves. Make this tart while you wait:
Pinto Bean Tart With Millet Crust1 Tbsp. Smart Balance
1/2 cup millet
1 cup H2O
salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 cups cooked pinto beans
1/2 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 tsp. chopped garlic
1/4 tsp. dried rosemary
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
3/4 cup H2O
1/4 tsp. vegetable bouillon granules
1 egg
1/2 cup corn(I used frozen, no need to thaw)
Melt Smart Balance in small saucepan over medium heat then add millet and stir til golden, about 3 minutes. Add one cup H20 and a pinch of salt and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until liquid is absorbed and millet is tender. Set aside.
puree beans, onion, red bell pepper, garlic, rosemary, thyme, vegetable broth powder, black pepper and a pinch of salt. Stir in corn and egg.
Grease a pie plate and press millet in to form a crust. Pour in bean mixture. Place pie plate in a bigger dish and pour water until it is halfway up the side of the pie plate. Bake at 350 degrees until the bean mixture is set but still jiggles a bit in the center. Bittman says this takes around 30 minutes but mine took closer to an hour-maybe I should get an oven thermometer…
Savory pies, yes or no? Also, is a quiche a pie?
Opinions, por favor:))

Waffling

For the pumpkin week finale, I give you PUMPKIN WAFFLES! Yumyumyum:

I decided that the heartache I’ve been experiencing of late could not possibly have anything to do with my real life, and that OBVIOUSLY I had been neglecting, and was missing my true cookbook love: Mark Bittman. I know, he’s married but I think a cookbook affair is ok, yah? Did that even make sense? Enough already, moving on.
I perused How to Cook Everything Vegetarian for a pumpkin recipe to finish out Pumpkin Week and voila! Pumpkin Waffles. So good. So good, in fact that I am not giving the recipe because you need to buy the book.
I think the next theme week I do will be Waffle Week where I put anything I can think of in the waffle iron. I’ve made waffled french toast and toasted sandwiches before but I want to see what happens with tortillas and a waffle iron. Plus Mark has more waffle recipes for me. I’ll welcome suggestions too. So look for that in about a week!

Not even worth blogging: Pumpkin week day 4

I attempted to make these PB/pumpkin cookies. I failed.
That’s all. Tomorrow or Monday I’ll post the Pumpkin Week in Spring finale. This has been fun. Maybe Pumpkin Week should be a once-a-season event. Next time I’ll throw a party.

Look ma, I garnished: Pumpkin week day 3

Considerably more attractive than yesterday’s shake, eh? I am particularly excited for this Pumpkin Protein Shake, changed only a bit from Meals and Moves, because it is thanks to this blog that I discovered the wonders of xanthum gum. And as soon as I manage to find guar gum I hope to experience more shake magic. One of my complaints about protein shakes is that they either have too little body, or too much ice. How to get a thick, creamy texture without having to add ice? Use one of these gums. It makes your shake like almost like pudding. Liiiiiiike puddin’. So I’ll quit my yammering and give you the recipe I made last night:
Pumpkin Protein Shake(adapted-just barely-from Meals and Moves)
1 cup plain unsweetened almond milk
1 serving vanilla protein powder
1/2 cup pumpkin(from a can)
4 tsp. cinnamon
generous pinches of ginger and nutmeg
small pinch ground cloves
dash of vanilla
1/2 tsp. xanthum gum
sweetener to taste(is used a few packets of Equal-yeah I know its bad for you oh well)
Blend it up. Pour it in a glass and if you’re feeling frou-frou garnish with a dash of cinnamon and a shot of Reddi-whip. Love that stuff.

Oats in theory…day 2 of pumpkin week in spring

…in theory the idea of two of my favorite foods, pumpkin and oatmeal, together is swell. And with a bit of finagling I am betting I could make this shake sing. Perhaps even an aria.
Welcome to day 2 in Pumpkin Week in Spring!
Today’s recipe was the Healthy Pumpkin Oatmeal Shake from Gina’s Skinny Recipes
How I found it I do not remember…
Anyway, my main qualm was that this needed to be sweeter and perhaps pumpkiny-er. Other than that I enjoyed it.
Up next on Pumpkin Week: yet another blogger’s take on pumpkin shakes, this time with more protein.

Pumpkin week in spring!

I figure everyone else in the blogosphere goes gaga for pumpkin in the fall, so why not do a pumpkin week in spring? I have a bunch of one-serving recipes I’d like to make that all require minimal amounts of pumpkin, so I will make them until I empty out the can of pumpkin I opened. This may or may not take more than a week though:)
First up? Savory Pumpkin Grilled Cheese! I got this recipe from Hungry Girl. I only changed the cheese mixed with the pumpkin-I used a couple of tablespoons of reduced-fat cream cheese. Normally I am not too much of a sandwich person unless it is a grilled cheese loaded with butter or an open-face sandwich. I feel like the bread in most sandwiches hides the taste of what is inside. I always end up deconstructing them. This one had such a thick, moist filling that it worked out decently. It was a pretty tasty savory application of pumpkin.
Pumpkin week. It’s like shark week. Except it is not on tv. And its about food. Although a shark is a fish and I suppose some people eat it so perhaps pumpkin week is not so removed…okay I will stop my babbling. Feast your eyes on this, then feast on some pumpkin-y goodness: