Unpaid Chef » pumpkin

Pumpkin soup

the unpaid chef — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:06:44 +0000

Halloween came and went. This time we carved a very large pumpkin. My six-year-old drew the smile on it and I carved it, after scraping out enough pumpkin for this delicious soup. If you have any fresh pumpkin left, try it. I served it last Saturday evening to a friend who was visiting for the weekend, and he requested more of it for breakfast!
I wouldn’t have it for breakfast, but it makes a wonderful lunch or supper.

Ingredients

- A knob of butter (about 2 T)
- 1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
- 1 small potato, peeled and chopped
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/2 tsp curry powder
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- large pinch of cayenne (or hot paprika)
- large pinch of nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground pepper
- 8-10 cups pumpkin, seeded, peeled and chopped
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1- 2 tbsp pure maple syrup
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- splash of milk

In a soup pot, melt butter slowly. Add onion, garlic, potato and carrot and cook until softened,4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add pumpkin, spices, bay leaf, salt and pepper, and cook for 10 more minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add broth, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 40 minutes. Pumpkin and other vegetables should be very soft.
Discard bay leaf

Puree in a blender in small batches, or if you own an inmersion blender, puree it straight in the pot.

Stir in maple syrup, brown sugar and milk. Add salt and pepper to taste. Reheat if necessary before serving.

I served it with a dollop of sour cream the first time, and the second time with single cream. I like mine best without cream.

My first batch was amazing. The soup was creamy, spicy and satisfying, not heavy at all, and almost addictive!
My immersion blender stopped working properly after my four year old son used it to make peanut butter, so my second batch didn’t blend as nicely. The chunkier soup was still just as delicious.

The soup freezes very well.

Enjoy!

Credit where credit is due.
Do visit the blog. Her pictures are breathtaking!

More pumpkin! reduced fat and sugar pumpkin bread

the unpaid chef — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:43:44 +0000

In my last post, I told you about a not-so-satisfying low-fat pumpkin bread recipe I had just tried. I knew what was missing in that bread was some flavor and some oil. You need a little fat in a sweet quick bread!
All other recipes for pumpkin bread or muffins that I had found called for a good 1/2 cup of oil for a bread, if not more. Most of them called for well over a cup for each loaf. A lot of oil and a lot of sugar. I can halve it, and that’s what I did. And, of course, I added some salt and a few more spices.

Here’s my recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups roasted Hokaido pumpkin (or any other source of mashed pumpkin)
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup sunflower oil
3 eggs (or two eggs, and two egg whites)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
( I know, I spiced it within an inch of it’s life!)

Preheat oven to 200 C
Line two 9×5 inch loaf pans with parchment paper (for very easy removal of the breads)

In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin, applesauce, eggs, oil and sugar. Add spices and blend well. ( It tastes like pumpkin pie….)

In a smaller bowl, combine flours, soda and salt. Stir into the liquid mixture.

Pour batter evenly into the prepared loaf pans and place in the middle rack of the oven.
Bake on high for the first 45 minutes, then lower the temperature to around 180. If the tops start browning to quickly, cover losely with foil.
Mine took about 1 hour and 45 minutes to bake.

The smell of the bread is irresistible. I could barely wait until it cooled down enough to have a slice! Let’s see how well the breads ripen.

Low-fat Pumpkin bread Pudding

the unpaid chef — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:10:01 +0000

It’s pumpkin season and I love it.
I’ve been wanting to try pumpkin bread, but I also wanted it to be fairly low fat and sugar.
A search for “low fat pumpkin bread” on Google came up with many recipes, one of which called for applesauce and would make two loaves from two cups of pumpkin.
Hokaido pumpkins are very tasty and I didn’t want my bread to have a too overwhelming flavor.
Anyway, I made the bread. It took forever to bake through, and the result was not what I had expected. It’s too heavy, and doesn’t have enough flavor.
Next time I’ll add salt and replace the 2/3 cups of water with 1/2 cup oil. Still low fat, but hopefully more flavorful!

The bread made a yummy bread pudding….

Ingredients:
- 5 slices low-fat pumpkin bread
- 1 1/2 cups milk ( or half milk and half evaporated milk)
- 2 eggs
- 1 Tablespoon light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- pinch of salt
- handfull of raisins
- butter to grease the dish.

Preheat oven to 200c
Grease baking dish and arrange bread slices in it. Sprinkle raisins over the bread.
Whisk together milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt. Pour over the bread and raisins.
Bake in the oven until set, about 25 minutes.

It was delicious! Spicy, juicy, and very satisfying!