Pumpkins!

For me pumpkins represent the autumn.  They are the changing of leaves, gentle breezes and lots of color.  For my kitchen they mean, carved pumpkins, and cooked so they are ready to be made into so many wonderful things.

 

I like to use as many parts of things as possible.  For my Christmas tree last year that meant leaving it up for 2 months so we could breathe in the wonderful scents of fresh pine tree.  The needles were still not willing to fall off when we finally decided that we couldn't leave the tree up any longer.  At that point, it went outside to be chopped up for firewood and branches for me to use to deter weeds as well as to help my blueberry bushes grow successfully.

When it comes to pumpkins, that means the meat of the pumpkin will be roasted or boiled, but the insides will be used to roast pumpkin seeds.  They are so easy too to make delicious!  Just sprinkle with salt or whatever special seasoning you would like and baked until they smell wonderful!  Yum!

Potato Pancakes

Potato Pancakes always remind me of my grandpa who was the person in our family that always made them for us.  He would cook them up and serve them with butter.  They were so delicious!  I don't remember him putting the recipe together, just the sizzling of the pan and the lovely scent which would fill the air.

After having a guest over yesterday, I wasn't feeling more sweet food for breakfast.  I love breakfast and don't like to just have toast or cereal when I have time to cook.  After thinking about what we ate yesterday for breakfast, I decided potato pancakes would be just the thing.  After a quick preparation of the "batter" which is simply potatoes, eggs, salt pepper and onion, they were ready for cooking.  I am always careful to have the perfect balance of crispy as I love the crunch and enough cooking time for the potatoes to be fully cooked otherwise the eating experience would be ruined.  After cooking each for a few minutes and a hot oven waiting so we could eat together, the pancakes were ready and the aromatics from them were filling the kitchen with tasty smells which could not wait to be eaten.  Not long after, the stacks had been decimated and our belly's full.  Another successful breakfast story.

Sugar cookie rollouts - Halloween Style

As I mentioned, I like cookies and will eat cookies before eating any cake.  I tend to go a little overboard on my sugar cookie rollouts though as I dislike rolling out the dough, but I over compensate for the time I spend decorating the cookies.  I have a hard time deciding which cookie is the worst one left, so that I can eat each little masterpiece without guilt for having destroyed all my hard work.  These of course are the Halloween version.  They don't take long...a few minutes to create the dough, time to chill the dough, a few more minutes to roll them out and bake them.  For me the time consuming part is always decorating them.  I really need to find a quicker way to make them look presentable.  Until then, decorating them is the only reason I make them.

Cake

As much as I love chocolate, I love cookies more.  However, I have come to love buttermilk and making a buttermilk chocolate cake just can't get any better.  Especially when it comes to baking at a high altitude this buttermilk chocolate cake is the best.  It is moist, rises well, and while it is chocolaty, it is not overwhelming at all.  Of course, I embellished the chocolate in this cake with a layer of hot fudge and chocolate mouse and then covered the whole thing in a lovely shiny chocolate glaze.  All eaters were pleased with the end result of a quadruple chocolate cake that wouldn't overwhelm you at all.

 

Birthdays!

Because of my love of baking, I volunteered for the position to bake cakes at work for my coworkers.  The latest was an angel food cake speckled with sprinkles.  It turned out really good and raised well.  I love angel food cake from scratch.  It is easy and very good, plus this one was really like a party in a cake.

Old Bananas

When I lived in Germany, I took German lessons.  One day the topic of rotten food came up.  My teacher was trying to get us to figure out the word for rotten or spoiled food.  She said something about rotten or black bananas.  I spoke up in class and said that when bananas were "bad" you made banana bread.  She had never had it before, so I whipped up banana bread and brought it to class.  Never again did anyone mention throwing away bananas when they were "bad."

This recipe for banana bread comes from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.  There is a twist in it because there is coconut in it.  Even if you don't like coconut, try it as it really adds a great flavor to this bread.

Banana Bread
8 Tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 dried coconut

Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease 9x5 inch loaf pan.  Mix together dry ingredients.  Cream the butter and then beat in the eggs and bananas.  Stir wet mixture into the dry mixture.  Do not mix more than necessary.  Gently stir in the vanilla and coconut.

Pour batter into loaf pan and bake for 45-60 minutes, until nicely browned and a toothpick comes out fairly clean.  Do not overcook.  Cook on rack for 15 minutes before removing from pan.  To store, wrap in waxed paper.

It is excellent after a day or two, toasted with peanut butter.

Ricotta Gnocchi

One of the things I have been experimenting in this year is cooking more Italian food.  So this lead me to find a lovely Italian immigrant cookbook with tasty recipes which are easy to make, other than sometimes being time-consuming.  This was my second attempt at the ricotta gnocchi and both time it turned out lovely.  Added to that the pesto made from my own basil and you have a simple, yet filling dinner.  The book this recipe came from is called Italian Immigrant Cooking by Elodia Rigante.  Unfortunately, it is no longer published, but you can find it in the used book stores.

Ricotta Gnocchi

1 pound freshly made Ricotta cheese

1 egg

2 cups flour (maybe a little more if your ricotta is really wet)

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

In a medium bowl, mix the ricotta and the egg.  Add the salt and pepper.  Gradually add the flour.  Knead on a floured counter.  Roll into finger-sized logs and then cut into equal length pieces (mine are usually about 3/4 inch each).

To cook: bring a pot of salted water to a boil.  Add the gnocchi and stir to be sure they don't stick.  Cook for about 10 minutes or until the gnocchi is floating.  You can serve immediately with whatever sauce you like or just some grated Parmesan cheese.  The above photo is made with homemade pesto.

These freeze well.  Or if you prefer to cook them all and not eat them all, you can reheat them in the oven with some Parmesan cheese grated over them.