Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal

6-8 servings
4 cups rolled oats
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
½ cup brown sugar
1 ½ cups pumpkin puree (homemade, if you have it!)
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 ½ cups milk (regular or almond)
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ cup dried cranberries
½ cup chopped walnuts
Pinch each of allspice and cloves
Grease a 9x9 baking dish and set aside. In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients and mix until completely combined. Pour oatmeal into prepared pan. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour, or overnight. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 40-45 minutes, until the center reaches 160 degrees. Serve warm, with thickened cream or milk, and your favorite oatmeal add-ons!
Source

Pumpkin Enchiladas

The Filling:

4 cup black beans (measured after soaking)  This also equals about 2 cans.
2 cup pureed cooked pumpkin
1 sweet potato chopped
6-8 vine ripened tomatoes chopped
2 cups corn (please try to buy this organic)
1/2 cup veggie broth
2 tsp garlic powder (or 3 to 4 cloves minced)
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
optional: 1 jalapeno diced, seeds and all
I soaked the black beans the night before. I also roasted my own pumpkin and pureed it myself, but pureed pumpkin in a can would also work. Add everything to the crock pot. Turn on high and walk away for 6-8 hours or so. A tip, I did this part at night. I woke up to the most amazing smelling house. For some real heat, you can throw in a jalapeno to really give this filling some kick.  Melissa doesn’t like much spice, so I left that out of my recipe.
The Enchilada:
(Per each one)
1 tortilla
3 heaping spoonfuls of filling
Cheese sauce
1 T pistachio dust per enchilada (pistachios that have been processed into a course consistency)
1-2 T diced raw red onions
Now you have the filling, not to mention an awesome pumpkin chili to gorge on. First thing is first, the pistachio dust is essential to this recipe. You can just buy pistachios and food process them until they are course. Real simple. To put together the enchilada, pick a tortilla of your choice, lay it flat, and put three good sized spoon fulls of the filling slightly off-center in a line.  We used Food for Life tortillas. Next add the cheese sauce. I didn’t put an amount because really this is personal taste. Add as much to your heart’s cheese-loving content. We used our cashew cheese sauce, but you could also melt your own cheese in some milk and butter for you omnivores out there. Lastly, add the red onion. Wrap the filling in the tortilla like you would a burrito or a sandwich wrap. Next, add some more cheese sauce on top. Finally, add your pistachio dust on top of the cheese sauce. I did several at once in an 8X8 baking dish and put it in the oven for five minutes or so. Remove and you are done.
Source

Pumpkin Everything Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup canned pumpkin (or fresh)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp nutmeg 1/4 tsp ground cloves
And the "everything" part:
1 cup chips - -chocolate, white, mini, peanut butter, etc.
1 cup crunch - - oats, granola
1 cup nuts - - slivered almonds, chopped walnuts, pecans
1 cup dried fruit - - cranberries, golden raisins, raisins, etc.
In a large bowl, mix butter and sugars. Beat in egg and pumpkin. In another bowl, combine flours, cinnamon, baking powder, ginger, salt, baking soda, nutmeg and cloves. Gradually add this to the pumpkin mixture. Stir in the "everything" ingredients. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a baking sheet. They don't really spread out when you bake them, so about 2 inches apart is good. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-17 minutes. Cool on wire racks. These cookies also freeze very well!!
Source

Pumpkin Beer Bread with Maple Spice Creme Fraiche

Makes 1 loaf
½ cup pumpkin beer
½ cup unsalted butter
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup mashed pumpkin (canned or roasted and mashed)
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup pecans, pulverized
¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ground
⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup Maple Spice Crème Fraîche (recipe follows)
Pour the beer into a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and let cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream the butter and the sugar together using an electric mixer. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until fully incorporated. Add the pumpkin, baking soda, salt, flour, nuts, cinnamon, nutmeg and beer and mix until fully incorporated. Use a spatula to transfer the mixture to a greased loaf pan. Place in the oven and bake until a long toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, about 1 hour and 10 minutes.
MAPLE SPICE CRÈME FRAÎCHE
Yields 1 cup
If you can't find crème fraîche, sour cream is a fine substitute. You may want to bump up the maple syrup a bit since sour cream is more tart than crème fraîche.
1 cup crème fraîche
1½ tablespoons pure maple syrup
½ teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
¼ teaspoon clove, ground
Mix all of the ingredients together until they are completely incorporated. Chill or serve at room temperature.

Source

Creamy Winter Squash & Carrot Soup

I used one of the large green squash from last week's CSA. Was it a Kombucha?

First, I cooked the squash. I scrubbed the outside of it, then cut it in half and scraped the seeds out. I cut each half into four sections and laid them out onto two cookie sheets, skin side up. They overlapped a little bit. I covered the squash with foil and baked at 300 degrees for about an hour and a half. Halfway through, I moved the bottom cookie sheet to the top rack and the top one to the bottom rack. I baked the squash until it was tender when pressed (I used a potholder to press through the foil). I let the squash cool on the baking sheets, then scraped the squash out of the skin. I ended up with four 1-quart containers of cooked squash, which smelled and tasted like pumpkin. Two quarts went into the freezer for later use; two went into the fridge.

Here's the recipe for the soup:

3 large carrots, sliced lengthwise into fourths, then cut into 1/2" chunks
1/2 medium onion, chopped
3 large cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried thyme or two fresh thyme sprigs
olive oil
1 quart cooked winter squash
1 quart chicken stock
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp brown sugar
1 cup half and half
fresh nutmeg (ground is OK but fresh has stronger flavor)

Heat 2-3 TBSP olive oil over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed medium sauce pan. Add the carrots, onion, garlic and thyme and saute until the carrots start to get tender. Don't let the garlic brown.

Stir in he squash and cook another couple minutes. It's OK if the squash is chunky at this point. Add the chicken stock and turn the heat up until the mixture comes to a boil. Turn back down to medium and add cinnamon, salt, pepper and brown sugar. Simmer, covered, for 30 minutes or until the carrots are tender, stirring every 5 minutes or so.

Puree using a hand blender, or you can put it into a stand blender to smooth it out. Return to the pan and keep hot over low heat. Just before serving, stir in the half and half. Serve immediately and garnish with a sprinkling of fresh ground nutmeg.

Remove the pan from the heat after adding the half and half. This soup can be reheated on the stove over medium-low heat. Stir often while reheating and bring to steaming but not to a boil.

Pumpkin Bread

After receiving our huge pumpkins last week, I decided to make pumpkin bread. Since large pumpkins aren't exactly king on the flavor front, I thought a quick bread would be a great place to use it up. To begin, I cut up the pumpkin in sections and roasted them in the oven at 35o degrees for an hour or so. After this was done and cool, I scooped out the flesh and pureed it in my food processor. This gave me a ton of puree and I ended up making 4 loaves of pumpkin bread, most of which I gave out for holiday treats. I still had a few cups left of pumpkin puree, which you could easily freeze. I fed the puree to my dogs with their normal food because they really love pumpkin! It is very nutritious for us, as well as for our canine friends.

This recipe is adapted from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 c. unrefined sugar

1. tsp baking soda

1 cup pumpkin puree

1/2 c. vegetable oil (I used sunflower)

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 c. water

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (the original recipe calls for allspice, but I didn't have it and pp spice has that in it plus ginger)

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda. Mix the pumpkin, oil, eggs, water, vanilla and spices together, then combine with dry ingredients, but do not mix too thoroughly. Stir in the pecans. Pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake 50-60 minutes until a knife comes out clean. Turn out of the loaf pan and cool on a rack.

This bread is moist and lightly spiced. It is great in the morning with a cup of coffee or in the afternoon with a cup of tea, or just as a snack! You could probably substitute another winter squash and it would turn out nicely as well.

Creamy Thai Acorn Squash Soup

Last time we had acorn squash I made this amazing soup and it is incredibly easy and simple to make. You just roast the squash, add a can of coconut milk, blend with a bit of broth and add a dash of red Thai curry paste and salt to taste. The result is a creamy, sweet, slightly spicy, coconut dream...yum. This soup would work great with any winter squash as well.

Don't toss out the acorn squash seeds either! Scoop them out, rinse, pat dry, toss with a bit of olive oil, salt, maybe some cayenne, and put them on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. Roast them at 275 degrees for about 15 minutes. They are delicious on top of this soup or as snack.