Real Pumpkin Pie

A girlfriend stopped by last week on her way to have dinner at my mom's house up North. We had tea and talked about pies, and it inspired me to make pumpkin pie. This is my favorite recipe; it's is based on the tag of a sugar pie pumpkin I bought years ago from a farmer's market. I like it because it doesn't call for evaporated or sweetened condensed milk, which I can never seem to keep on hand.

A tip on cooking with real pumpkins: it's easier than it sounds, if you cook a lot at once and freeze it. It keeps in the freezer well, and you can pull it out and use it just as easily as canned pumpkin. It's also an awesome winter ingredient to add to stews, sauces or to spice up mashed potatoes.

Low on the sugar, if it's made with real, pureed pumpkin, it's like cheesecake.

For 1 deep 9" pie pan.

Cooking pumpkins can be a challenge, and there's no particularly easy way to do it. I like to buy small sugar pie pumpkins that fit in the oven whole, then de-seed them after they've baked, but if they're soft enough, cut and seed them and bake large slices in 1" water ~375 for an hour, or until soft.

3 cups pumpkin, cooked and pureed

1 cup cane sugar, honey or maple syrup

2 cups heavy cream (whipping cream)

3 eggs

Blend all in a blender or food processor, then add spices:

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp nutmeg

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

After blended to a smooth liquid, pour filling into an unbaked pie shell. Bake 375 F for about an hour, or until middle just begins to crack. Let cool before serving!

Here's my pie dough recipe. It makes two shells, or one covered pie.

1 cup flour

1/2 cup butter

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg yolk

2 tbsp lemon juice

Crumb ingredients, then knead with 1/4 cup cold water. Do not pour all water at once; mix in water in increments until it reaches dough consistency.

The same girlfriend sent me a link to this McSweeny's article about it being decorative gourd season. I love my home-grown decorative gourds.

Matt, our artist friend, carved pumpkins while I made pumpkin pie. This was the effort of his labor. Good job, Matt!

Fried Squash Blossoms: A Weird and Tasty Delicacy

"But I don't have any squash blossoms to fry," you say. Well, this is also a tempura recipe, and tempura can be used on just about anything. So keep reading even if you don't have squash blossoms.

There's a delightful little man at Fulton Street's Saturday Farmer's Market who has a very, very small stall compared to the other vendors. He has tiny little baskets laid out on his display table containing "specialty produce" like serrano peppers, plump tomatillos, colored carrots, herbs and other unique veggies.

For example: towards the end of summer he sells squash blossoms. They're not just any squash blossoms; they're picked at a very precise time so that there are just a few inches of brand new squash attached to the half-open blossom. They're very pretty, so I asked him what they were for, and he told me to stuff them with cream cheese and fry them in a tempura batter.

Weird? Yes. Naturally, I had to try it. The tempura batter recipe I found was awesome - so crunchy and light. Almost anything can be fried in tempura batter, so you could try this with green beans, mushrooms, shrimp, chicken, onions, summer squash, asparagus - the sky's the limit. I highly recommend mushrooms stuffed with cream cheese fried alongside thick sliced summer squash. OMG, stuffed mushrooms...mmm. Also, it's really easy.

Tempura batter:

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp softened butter

1/2 tsp white sugar

1 egg yolk

1/3 cup ice water

Mix dry ingredients, then fork in wet.

To make fried squash blossoms, have some room temperature cream cheese on hand. Carefully lift up petals until you can see inside the cavity, then spoon in cream cheese until the blossom is nice and plump.

For stuffed mushrooms, you'll want to hollow out the mushrooms with a paring knife. Use fresh whole button or mini bella mushrooms - the kind with nice, big bulbs. Remove the stems and carve some of the inside out to make room, then stuff with cream cheese and plug up the hole with a thin slice of the stem.

To fry:

Heat cooking oil (coconut oil is the best in flavor and nutrition, although it's quite pricy) on medium high until sizzling (test by sprinkling water drops in the oil; if it sizzles immediately, it's ready). You'll want to make sure there is enough oil in the pan to cover the contents. Evenly coat blossoms, mushrooms, veggies or whatever in the tempura batter then drop in hot oil. Cook about 2 minutes on each site on high, or until golden and crispy. ***NOTE: when turning tempura veggies, make sure to lift them from the pan using a thin spatula first - otherwise the batter may stick to the pan and come off.

I had some leftover squid in the freezer when I made fried squash blossoms, so I went ahead and made some fried calamari rings. So good! Don't cook them too long...

The squash blossoms were absolutely delicious. Very nutty, sweet and tender. I liked the blossom part best and Reagan liked the squash part best, which worked out well.

Get ready for fall recipes! October cooking means more than just pumpkin pie...

Eating In Season: Hot Harvest Curry

If you live in the Grand Rapids area, you probably know that the Fulton Street Farmer's Market is a homegrown haven for cooks during the summertime. With vendors covering every food group, from whole grain breads to cheese, sausage and eggs. The vegetables, though, are my favorite part. Organic farms show up with the ordinary and bizarre; brussels sprouts on the stem, sweet purple potatoes and tiny wrinkled peppers.

My Pilipino husband gets bored if our meals don't have a regular kick, so I like to experiment with the hot peppers. When you have a wide variety to choose from, it's fun to experiment with the different flavors and levels of heat. The cherry bomb is my personal favorite; it's like a stoplight colored strawberry, and it packs a punch.

These peppers are cayenne, hot banana and one orange paprika pepper in the bottom right corner. The cayenne are just plain hot, but the banana peppers have a mellow citrus with lots of heat. Paprika peppers are sweet, fruity and citrusy like a tomatillo.

Anyway, I decided to try using all in-season foods, so I came away from the market with broccoli, hot peppers, sweet corn, tomatoes and hot banana peppers. I fried them all up in cut thick sliced bacon (which Reagan proudly processed last winter). In a moment of genius, Reagan suggested coconut milk, so I just turned it into a curry. Here's the recipe:

6 strips thick bacon, cut into small pieces

2 large hot banana or hungarian peppers, finely chopped

2 tsp salt

Fry bacon with peppers and salt until all begins to brown, then add:

6 cobs fresh sweet corn, with kernels cut off the cob (~4 cups sweet corn)

1 cup coconut milk, including fat

1 head broccoli, crowned and cut into bite-sized pieces

1 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp ginger

Simmer this for approximately 15 minutes on medium heat, or until the corn begins to darken and the broccoli is bright green but still firm, then cook for 5 minutes more with:

2 large beefsteak tomatoes, coarsely diced

That's it! Although it's not quite ethnically correct, it would be great served with some toasted nan. It's sweet, creamy and spicy with a fresh crunch. Add more peppers if you like to cry.

Caramelized Onions: the Lord Byron of Savory Foods

I've had a crappy day. But even as I write this, I feel better (even if it's temporary). Why? Because just thinking about food makes me happy. Like Keri Russel's character showed in Waitress, food is therapy - and making recipes? That's taking control of your own destiny.

As you may have noticed, things around here are looking different. I've changed my blog's name to Caramel Onion, and I'd like to detail a few reasons why:

1) the old name was lame

2) I've always hated onions, so I guess you could say I'm forcing myself to "know thine enemy"

3) caramelized onions are one of the greatest inventions in the history of food

4) onions are a metaphor. Like Shrek said: they have layers.

To honor the new name, I'm dedicating this post to caramelized onions. First, a few things you should know about them:

They're extremely easy to make.

They're the best of both worlds: still that savory onion flavor, but drastically tempered and sweetened into a taste and texture that even onion-haters (like me) can't resist.

Drastically reduces risk of halitosis, which is one of the reasons I'm normally so wary of onions. Caramelizing basically does the same thing for onions that roasting does for garlic: it removes both bite and horrible post-meal breath. Btw, roasting garlic changed my life; it's the secret to perfect garlic mashed potatoes AND garlic bread.

They can be used to add elegance and sophistication to almost anything. See my list below.

The recipe:

2 large white or yellow onions, sliced and quartered (or left as whole circles, if you prefer)

1/4 cup butter

3 Tbsp. sugar

This is so easy. Warm butter in a saucepan, then throw in the onions. Sautee them at low medium heat, stirring every 2-4 minutes for at least 15 minutes, or until onions begin to soften and change color. Add the sugar and more butter if necessary, and sautee for another 10 minutes, until onions are (surprise!) caramel in color.

Eat! Here are a few of the many ways to use caramelized onions:

- on toast, garlic bread or focaccia bread

- in casseroles

- sauteed with mushrooms and heaped on steak (excellent with venison)

- pizza topping

- heaped on roast lamb, pork or beef (always with rosemary and more butter)

- in tarts (wrap puff pastry around a few oz. of cream cheese and a sprinkling of caramelized onions and bake for 20-30 minutes for a divine breakfast treat)

- in pasta salads

- eat them plain! (I was going to make tarts out of mine, but they magically disappeared after Reagan taste-tested them)

The sky is the limit!

Thanks for stopping by. I've got a lot of great recipes in my head (and photo file), so come by again soon.