I think I’m turning orange

Orange things I ate yesterday:

Carrot-orange juice:

Yellow beet-apple-ginger juice:

Pumpkin butter (I’m in love with it on Greek yogurt mixed with cranberry sauce):

Pumpkin-chia pudding:

Yams (roasted, mashed with extras, then baked with marshmallows on top):

Pumpkin pie squares (photo is terrible because we were in a hurry to get to dessert):

Pumpkin gingerbread trifle:

Yes, it’s Thanksgiving, the time of year when we give thanks for orange food. But we celebrated more than orange yesterday! Our meal also contained colours like green and red, the full spectrum of the harvest. Our menu included:

turkey + cranberry sauce
nut loaf + miso gravy
rustic bread stuffing
brussels sprout slaw
yams + marshmallows
scalloped potatoes
cornmeal muffins + pumpkin butter + butter
spinach salad with pears and cranberries

pumpkin pie squares
pumpkin gingerbread trifle
bittersweet chocolate and pear cake

It kind of looked like this when put together:

Of course, that’s my plate, so it’s heavy on the veggies.

The turkey was brined overnight and the carnivores tell me it was delicious.

I enjoyed the salads a lot. This is one of my favourite ways to prepare brussels sprouts – I’m not big on (over)cooked vegetables in general.

The nut loaf is a classic amongst our friends – and considering that it consists mainly of cashews and oil (with some bread, onions and spices thrown in), it’s easy to see why it’s delicious. We served with a miso gravy recipe from the Fresh cookbook.

The cornmeal muffins are my standby recipe. They’re always a hit and easy to make. We served with pumpkin butter and butter that I had made fresh the night before… ahem, after overwhipping some cream. Lemonade out of lemons. At other times of the year they’re extremely good with raspberry jam.

The yams and marshmallows are an old family recipe – yams mashed with mace, eggs, sour cream and salt, then baked with marshmallows on top. Last year, because I had finally acquired a KitchenAid mixer and wanted to try something fancy, I made homemade marshmallows for them. They are so much better (lighter, fluffier, more flavourful) that I’ve made it a new part of the tradition.

As for dessert, we ended up with three this year because I wanted to try some new recipes. My sister brought pumpkin pie squares, which we’ve been making for quite a few years. (Shortbread crust means no pie crust to make.) I actually prefer them without the cream cheese icing as it overpowers the pumpkin flavour and makes them too sweet for me.

The new recipes were a pumpkin gingerbread trifle and a pear chocolate cake. The trifle I had high hopes for – pumpkin and gingerbread are two classic flavours that pair well together and the recipe had tons of good reviews. Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had thought I would. The pumpkin mousse was excellent, and I would make it again to serve on its own as a somewhat lighter (low-carb at least) fall dessert. But the gingerbread cake they used was a very light cake and I prefer a much denser, darker gingerbread that’s halfway to a brownie. And much more gingery. Next time I might experiment with using fresh ginger as well as dried. (The glazed pecans are from the brussels sprout recipe, minus the pepper.)

The cake was an experiment, because it was a new way of preparing cake (you start by beating whole eggs for five to 10 minutes, until they are very fluffy and light). The flavours were certainly good but overall I was underwhelmed. I should note here that in general I’m not a cake person so it takes a phenomenal cake to make me happy (whereas I’ll happily eat a cookie from Tim Hortons). I think it would have been better served warm so the chocolate would still be melty.

Overall, it was a great meal, and I ate far too much. But I eat vegan and fresh food so often these days that I found it very heavy. I think next time I’ll lighten things up even more in the meal and cut back on the heavy stuff.

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Pumpkin butter (and oatmeal)

Confession: This isn’t local pumpkin. This is canned organic pumpkin from somewhere in the U.S. But, of course, you could make it with your own pumpkin puree, or probably even squash.

The recipe comes originally from Smitten Kitchen, as interpreted by Oh She Glows. Pumpkin puree is sweetened, spiced and thickened into a yummy topping.

Start with pumpkin puree and apple juice (I used cider).

Add sugar and spices. I used half maple sugar, half brown sugar but honestly, I couldn’t taste the maple. (Maybe I could have with a side-by-side comparison.) By the way, if you really want a way to keep your brown sugar from going hard, store it in a mason jar. It’s actually airtight and doesn’t lose moisture.

I served it immediately on top of steel-cut oats (cooked up with dried cherries and topped with sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, almonds and hemp milk).

So, so delicious. We’re going to serve it with cornmeal muffins at Thanksgiving dinner.

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Pumpkin cookies with lemon icing

I don’t know that these count as local in my kitchen, unless you count a can of pumpkin that’s been sitting around since last fall as local, but they’re certainly seasonal, and there’s no reason you couldn’t make them with puree from fresh pumpkins or even butternut squash. It’s a recipe I got from my mother, I’m not sure where she got it from. Don’t skip the icing, it’s an essential component.

The original recipe calls for walnuts, but I’m allergic so usually use pecans, but today I didn’t have enough pecans so I used half peanuts (local, from the market). The verdict: different, but not at all bad. I also didn’t have enough raisins so used half dried cranberries, which almost works better in my opinion. Whole wheat flour works fine, and I tend to add way more spices than any recipe ever calls for, but do it to taste.

Pumpkin cookies

1/2 cup/125 mL butter
1 cup/250 mL sugar
2 eggs
1 cup/250 mL pumpkin puree
2 cups/500 mL flour
2 tsp/10 mL baking powder
1 tsp/5 mL salt
3 tsp/15 mL cinnamon
1 tsp/5 mL nutmeg
1 tsp/5 mL ginger
1 cup/250 mL raisins
1 cup/250 mL nuts

Cream together butter and sugar; add eggs and pumpkin and mix well. Combine dry ingredients and add to butter mixture. Stir in raisins and nuts. Bake at 350F on greased pan for 15 mins. Cool and ice.

Lemon icing

Combine 2 cups/500 mL icing sugar and 1 tsp/5 mL lemon juice; add milk as necessary. (Well, that’s what the recipe says – I just use lemon juice.)

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