Posted by Kerry Saretsky, October 31, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Photograph by Wyscan on Flickr
When I was young, and my dad and I would come back from the country weighed down with enough pumpkins to keep our New York apartment in a crowd of jack-o'-lanterns plus some, I used to wake up in the middle of the night. No, one of the frightening, candlelight-backlit ghoulish orange faces was not haunting my nightmares; I woke up because I heard sounds from the kitchen.
Great thumps and thuds, a raucous clatter of bangs, the occasional crash. In my pajamas, I would wander barefoot through the cold rooms, and peer around the corner. My mother stood there, stripping down the pumpkins of their seeds and flesh, wielding a knife with murderous dexterity. Eventually, she would spot me, and for hours I would watch her make pies as we ate her homemade pumpkin cheesecake.
At the end of the night, she would roast all the pumpkin seeds she had accumulated from the guts of the pumpkins through the dark hours, and we would sit together on the couch, under a blanket, and eat the salt after all that sweet, watching reruns. Many of you have been asking how to roast the perfect pumpkin seed. Now you know.
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Posted by Kerry Saretsky, October 29, 2008 at 11:15 AM
Editor's Note: Since it's the last Wednesday in October, this will conclude our black and orange recipe feature. Thank you Kerry for creating each one!
I find that it pays off to seriously invest your time in a main course, but when it comes to appetizers, and especially to dessert, I say buy fabulous ingredients and arrange them simply and thoughtfully, but without much fuss. Here, I use dark chocolate, pumpkin gelato, and fresh mint to create a sweet, after-dinner pumpkin patch with flavors for children and grown-ups alike, with a touch of whimsy and certainly some elegance.
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Posted by Kristen Swensson, October 27, 2008 at 6:45 PM
On Mondays, Kristen Swensson of Cheap, Healthy, Good swings by these parts to share a healthy, delicious, and budget-conscious recipe with us. Today, a recipe perfect for pumpkin season.
On occasion, to make a low-calorie recipe palatable, it becomes necessary to increase the calories. It can’t be helped. Food needs flavor, see, and all too often, homemade diet goods lack that key element.
Case in point: the original incarnation of these pumpkin muffins. The recipe, lifted from a website called Half My Size, clocked in at a glorious 128 calories and 1 gram of fat per serving. Sadly, you could tell. A half-cocked smattering of pralines gave each muffin some oomph, but couldn’t compensate for the … well, for the nothing. There wasn’t really a whole lot going on.
Still, with a few alterations, I thought the dish could be saved. So, I doubled the spice, increased the brown sugar by a few tablespoons, and switched out the praline topping for a straight-up streusel. It added about 40 calories and 1 gram of fat per muffin, but the difference in taste was massive. Warm, moist, sweet, and a little chewy, they had quite suddenly become acceptable breakfast muffins - something I would serve to guests, or even my sister (a.k.a. The Pickiest Person Alive). If and when I make them again, I’ll probably add a cup of chopped apples to the batter, just to mess around with the texture.
Just one note if you’d like to try ‘em yourself: oat bran is the second listed ingredient. I tend not to have any hanging around the house, but a little research showed that mulching some rolled oats in a food processor creates a suitable stand-in. (2/3 cup rolled oats makes 1/2 cups oat bran substitute). It worked beautifully, so fear not.
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Posted by Kerry Saretsky, October 22, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Editor's Note: Every Wednesday this month, our fabulous intern Kerry will share an original black and orange recipe that's simple, festive, and elegant. Nothing scary about it, except the colors!
My mother calls me pumpkin because she thinks I'm sweet—and I was born in November. But, truth be told, me and my namesake gourd can be just as hot and spicy as we are sweet, so watch out.
The cinnamon in this creamy pumpkin bisque lends a pinch of tradition, while the enormous spice from the chili flakes shout an unexpected Boo! to your palate. Served in roasted pumpkin bowls, armed with crisp pumpernickel soldiers, and crowned with a sprinkling of fresh thyme stems and roasted pumpkin seeds, scooped from the cavernous pumpkins, this complex Halloween soup proves that split personalities are not only the scariest, they are also the most delicious.
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Posted by Kerry Saretsky, October 17, 2008 at 3:15 PM
According to the California Pizza Kitchen Family Cookbook, this recipe is "pumpkin pie on a pizza crust." This little jack-o-lantern gives a new life to the phrase "pizza pie," and from one pizza and pie lover to another, why not? Cute for kids, playful for adults. It’s time for some face on your pie, instead of a pie in your face. And now you have the recipe to the famous CPK honey-wheat crust.
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Posted by Lucy Baker, October 17, 2008 at 10:45 AM
I once had a roommate, Laura, whose mother would send each of us mini-loaves of pumpkin bread, plus a larger loaf for the entire apartment, every Halloween. It was a thoughtful gesture, and one that I looked forward to every fall. At a certain point, we all grow out of trick-or-treating, but we never lose our taste for comforting sweets when the chilly weather hits. Especially whey they're pumpkin-flavored.
A few weeks ago, a Trader Joe's moved to my Brooklyn neighborhood. Unable to contain my excitement, I went on opening day and came home with a boatload of groceries purchased entirely on impulse: diet pomegranate soda, barbecue-flavored soy chips, jarred artichoke pesto. I also picked up a box of Trader Joe's Pumpkin Bread & Muffin Mix ($2.99), probably because it was right around the time Laura's mom would have sent us our annual loaves.
Later that same week, I stumbled upon a recipe on the King Arthur Flour website for Pumpkin Yeast Bread. Never one to fear excess (especially when it comes to baking), I decided to make the Trader Joe's mix and the King Arthur's homemade version at the same time and compare the results.
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Posted by Kerry Saretsky, October 15, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Editor's Note: Our intern Kerry checks in with another black and orange recipe. She said this one is her favorite yet!
To give credit where credit is due, this dish is the scion of Giada de Laurentiis's Spaghetti with Eggplant, Butternut Squash, and Shrimp, which she also concocted as a black and orange Halloween feast. Being the controlling French foodie that I am, I had to then go about changing it: making the flavors a bit more delicate, and the colors more emphatic.
The eggplant, which can be unreliable, was sacrificed, and Giada's fresh orange spaghetti was swapped in with rich squid-ink black fettuccine (to pop against the orange studs of squash and shrimp). The sauce is luscious – creamy and light all at once – and acts as the perfect “Halloween for grown-ups” dish.
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Posted by Kerry Saretsky, October 8, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Editor's Note: Every Wednesday this month, our fabulous intern Kerry will share an original black and orange recipe that's simple, festive, and elegant. Nothing scary about it, except the colors!
Halloween is a kids' holiday that adults just can't bring themselves to stop celebrating. So this recipe does double duty. Leave out the Dijon and thyme for the kids, or leave them in for an adult version of the ultimate kids' food: grilled cheese. The black of the pumpernickel bread and the orange of the sharpest cheddar melt together in a savory Halloween bite, tempered by the sweet slices of apple. The colors are a little trick of the eye; the sandwich is a little treat for yourself.
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Posted by Kerry Saretsky, October 1, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Everyday this month, we'll have something Halloween-inspired for you in the morning.
On Wednesdays, it will always be an original black and orange recipe that's simple, festive, and elegant. Nothing scary about it—except the colors!
This first salad pairs white fennel with Navel oranges, or if you prefer a sanguine effect, blood oranges. Crowning the top are black poppy-speckled, seared sea scallops. The sweetness of the oranges and the scallops coupled with the licorice twist of the fennel makes this something like grown-up candy. A sophisticated and fresher alternative, I'd say!
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Posted by Zach Brooks, October 31, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Photograph from concrete angel on Flickr
In honor of Halloween, I wanted today's Serious Sandwich to be truly terrifying. Something that was both scary good, but also just plain scary. I think this one fits the bill. I don't know if it's good, but it certainly is terrifying on many levels. Why bother with the same old Italian hero at your Halloween party when you can petrify your guests with Paula Deen's "Snake Bites Sandwich"?
Enter the haunted house of a Paula Deen sandwich, where the first obstacle is finding the bologna, ham, salami, and Monterey Jack that have become lost in the winding, crisp crust (from a can of course). Beware of being lashed by its roasted red pepper tongue, as you stare down the beast through its chilling pimento-stuffed olive eyes. Surprisingly there's no extra fat in this recipe (considering the source), so you'll have to be satisfied with the already butter-filled crescent rolls that make up the easily penetrable skin of the beast. Ooooh, and don't forget a little dip in Dijon mustard. Creepy indeed!
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Posted by Ed Levine, October 31, 2006 at 3:25 PM
Larry Gonick, a brilliant San Francisco-based cartoonist, is an avid and very fine home cook. He did a series of recipe cartoons for newspapers that I've always loved. Here's one for Halloween:
Click on the cartoon for a larger view.
