Posts tagged with pumpkin

 

When I saw this recipe while cruising VeganMoFo blogs, I knew I’d be making it soon. I mean, I had JUST cooked up a big batch of chickpeas. How could I not? Plus I’m apparently obsessed with pumpkin right now. I even bought one at the farmer’s market this weekend to bake up for myself. But for the hummus, I used the lazy canned kind. But I made up for that laziness by making my own pita.

 

For the pita, I used the recipe in The Bread Bible. It’s pretty simple and the dough can rest in the fridge for up to three days. So it’s easy to make them on your timetable rather than letting the yeast rule you. 

 

resting pita dough

resting pita dough

 

all rolled out

all rolled out

 Oh yeah, I almost forgot the really fun part about the pita. I mixed up the dough Sunday evening. I was a little tired. When I was getting the water, I just filled a measuring cup with water, then checked the temperature to make sure it was okay. The next step would have been to poor off the excess and pour the amount the recipe called for into the bowl. But I just dumped the whole thing into the bowl. Crap! So I added a little more yeast and flour until it felt right. Apparently I am learning what “feels right” means because they came out just fine. All but one even puffed like it should. And that one half puffed.

 

puffy fresh baked pita balls

puffy fresh baked pita balls

So, what about that hummus & chard? I gave you the link to the pumpkin hummus at the beginning. I don’t know if my garlic was super strong, but if you’re garlic shy, you should start with half the amount and see how you like it. I liked it just fine! It’s also a wee bit spicy. It mixes up really nice and smooth in the food processor. Sometimes hummus recipes don’t behave as well. The chard is Tunisian Braised Chard from Olive Trees and Honey. Flavorful and juicy. The pot liquor was so good that I’ve been drinking it after I finish the veggies. 

 

pumpkin hummus, tunisian braised chard, pita

pumpkin hummus, tunisian braised chard, pita

This post brought to you by: Kevin’s old powerbook! Which is really cute and small and sort of makes me wish the new MacBooks had a little bitty version. Bad news: someone broke into my house and took my shit. Good news: I’ll get a new computer a little sooner than I was planning. Bad news: probably not replacing camera. 

Oh, and it might be too late, but I’m going to send this to Susan at Wild Yeast Blog for YeastSpotting. Even if it doesn’t make it, you should check out the YeastSpotting round-up every Friday. You’ll drool over all the bread yummies people have been making.

A couple of weeks ago we had a big ‘ol vegan Thanksgiving to send off a friend to Ghana since she was going to miss it. We had all the appropriate goodies like Tofurky, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, etc. It was a huge carbfest! The best part is that we get to do it all again when real Thanksgiving rolls around. Woo hoo! I brought an apple pie and this Pumpkin Bundt with Maple Glaze.

It’s a veganized version of this recipe. I used flax seeds for a couple of the eggs and vegan sour cream for another couple. Then I just added a bit more soy milk to make up for the 1 less egg’s worth of eggy sort of stuff. And subbed maple syrup for the honey in the glaze.

So I’m going to try and participate in VeganMofo this year. That’s a post about vegan food every weekday for the entire month of October. Oy. We’ll see how that goes.

Hey, so if I used whole wheat penne in the Pumpkin Baked Ziti recipe from Veganomicon that makes it have, like, negative amounts of calories and fat, right? Right? Sigh, I guess not. It makes an ass-ton too, so I’ma need to freeze some of it. It kind of dirties a lot of dishes and takes a while, slightly less then 2 hours from start to face stuffing, but like the Butternut Squash Lasagna, it’s worth it. I even made the bread crumbs for it from a bread I tossed in my bread machine at the end of last week.

Pretty in the pan. 

pumpkin baked ziti

All messed up on my plate.

pumpkin baked ziti on a plate 

Back in November, I tried making the Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls from Don’t Eat Off the Sidewalk #2 and while they tasted great, they didn’t rise properly. So I gave them another shot. And they came out perfectly. I was even 1/4 cup short of pumpkin, but just added a splash more of soy milk when the dough seemed too dry. I think last time I used a packet of yeast. This time I just used the bread machine yeast I keep in the fridge. Also, to make sure it indeed had a warm place to rise, I turned on the oven for a minute to 200 degrees F, then turned it back off and put the dough in there. I left the door open until it felt to be a good warm rather than hot temperature and left it in there to do it’s thing. So one of those things, or both, resulted in kick ass cinnamon rolls.pumpkin cinnamon rolls 

With the cake finally gone, it was time to move on to the next food project. I had some pumpkin puree in the freezer so how about some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins? I used this recipe but instead of the whole wheat flour used unbleached white flour. Why pretend these are going to be healthy, right? Anyway, they’re yummy!

pumpkin chocolate chip muffins