Pasta with Pumpkin Sauce

Have you ever wanted a bowl of pasta but were quite tired of the same old tomato or marinara sauce on pasta? Or if you're a little more old school and keep it clean with just garlic and olive oil, haven't you wished you could bring a new, fresh flavor into your bowl of pasta? I felt exactly that way last week, and I wanted a new sauce quickly (in about the time it took the pasta to cook).

I had a can of pumpkin around, and if you've been reading this blog from the beginning you might have gotten the hint that I am a culinary sucker for pumpkin. It's really just so versatile in how you can use it in so many dishes, either as a star or as part of the supporting cast. Faigy and I (if you haven't noticed, my wife and I are co-bloggers now; I lucked out with someone just as (if not more so) culinarily talented and inclined as myself) have been toying with the idea of making pumpkin gnocchi for quite some time now. Unfortunately it was a rather lazy Sunday so that wasn't happening. But we could do the next best thing - have pasta with some sort of pumpkin sauce.

I wanted to really highlight the savory notes of pumpkin this time, which stands in contrast to a lot of other pumpkin recipes I'm a fan of. I decided to use dairy as the platform upon which to build these flavors - first and foremost starting with frying (not just sautéeing) onions in butter. Some milk thins out the thicker canned pumpkin and gives the sauce some creaminess, but what really steps up the flavor is fresh-grated Parmesan cheese. It's sometimes hard to find blocks of Parmesan kosher, so in a pinch the bottled pre-grated Miller's stuff will do, but it's hard to beat the fresh stuff. The cheese brings out some of the nuttiness dormant in the butter and pumpkin, and is enhanced if you add the toasted crushed walnuts.

The last really crucial thing to this recipe is the finishing touch: extra virgin olive oil. Now, I am often one to just skip garnishes and like accoutrements to recipes I see; you are free to do so with the others in this recipe, but I warn you, DO NOT SKIP THIS. The fruitiness of the olive oil adds a really powerful contrasting accent to the savory sauce we've built up and teases out some of the fruitiness the pumpkin is hiding. Since it's raw, definitely use the extra virgin stuff (we just used generic Fairway brand and it was fantastic).

You can in fact make this entire recipe pareve/dairy-free (as indicated) but be aware that if at all possible, you should re-make it in its dairy form another time to compare and contrast.

A fresh autumn take on pasta sauce

Cranberry & Caramelized Apple Chicken

Here's another fall/winter favorite. I came up with this recipe sometime last year when I was thinking about cranberry crunch and I decided it would be great to turn it into a chicken recipe (well, maybe minus the crunch).

This is a fairly easy recipe which packs HUGE amounts of flavor. There's something special about the combination of brown sugar, apples, cinnamon and cranberries. It's very important to make sure you get the cranberry sauce with whole cranberries - that give the necessary texture, to the final sauce; plus, it's already sweetened so you don't need to add anything extra to it.

Also, there are two ways you could go about caramelizing the apples: you can use white sugar and melt it, creating caramel, and then toss in the apples; or you can use brown sugar, which seems to dissolve a lot more readily (probably because it's got the moisture of molasses built-in) and then toss the apples in that. The first time I made this recipe I used white sugar, but this last time I was in a rush so I used brown.

The difference is the time and care that the caramelization takes with white sugar (it does take quite a few minutes for it to melt...using the oil was my shortcut to make this happen slightly quicker since oil is a good conductor), and the fact that you need to be careful to stop the cooking before it burns (accomplished by adding the apples to drop the temperature of the skillet). With the brown sugar, it seems you just don't need to wait as long and it doesn't seem to be as finicky a process. The end result though, in my opinion, is that the white sugar method tastes a lot richer and sweeter than the brown, but the brown works just as well if you're short on time.

Is it chicken? Is it dessert? I don't know but it's very addicting.

Pumpkin Potato Kugel

Just in time for Thanksgiving! Still looking for that unique side dish that will make your guests go "Hm! Mm!"? You're in luck! This autumn take on a Shabbat classic will definitely bring a host of interesting flavors to the party.

Now, I'll admit, I did not use fresh pumpkin - and I should have since it's pumpkin season. Shame on me. But, I've had a lonely can of pumpkin puree sitting around for a long time and it's been begging me to use it in a fall-themed dish. If you have the time to cut open a pumpkin and scoop out its flesh (use the rest of it for other goodies - e.g. stuff it with fruits and nuts and bake it!), you should do that. If not, the canned stuff works just fine.

If you don't have a food processor, the classic way of grating by hand is the old standby (that's how I used to do it before I got my food processor). I like using the grating disk to fool people into thinking that I slaved over grating it by hand, therefore they must all enjoy. Also, I like the texture of grated potatoes over shredded.

This is actually a modification of my standard potato kugel recipe - which I will probably post at some later point when I have a picture to show for it. In the meantime though you can probably reverse engineer it. If you're into that sort of thing. I know I am.

A fall variation on a classic courtesy of your favorite gourd - pumpkin!

Pumpkin Potato Kugel

6 potatoes
1 large onion
1 can pureed pumpkin (fresh is good too)
4 large eggs, beaten
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup oil
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated if possible)
1/4 tsp allspice
A few sprigs fresh thyme, optional
2 tbsp brown sugar, optional
Heavy pinch of salt
Ground black pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Grate the potatoes and onion together, by hand or in a food processor. Squeeze out as much moisture as possible.

3. Dump potato and onion into a boil along with remaining ingredients (except 1 tbsp. brown sugar, if using). Mix very well until you can no longer see flour and everything is well-incorporated.

4. Spray a 9x13 baking pan with cooking spray. Pour the mixture into the pan and smooth out the top. If using, sprinkle remaining brown sugar all over the top to add a deeper molasses color to the top.

5. Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (normally I would say bake until brown but color is hard to tell with the pumpkin orange).

Serves 12-16, depending how big you cut it.

Perfecting Potato Latkes (with Sweet Potato variation)

I know I haven't posted any recipes in a while, but I've been busy with Hannukkah and perfecting my recipe for latkes (as well as going to a whole bunch of Hannukkah parties). In return for the lack of posting, I will offer you a much more detailed exploration of my "Latke Experiments" in search of the perfect latke...

I tried three major variations on the classic latke recipe, never having made latkes before in my life. The first one was my mother's recipe, which yielded latkes that were decent, but not full of enough flavor:

Attempt #1 at latkes

My neighbor, Yehudit, happened to have a bunch of unused fresh dill which she donated to my cause in return for a share in the good eats. My mother's original recipe contained parsley, but I figured I'd swap it for dill since I could lay my hands on fresh herbs. This turned out to be a very welcome flavor - but it wasn't enough.

The texture of these first attempt latkes wasn't that great. Notice how they are shredded in the picture. Most "authentic" recipes for potato latkes call for grating or shredding the potatoes and onion, in an attempt to mimic the hand grating that was always done in centuries past. Being a sucker for authenticity, I tried this and was underwhelmed - the onion flavor didn't permeate the pancake. So I decided to throw authenticity out the window and switched to the blade of my food processor to make quick work of pureeing the potatoes and onions.

The pureed mixture gave a much more even flavor distribution. I was also able to produce a fluffier texture by adding a teaspon of baking powder. Finally, I added some chopped scallions to accent the onion flavor. I ended up playing around with the flour amount and decided that increasing it from the original 2 tbsp that I started with to 3 tbsp was a better idea. This helped the pureed mixture absorb more moisture (good for frying - see below), which the shredded mixture did not do as well.

The other major part of creating a delicious latke is the frying itself. Seems straightforward, doesn't it? Well, it's not. There are several major concerns when frying latkes: 1) oil splatter and 2) uneven cooking, 3) greasy latkes. By my fourth (and last) batch of latkes, I was able to solve all three of these problems.

There's a right way and a wrong way to fry a latke...

My first batch had the problem of uneven cooking - the outside browned very quickly and the inside was still not perfectly cooked. This was because I had the heat on high, in an attempt to hasten the process. Bad idea. Lower the heat to medium-high or medium. Trust me - when recipes say its 2-5 minutes per side of latke, they actually mean it! I tried to speed it up and the results were not good.

My second batch had the problem of greasiness - the latkes came out way too oily and floppy. They also took way longer to cook than I expected. These were solved by careful monitoring of the oil temperature.

The ideal oil temperature for frying a latke, in my opinion, is 375 - the same temperature I use in the second frying stage of a french fry (come to think of it, another experiment I might have liked to try would be the 2-stage frying like one would do with french fries, just to see if it works with latkes too. Then again, that's deep frying and this is pan frying, so maybe not...). It is really important that you not put the latke batter in the pan until the oil comes up to temperature (it really is worthwhile to invest in an oil/candy thermometer).

The reason (as per Alton Brown's explanation on frying) is because when the oil is hot enough, the batter will exude steam from its insides. This escaping steam pressure repels the oil and prevents it from entering the crevasses. As long as there is steam escaping, there is not oil entering - and the inside of the latke actually cooks by steaming! Putting the batter in at too low a temperature will cause the steam to evaporate long before optimum browning temperature is reached, which means the final browned latke will be greasy. It will also extend your cooking time by making it take longer to reach the optimum browning temperature. Adding more oil after every 2 batches ensures that the temperature doesn't get too high.

And finally, the problem of oil splatter. Frying with oil can be very dangerous if you have very wet food. Drops of water in oil will cause the oil to pop and splatter everywhere, including your skin. The solution to this is to get rid of as much water as possible before frying! This leads to the extra step of draining the onions and potatoes. I also picked up a tip from the Kosher Blog's Potato Latke Master Recipe to wash the potatoes to get rid of excess starch, a tip I have also used in the past for making mashed potatoes.

All in all, I cooked 4 batches of latkes, learning something new from each one. By the end, I could say I knew how to make great latkes my way. So while there are plenty of recipes claiming to have the perfect latke recipe, I can tell you that my recipe is one of the few I definitely plan on making the same way twice.

Golden brown, crisp and delicious

Potato Latkes

6 Russet potatoes (these work better than Idaho)
1 large onion
2 eggs
3 tbsp. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1-2 tsp. lemon juice
Salt & pepper
~5 scallions, chopped
~1-2 tsp. dried parsley (optional)
~5 sprigs fresh dill, chopped (optional)
Canola oil, for frying

1. Fit a food processor with the rotating blade. Peel onion and puree it. Transfer onion puree to a colander or mesh strainer in a sink or over a bowl, but do not wash out the food processor bowl.

2. Puree potatoes by pulsing the processor a few times. You may need to work in smaller batches of potatoes to get an even puree. Transfer these to the strainer as well and mix with your hands a bit.

3. Rinse the puree mixture a little with water and allow to stand for a few seconds to drain. Using a tea towel, or your hands, squeeze out as much water as you can from the puree mixture. If using your hands, be sure to cup your hands around it tightly to avoid the mixture seeping through. Place the squeezed mixture into a work bowl.

4. Add lemon juice to the mixture. Beat the eggs, and add them, along with the flour, baking soda, scallions, and herbs. Add salt (I can't tell you how much exactly beyond "a heavy pinch" - do this with care though, since this can make the difference between a good and a bad latke) and ground black pepper to taste. Mix very well until thoroughly combined.

5. Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed pan or skillet. Oil should come up about 1/3 to 1/2 the desired height of the latke - probably about 1/2 cup, but eyeball it - you don't just want to coat the bottom of the pan, you want about twice that amount. Wait until the oil temperature reaches 375 degrees.

6. Using a wooden spoon, scoop heaping spoonfuls of batter mixture into the hot oil. Press with a spatula to flatten and form into the shape you like. Put in no more than 4 or 5 latkes into the pan at a time.

7. Fry until one side is golden brown, then flip and repeat. Each side should take between 2-5 minutes.

8. Transfer to a paper-towel lined cooling rack, baking sheet or plate when both sides are done. Finish cooking the entire batch before putting in more batter. Every 2 batches, add more oil to get back to the amount you originally had. Before putting in a new batch, always wait for the oil temperature to come back up - that's very important!

Serve with applesauce (store-bought or homemade) and/or sour cream.

Makes 15-20 latkes.

Sweet potato variation

Sweet Potato Latkes

Follow above recipe, except substitute 2 or 3 sweet potatoes for regular potatoes. You may want to add a little cinnamon or nutmeg too to bring out the sweet potato flavor.

Beta Recipe: Butternut Squash Risotto with Sundried Tomatoes

So, I haven't made risotto in a long time, and I wanted to try my hand at a non-dairy risotto. I saw a nice looking butternut squash at the farmer's market on Friday and decided that would make a nice complement to the risotto. I also found some pear cider from the same stand that I got the really good apple cider from the other week. I'd never had pear cider, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

I looked at a whole bunch of basic risotto recipes on Recipezaar and a couple of my cookbooks and settled on an amalgam of them all. Some interesting things I picked up from my research was the idea to use sun-dried tomatoes, as well as an unexpected ingredient - vanilla.

A lot of recipes with butternut squash seemed to combine it with sage - I wanted to use a fresh herb, but I just used sage last week in my soup, so I decided to try something different - fresh thyme. It turns out that this might not have been a good idea - maybe everyone said to use sage for a good reason. The thyme was okay, but it gave the dish a floral taste which I was not looking for.

As you can see from the picture, the dish came out beautiful with a great risotto texture. But the flavor was a little off. It was a little too sweet and fruity - I guess I hadn't realized that the squash itself would lend considerable sweetness that didn't need to be supplemented. I picked up on this as I was finishing the dish and decided to add a few dashes of lime juice to make it a little more tart. That helped, but not enough. I think the pear cider ended up being a bad idea and was unnecessary.

One interesting thing was the cooking method I used for the squash. I started boiling it in the stock, but it kept the broth from heating up a bit and I was in a big rush. So I removed the squash and roasted it in the oven till it started caramelizing which definitely helped the texture and flavor there.

I think the flavor ante in this dish can definitely be boosted. Here's how I would improve the recipe next time: I'd add more tomatoes and shallots, swap the thyme for sage, swap the pear cider for an extra cup of broth, and maybe try adding some different savory spices (turmeric, my "Moroccan wonder spice," comes to mind). I'd also consider leaving out the vanilla, but I'm not sure yet if that helped or hurt.

One note about the squash disassembly method: I took that from the Sister Cooks' blog - it was useful, having had to chop a squash the harder was before.

Here's the recipe as I originally made it, though in my notebook I wrote it down with some of these modifications already in there. Please feel free to improve on it and let me know what you come up with!

A lovely looking risotto, but it could've used more flavor

Butternut Squash Risotto with Sundried Tomatoes

2 cups arborio rice
6 sundried tomatoes, rinsed well and chopped
3 shallots, diced
1 butternut squash, cut to 3/4 inch cubes
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup pear cider
1 cup white wine
several sprigs of fresh thyme
1 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tsp lime juice
1 tsp vanilla
salt & pepper

1. Microwave squash for 2 minutes. Separate the bulb from the rest of the squash; peel the rest and cube it. Extract the seeds from the bulb and save for later.

2. Place squash into a pot with chicken broth and pear cider over medium heat. Add salt to taste.

3. Saute shallots in oil in a skillet over medium heat. When they begin to brown, add rice and saute until most of the grains are coated with oil.

4. Remove the squash from the broth and place on a greased baking sheet. Roast squash in an oven preheated to 475 unti the squash begins to brown (this should end up coinciding roughly with finishing the risotto).

5. Pour in half a cup of the squash-flavored broth into the skillet with the rice. Lower heat to medium-low. Stir constantly until rice absorbs the liquid (you should not see and liquid when you scrape the bottom of the pan with a spoon). Repeat this process until you have finished off the broth (this will take about 20-25 minutes of constant attention - be careful not to let it burn!)

6. Pour in wine half a cup at a time, similar to above process.

7. Add in vanilla and stir. Add fresh thyme leaves, lime juice, salt & pepper to taste.

8. Transfer to serving dish or aluminum tin, and add tomatoes and roasted squash and mix well.

Serves 10-12.

4 WW points.

Sweet Potato Succotash

So I had some leftover sweet potato from last week's farmer's market. I picked up some fresh apple cider this week too. I was debating what to make as a side dish this week and I was toying with doing my classic herb-apple mashed potatoes, sweet potato style. But then, Thursday night, I went to Supersol and picked up a container of their roasted corn salad and had that with dinner - it was roasted corn and peas, and it was delicious! This inspired me and made me think of trying out a dish I've only heard of - succotash.

Now, like many people, I am of course most familiar with succotash from Looney Tunes' Sylvester Cat saying "S-s-s-sufferin' succotash!" I never really knew what that meant till one day I saw a box of succotash in the freezer section of the supermarket - corn and lima beans.

Of course, lima beans were my arch enemy as a kid - I would always pick them out of vegetables or soup that my mom made. So why would I want to subject my friends (or myself) to the bland and mealy texture of lima beans? Certainly not. I decided take this old-fashioned classic and modernize it a bit - I chose to use edamame (soy beans) instead (they actually came in this amusing Dora the Explorer package). I combined that with my leftover sweet potatoes, since the meal I was going to was a Thanksgiving-themed meal, and I added some other veggies to give it a really bright color. I snuck in my fresh apple cider too which gave it a tinge of sweetness and fleshed out the flavors beautifully!

Bright fall colors, bold Thanksgiving flavor

Sweet Potato Succotash

3-4 ears of corn
1 cup frozen shelled edamame
1 large/2 medium sweet potato, diced
1 onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 plum tomatoes, diced
2 tbsp. canola oil
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup apple cider
~1.5 tsp thyme
~1 tsp parsley
Honey
salt & pepper

1. Shuck ears of corn, cleaning off husk and silk. Soak corn in water while oven preheats to 450 degrees.

2. When oven is ready, wrap each ear of corn in aluminum foil and put on the middle rack. Let corn roast for 20-30 minutes.

3. After corn is sufficiently cooked and golden yellow, unwrap the corn, keeping it in the foil and put them under the broiler for 5 minutes or so until kernels become golden brown. You may need to turn the cobs around a few times.

4. Halfway through corn cooking, saute onion and bell pepper together in oil in a skillet over medium heat until onions are soft. Add frozen edamame and sweet potato. Cook for 5-10 minutes until edamame thaws and sweet potatoes start to soften a little.

5. When corn is done, shock them in ice water to stop the cooking and make them easier to handle. Slice off kernels and add to skillet, along with tomatoes, thyme, parsely, salt and pepper, and mix.

6. Add chicken stock and apple cider, and drizzle a little honey over everything. Raise heat to medium-high, mix well, and continue mixing periodically. Cook until liquid is nearly entirely evaporated, and serve!

Serves 10.
2 WW points per serving.

Glazed Autumn Casserole

Last week, I happened to go to the farmer's market around the corner, just looking to see what looked good. I found a stand with these enormous just-dug sweet potatoes, and decided I should buy a bunch - I was very in the mood for a fall-themed side dish. I was also in the apple stand and decided to try a fruit I'd heard a lot about but never tried - quince. It's kind of like a really tart apple.

I looked a bit on Recipezaar to see what I could do with sweet potatoes and apples, and I came up with a lot of different casseroles - so I decided to give my own shot at a fall-style casserole, with Thanksgiving coming up soon. I gathered a bunch of other fall-themed ingredients like pecans, pumpkin and craisins to give it a more authentic autumn theme. (The sweet potato roasting method is from the November/December 2008 issue of Cook's Illustrated). This casserole is what I came up with - it was bursting with autumn flavor!

These are just leftovers...forgot to take a picture of the original

Glazed Autumn Casserole

4 medium (or 2 extremely large) sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced into rounds
2 peeled and diced quince or apples (Granny Smith would probably be good)
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp. fat-free margarine
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans

1/3 cup craisins

1 shot rum
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 large spanish onion, sliced
3 tbsp maple syrup
1 cup apple cider/juice
2 cinnamon sticks

2 tbsp. canola oil

2 (15 oz.) cans pumpkin
cinnamon
allspice
nutmeg
salt & pepper

1. Line baking sheet (or two) with aluminum foil and cooking spray. Coat sweet potato rounds with a bit of canola oil, salt and pepper. Lay sweet potato rounds out in one layer on sheet. Cover tightly with foil and place in a cold oven, then turn it to 425. DO NOT PREHEAT. Let potatoes cook for 30 minutes.

2. After potatoes are cooked, remove foil and leave them for another 5-10 minutes; flip them and cook them for an additional 5-10 minutes, till their color is nice and browned (be very careful not to burn! Burning the potatoes will make the final casserole texture stiff)

3. Meanwhile, caramelize sliced onions in the oil over med-high heat.

4. Melt margarine in another pan, and combine apples, pecans, nutmeg and brown sugar. Caramelize together till apples are well coated.

5. Finally, in one more pot combine apple juice, lemon juice, maple syrup, rum, craisins, cinnamon sticks and allspice. Cook over medium heat until reduced by about half, or until the glaze reaches a moderately thick consistency.

6. Once everything is finished, spray a casserole dish with cooking spray. Build the casserole in layers: first a layer of sweet potatoes, then a layer of onions, then a layer of apples & nuts, then spread one can of pumpkin evenly over everything. Salt the pumpkin layer to your taste. Repeat with one more set of layers, except instead of salting the top pumpkin layer, sprinkle cinnamon over it. Pour the glaze over the top of the casserole (you can keep the cinnamon sticks for garnishes), and serve!

7. Leftovers taste really, really good.

Serves 12.
2 Weight Watchers points per serving.