Slashfood

• Coolest pumpkin ice cream dish speaks for itself
  

  Filed under: Dessert, Pumpkin Day

  Pumpkin season is coming up and without getting in to GMO pumpkins and the nutritional value of ice cream, let's get imaginative and make some pumpkin ice cream, served in a creative way.
  • You'll need an ice cream maker(there are even ball shaped models that can be kicked around at partie, though I have never tried one) and a good pumpkin grown for its meat, rather than just its appearance.

  • This can be a family endeavor-- messy. In this typical ice cream recipe I would add two cups of good and mashed pumpkin meat. Not too stringy. Make the ice cream and...
    
  
  
  
  • Shooting pumpkins: the 20th annual Punkin Chunkin contest
    

    Filed under: Parties, East Coast, Farming, Vegetables, Pumpkin Day

    This is a banner year in Millsboro, Del. - it's the 20th anniversary of the famed Punkin Chunkin contest. Inventors and miscreants from all over seek to toss a pumpkin the farthest (up to 4,000 feet for the superstars). It may not be culinary, but it uses up those leftover pumpkins (with their stringy flesh so inferior to butternut squash), and it legitimizes the pastimes of those who spend Halloween surreptitiously hurling pumpkins stolen from their neighbors' porches. Piece of useless trivia: it's called "pie" when your pumpkin releases from the cannon already in pieces....
    

  
  
  
  • A Virtual Potluck of Pumpkins - Back for Seconds
    

    Filed under: Lunch, Breakfast, Dinner, Hors D'oeuvres, Snacks, Dessert, Vegetables, Fruit, Baking, On the Blogs, Boiling, Roasting, Pumpkin Day

    Yesterday, slashfood was pulling a Charlie Brown, waiting for the Great Pumpkin. Lots of pumpkins all over the place, but here are a few we missed during the first course:
    
    The most important thing in Nic's kitchen is the Baking Sheet, which turns out Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies.
    
    Also baking, but Baking Lowfat, Arienna makes Pumpkin Walnut Muffins, with a nutty, crunchy topping.
    
    Joe, who gets
  
  
  
  • Sweet or savory: how do you like your pumpkin?
    

    Filed under: Dinner, Dessert, Vegetables, Pumpkin Day

    My husband and my long-time ex-boyfriend have very little in common. One thing they do share, however, is an aversion to savory squash dishes. No matter how lovingly I'd prepare, say, acorn squash stuffed with lentils, or butternut soup flavored with paprika and cumin; they'd both turn up their noses. "Pumpkin is just for pies," each would say. My husband, the more generous of the two (hence his status as my husband), would gamely take a serving. And barely make a dent.

    "I love you, I just can't eat savory squash," was the message. Come dessert time, the

  
  
  
  • Pumpkin Pie Overdose? - Pumpkin Cheesecake
    

    Filed under: Dessert, Vegetables, Recipes, Fruit, Baking, Pumpkin Day

    

    I love pumpkin pie. I bake pumpkin pie, I eat pumpkin pie at every holiday gathering, I take home leftover pumpkin pie and have it for breakfast. In the time between the start of Halloween festivities (which seems to start earlier and earlier every year) and the holidays at the end of the year, I'll have overdosed on pumpkin pie, swearing that I'll never eat it again. (Until next October, of course.)

    So in an effort to add some variety to the fall/winter dessert repertoire, I bake a pumpkin cheesecake at least once. It's a little more work than the evaporated milk and canned pumpkin that go into a pie,...
    

  
  
  
  • Chocolate Pumpkin
    

    Filed under: Snacks, British Isles, Chocolate, Stores & Shopping, Pumpkin Day

     I think our esteemed team leader down the pumpkin patch gulag was under the impression I was going to do a post on pumpkin AND chocolate!

    Not on your life! Having already subjected my taste buds to such delights as Citrouille au Jammon De Bayonne and Nigel Slater's Spiced Pumpkin Soup with Bacon (have I mentioned that I really don't like pumpkin.. .or swede, or parsnips or mushy peas come to that??) there is only one thing that will save me know - Chocolate Pumpkin!

    Oh yes baby... come to the scribbler....

    (Orange flavoured chocolate pumpkin...
    

  
  
  
  • Squash tutorial, from acorn to turban
    

    Filed under: Recipes, Fruit, How To, Pumpkin Day

    I've eaten my way through most of the squash alphabet, starting with "acorn" and "butternut" and working my way down to "spaghetti" and "turban." I've also sliced, peeled, and hacked my way into them. It's sometimes a challenge, and other times downright dangerous (but I still have all my fingers, so I've got that going for me). I've found a couple of things:
    

    • most squashes are interchangeable in recipes
      
    • most squashes are hard to cut
    • all squashes can be cooked the same way, if recipes escape you: slice them in half, scoop out the seeds,...
      
    
    
    
    • Pumpkin Japanese-style: Simmered kabocha two ways
      

      Filed under: Dinner, Vegetables, Asia, Recipes, Boiling, Pumpkin Day

      Kabocha or Japanese pumpkin has slightly sweet taste, and it is cooked in many different ways in Japanese cuisine. Tempura is a one way (my favorite) but I also love it simmered in dashi or in miso soup. When simmered in dashi, it is warming and comforting and makes for a lovely, simple dinner along with some steamed rice. Kabocha in miso soup makes it even more sublime. Kabocha is usually added to miso soup in the fall. The creamy, sweetness of the kabocha offsets the salty miso perfectly. According to Setsuko Yoshizuka, about.com's Japanese cuisine...
      
    
    
    
    • Nigel Slater's Spiced Pumpkin Soup With Bacon
      

      Filed under: Lunch, British Isles, Recipes, Books, Boiling, Pumpkin Day

      I know I keep on about Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries - it just seems to have hit a culinary nerve - but here is a recipe, in keeping with today's Pumpkin theme, recorded under February 20th.

      Spiced Pumpkin Soup With Bacon

      • a medium onion
      • 2 plump cloves of garlic
      • 50g butter
      • 900g pumpkin
      • 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
      • 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
      • 2 small dried chillies
      • 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
      • 4 rashers smoked bacon
      • 100ml single cream

      Peel and roughly chop the onion. Peel and slice the garlic. Melt the butter and cook both onion and garlic until soft and translucent. Peel the pumpkin, remove the stringy...
      

    
    
    
    • Canned pumpkin - is it really pumpkin?
      

      Filed under: Dessert, Science, Farming, Business, Fruit, Pumpkin Day

      "100% pure pumpkin" crows the Libby web site. They announce that they only use "a special variety of pumpkin called the Dickinson." But is that really pumpkin? Experts disagree. For one, it's not orange. The Dickinson Field squash belongs to a species known as Cucurbita moschata, sharing a genus (Cucurbita) with the Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins, but betraying its Halloween-y origins with a decidedly tan skin. A little like the butternut squash - and, in...