Pumpkin Muffins

Yes, yes, another pumpkin recipe, but that roasted pumpkin gave more material that what I would have anticipated, so I had to look for another recipe to use the 1 cup left of pumpkin flesh I still had. And these turned out pretty great! and the recipe yields 12 decent muffins, so really, what else can you want? The recipe is from Cooking Classy.  Nevertheless I altered a few ingredients, like the amount of sugar and salt because I hate super sweet stuff as you know. Also I added more spices so that they would taste stronger, like more spiced.

INGREDIENTS:
-1+1/2 cup of flour (212 grams)
-175 grams of sugar.

-1/2 cup of oil.

-1 cup of pumpkin flesh.

-2 eggs.

-1 tsp baking powder.

-1/2 tsp baking soda.
-1/2 tsp salt.

-1/2 tsp ginger.

-1 teaspoon mixed spice.

-1 and 1/2 tsp of pumpkin spice.

STEPS:
1. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl. 
2. Mix all wet ones in a bowl.
3. And now mix it all together in a third bowl.
4. Pour mixture into cups and bake for 10 minutes at 220 degrees and then turn down temperature to 175 and leave them there for about 20 minutes or 25.  They will look down at the top.

So good! ha....yum these are yummy, fluffy, not dry and spiced...and woah what a color. 

Pumpkin Bread

I get a little bit sick every autumn to hear Americans talk about pumpkin this, pumpkin that, and all the pumpkin shots in Facebook. But yesterday I bought a real pumpkin and then after roasting it and mixing it with sugar I began to understand their fascination....it is so good! 

So I roasted it and made around 4 cups of pumpkin puree with the handblender and I made this pumpkin bread that Deb Perelman had that looked straight out of a Dickens storybook. And it is GOOD! Wow so good, and not hard. Here it is. The sugar may seem a bit insane but remember that pumpkin puree is not sweet AT ALL. 

INGREDIENTS:
-1 and 3/4 cups of pumpkin puree. 
-1/2 cup of vegetable oil (or 115 grams of melted butter)

-300 grams of flour.

-3 eggs.

-330 grams of sugar.

-1 and 1/2 tsp of baking powder.

-3/4 tsp of baking soda.

-3/4 tsp of salt.

-3/4 tsp cinnamon.

-1/2 tsp ginger (you can put 1/4, I like the ginger kick)

-1/4 tsp nutmeg. 

-1/6 ground cloves.

For the top:

-1 tablespoon of white sugar.

-1 tsp of cinnamon.

STEPS:

1. Whisk oil, eggs and sugar until smooth.

2. Add baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and whisk.

3. Now add puree and whisk.

4. Now add flour and whisk with spoon until flour disappears.

5. Pour onto dish and now sprinkle the topping sugar that you have mixed with cinnamon. 

6. Bake for 1 hour in 175 degrees approximately, but try with knife towards the end to make sure it comes out completely dry.

Very good recipe, and not too sweet. A great fall dessert. Honestly this pumpkin bread is the type of stuff you buy in Starbucks.

Here are the photos of the roasting part, and one of Cambridge in the fall. 

 

           

White Bean Soup with Bacon

"If I had a restaurant, I would include this soup in the menu". 

And that was the declaration I pronounced after the first taste of this amazing soup. And it is great because I have been meaning to include more legums into our diet...Do you know that you are supposed to eat 3 times a week legums: lentils, beans or chickpeas??? I definitely do not do that, but I think I should at least try do it once or twice per week. Well, this recipe will do that for you, also it is not hard (perhaps the khale part, although you can also skip). This recipe is an adaption of Smitten Kitchen's version, which includes even more yummy touches here and there, but to me this soup was already real fantastic with all the fancy touches. 

The game changer of this recipe was: bacon. 

INGREDIENTS:
-600 grams of potatoes. 
-200 grams of smoked bacon.
-1,5 litres of water.

-500 grams of soft white beans.

-1 big garlic clove 

-1/2 onion.

-salt and pepper

-some khale leaves (optional)

STEPS:

1. Fry up the bacon in slices in a pot and set aside.

2. In the same pot, don't scrub it!!! sautee the onion and garlic until traslucent.

3. Now fill up with water and add the potatoes that you have previously diced (no need to peel just clean them well).

4. Bring to a boil and simmer everything until potatoes soften. 

5. Now add the beans and bring again to boil.

6. Now turn it down and puree with hand blender, it will be thick but also beautifully coloured.

6. Now let it cool and season with salt and pepper (or you can also add some vegetable stock with no water.

7. Now add bacon on top, and also you can add some crispy khale on top (which is so good but takes some work).

8. The way you do khale crispy is simple: wash it, dry it and coat well with olive oil and salt and place in oven for about 15 minutes....watch it! cause it can burn fast.

So so good you all, a great way to eat beans. Taste amazing. This one is a keeper for fall. This picture is in the highlands in Scotland.

Thai Bean Sprout Salad

Bean sprouts just go bad so fast, don't you think??? 

I had a whole bag and I looked for a salad recipe. This one came up and was pretty good! Will be making this again because it was so fresh. This is more or less the recipe I followed but with a few twists of another recipe.

INGREDIENTS:
-2 cups of bean sprouts more or less. 
-1 cucumber sliced.

-2 small carrots sliced.

-1 cup of cilantro.

-1/2 cup of peanuts crushed.

Dressing:

-3 tablespoons of rice wine.

-3 tablespoons of sunflower/sesame oil

-the juice of 1 lime.

-2 tsp. grated ginger.

-1 clove of garlic grated.

-1 tablespoon of fish sauce.

-2 tablespoon of honey.

-some black pepper but NO salt.

There are no steps other than assemble the salad and mix the dressing and pour over aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand add the peanuts. The peanuts on top is so so so good a game changer. Very good, healthy and crunchy. Obviously in this salad you can play around with some mint, some basil....try it.

American Burgers

Burgers are a great way to use mince. This summer we had a picnic with some people and the idea BING! struck. I did this recipe and my american friends, with whom I share the burgers with were pretty impressed. Then since I didn't write it here, I forgot it! So I made them yesterday and so here it is.

INGREDIENTS:

-400 grams of ground beef.

-1 egg.

-a squirt of milk.

-1 tsp of garlic powder.

-1 tsp of onion powder.

-1 tablespoon of Worcester sauce.

-1/4 tsp of salt.

-1/4 tsp of black pepper.

-5-6 tablespoons of breadcrumbs.

STEPS:

1. Combine everything in bowl very very well with fork or hands. You may need to add more breadcrumbs so that it is not too liquidy.

2. Make "balls" and then flatten them to make patties.

3. The way I fry the patties is by putting them in high heat and then quickly turning it down and then after 3 minutes flip them and then cover them. That way they are cooked inside but also a little toasted.

I think this recipe is pretty good!