In this column, I’ve tried to break certain stereotypes about vegetarians: that we all support PETA, or that vegetarians and vegans are the same thing. Now I’m going to drop another knowledge bomb on you: vegetarians can be just as unhealthy as the rest of you. For example, last night, I took a wonderful vegetarian protein source, tempeh, which is also full of iron and calcium, and made a recipe that involved flour, breadcrumbs, sugar, and butter. Oh, copious amounts of wonderful, artery-clogging butter.

Yes, out of all of the recipes for broiled tempeh, or stir-fried tempeh, I managed to find a recipe for tempeh buffalo wings– and man, were they delightful.

These wings, or “tempeh wingz” as the recipe is actually titled, were obviously originally made by hippies, so I had to modify the recipe slightly. For instance, I do not own rice milk, so I used regular milk. I also don’t have panko, which are Japanese breadcrumbs, so I used regular breadcrumbs. The sauce also calls for agave nectar, but since I’m not Deb, I don’t have that in my kitchen. I ended up using sugar instead, which is a huge mistake that I’ll get to in a moment.

The process of making this is kind of interesting. First, you dip the cut tempeh into the milk, then you dip it in your flour and spices, followed by another milk bath, before it’s covered in breadcrumbs. You bake for 10 minutes on each side, and there you go. The sauce, the recipe for which is also at this link, is a little off for me. For one, it only calls for 2 1/2 T of hot sauce (btw, you have to use Frank’s. That’s not even up for discussion), and you really need way more than that. There is no way you should have 4 T of butter and 4T of ketchup and only use 2 1/2 T of hot sauce. That’s just crazy talk.

The big thing with the sauce though, is the agave nectar/sugar. YOU DON’T NEED IT. Again, I’d like to draw your attention to the 4 T of ketchup. That’s a lot of sugar right there. You don’t need any additional sweetener– it becomes a little sickly. When I made this, I had to add a crapload more hot sauce and a bunch of salt and pepper to try to counter-balance the sugar.

After some major doctoring though, these turned out deliciously. Even Luke, who was intrigued by the familiar buffalo wing smell, but weirded out by the whole tempeh thing, was intrigued. In fact, he ended up snagging several of them, saying that “they seem so wrong, but I still want some.” Now if that’s not an endorsement, I don’t know what is.

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As part of my Great Pumpkin Massacre of ‘09, I have been going through the bags of frozen pumpkin puree that I have stored in my freezer and making delicious treats. This weekend, I decided to bust out a recipe I had made once before: pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Fall to me = pumpkin, so I will put it in just about anything if you let me. It just makes everything instantly better. So chocolate chip cookies? Pretty damn good. Add pumpkin to that? Amazing.

The funny thing about these cookies is that I make them totally wrong– and I can’t figure out what it is that I’m doing different. Three possibilities: the recipe is actually from the King Arthur Flour website, so they naturally tell you to use King Arthur Flour. I do not, because I have no idea what that is. They also tell you to add walnuts, which I also do not do, because nothing ruins a dessert or a bread faster than nasty little nuts hiding inside, just waiting to ruin all of your flavor fun. The third (and the more I think about it, the most likely) possibility is that the fact that I’m using real pumpkin puree instead of canned is affecting the dough.

Whatever the reason, my cookie dough does not look like the cookie dough that they show you in the recipe. That dough looks firm and solid– like normal chocolate chip cookie dough. My dough, on the other hand, is much fluffier. This results in a almost cake-like cookie. In fact, I would say that they’re reminiscent of muffin tops. While I would prefer a more substantial cookie, it’s still freakin’ chocolate chip and pumpkin. So whatever the texture, it is delightful.

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Each week, fabulous recipes grace Debbie’s in-box and pop up on her computer screen, and she’s sharing her favorites with you.

I’ve got to admit, that even though I don’t eat wheat or white carbs, I always have a bite or two of stuffing on Thanksgiving. It’s partly because my dad makes the most wonderful stuffing imaginable, and partly because stuffing says “tradition” like no other side dish.

Imagine, for a moment, a Thanksgiving without a traditional stuffing. C’mon, try it — you’ll be all right. It’s fun to shake things up a bit and have something unexpected to put on your plate, isn’t it? If you’re a little too steeped in tradition and want to branch out a bit this year, here are some alternatives to a traditional stuffing that you and your guests are sure to enjoy. You might just create a new heirloom recipe for your family.

Butternut squash and cheddar bread pudding — This could very well be a near-perfect dish to go with turkey. There’s bread, but lots of cheese, cream, kale, and butternut squash will disguise it from anything resembling stuffing. And you’ve got your green veggie and orange veggie baked right in.

How about an autumn potato salad? Heidi Swanson breathes new life into a roasted potato salad with a mustard vinaigrette, roasted carrots, shallots, parsnips and scallions. Wouldn’t that be lovely with turkey — and a dish without all the bread is a welcome change.

Kona’s butternut squash risotto sounds like the perfect way to ditch the stuffing and enjoy something new to complement turkey (or Tofurky?). It’s seasonal, slightly sweet and rich … a Thanksgiving tradition in the making!

This barley bake is very simple, but with mushrooms, fresh parsley and onions all cooked in broth, it will compliment your turkey perfectly. And you can easily add your favorite ingredients to jazz it up a bit and wow your guests. Oh, and there’s pine nuts … score.

OK, technically this recipe for rice stuffing with apples, herbs and bacon is a stuffing, but non-traditional in that it’s rice. Who makes rice stuffing? Well, you could. I’m just saying. It’s got bacon.

How about you? Any non-traditional alternatives to stuffing to share with us?

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I bought brown rice tortillas this week, and that means quesadillas in our house. The little tortilla pies are not something we indulge in very often because they just don’t come out great with corn tortillas. Since Owen and I don’t eat wheat, and we find it hard to work with the texture of the sprouted grain tortillas, we weren’t really left with much choice until I stumbled upon these little beauties at Trader Joe’s.

Of course we couldn’t keep it simple — it’s like unleashing a newly released prisoner in Las Vegas, right on Brothel Street. It’s hard just to ease into it once you’ve been given permission to let loose. We made two different kinds of quesadillas tonight, and it was our melding of two cultures that created the masterpiece.

Yes, we put pesto in a quesadilla, along with homemade sausage from the local meat market, two kinds of cheese and some caramelized onions and mushrooms. A little drizzle of aged balsamic vinegar and a thing of culinary beauty was born.

Quesadilla with Pesto, Sausage and Caramelized Onion

Ingredients:

• 2 tortillas (we used brown rice ones)
• about 2 tablespoons pesto (we used our homemade pesto)
• gourmet sausage (about 1 per quesadilla; we used sun-dried tomato basil), casings removed
• 1 onion, thinly sliced and caramelized
• 8 ounces mushrooms, sliced and sauteed until just browning
• mozzarella cheese, shredded
• feta cheese, crumbled
• aged balsamic vinegar (10 years of syrupy sweetness)

Cook up veggies while scrambling the sausage in another pan until browned and cooked through, about 5-10 minutes.

Then assemble the quesadilla in the following order: bottom tortilla, mozzarella cheese to taste, sausage, onions, mushrooms, feta, more mozzarella, top tortilla.

In a 12-inch skillet over low-to-medium heat, place the quesadilla with a smaller skillet on top, to squish things together so the cheese acts like glue when it melts. Try for about 5 minutes a side, or until cheese is melty and tortillas brown to taste.

Cut with a pizza wheel into four piece and drizzle with the balsamic vinegar just before serving.

You may never go back to a Mexican quesadilla again.

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Ugh. Thanksgiving. I’ve never been much of a fan of this holiday. After all, when you’re not eating turkey, what’s the point? I know, I know, being thankful, family, blah, blah, blah. The thing is, I can do that without fighting traffic and spending all day in the kitchen. Fact: one of my favorite Thanksgivings was when my friend Elizabeth and I stayed in New York instead of going home and had grilled cheese at a diner and watched Harry Potter on IMAX. That’s how it should be done.

However, this year I am doing more of a traditional Thanksgiving, so I’m trying to figure out things to cook. Luckily, Elizabeth sent me this AMAZING recipe for butternut squash risotto. I made it last week, and it was a huge hit. The recipe yields something like 10 servings, and it was gone in like a day and a half. Of course, the whole “10 servings” thing is really if you’re using it as a side dish, but it’s rich and filling enough that it can easily be a main dish befitting a certain November holiday.

As far as risottos go, it’s actually not that hard to make. The difficulty for me came in the beginning when I had to coordinate cooking the risotto, heating up the vegetable stock and sauteing the sage. That’s kind of a lot for me to do at the same time. Once I got past that, however, I was golden.

Oh, speaking of which. The reason it was kind of difficult was because I had to make the stock out of bouillon cubes, so there was an extra step involved. Pro tip: use Knorr vegetable bouillon cubes instead of vegetable stock. It gives you a much richer (and according to Luke) beefier taste. It really enhances the flavors and helps make sure that the butternut squash isn’t too sweet.

The only other tricky part comes whenever you make risotto, which is to make sure you stir! Once you start adding the stock to the rice, you’re not going anywhere. The directions say that it takes between 15-30 minutes for all of the stock to absorb into the rice, but it took me at least 45. I was having a real My Cousin Vinny experience, wondering if it takes longer for water to soak into a piece of arborio rice in my kitchen than it does anywhere else on the face of the earth. Luckily though, everything worked out in the end.

Other than the timing, this recipe isn’t nearly as difficult to make as it may seem. Hell, if I can make it perfectly on my first try, I’m sure you can. The other cool thing about this, is that it’s relatively healthy and definitely inexpensive. One serving contains 371 calories, 10 g fat, 1.4 g fiber, and more importantly, only costs about $1.77. You can find a full nutritional and cost breakdown on the Cheap Healthy Good website.

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Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Hands down. No contest. I love all the food, the great times with family (without the stress of having to worry about presents), and the football. I love the turkey, the stuffing, the potatoes, the vegetables, the pies. I love it all.

One of my fondest memories of Thanksgiving is making sandwiches out of all the leftover food. In my family, we wouldn’t even wait until the next day, we would make sandwiches around eight in the evening, after dessert. It seems like in recent years, the Thanksgiving sandwich has become more and more popular, and why shouldn’t it? It’s delicious.

I’ve noticed the Thanksgiving sandwich popping up in more and more places. From local sub shops, to pubs and restaurants, even fast food places have started to feature the Thanksgiving (even D’Angelo has one). Each sandwich has subtle variations, but they are essentially the same: turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing in-between some bread. One of my coworkers swears that there has to be gravy for it to be a true Thanksgiving, but I don’t think it’s a necessity.

For me, the beauty of the Thanksgiving sandwich really comes from the stuffing. It’s all about the stuffing. I haven’t been shy about the fact that sage is one of my favorite herbs and it’s traditionally found in stuffing. Add to that the sweet and tart flavor of the cranberry sauce, and you have yourself a very delicious sandwich.

There’s something more to the sandwich, though. It’s not just about tasting good, there is some nostalgia at work. I can’t eat a Thanksgiving sandwich without getting a warm feeling inside, as I’m flooded with memories of Thanksgivings past and all the delicious food they contained.

Are you a fan of the Thanksgiving sandwich too?

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A. Camille Nicholson is a graduate student in Cultural Studies and English Literature. Although she worked as an E-Commerce Developer during the .com’s height, she attributes her burgeoning interest in the culinary/baking arts to her volunteer duties at a local non-profit bakery and the past two years teaching cooking classes for kids.

I have loved the Twinkie since the dawn of my birth. As a child of suburban New Jersey in the 1980s, my fuschia green lunchbox frequently entertained the usual elementary lineup: Watermelon Ssips, a bologna or peanut butter sandwich, chocolate milk (which inexplicably required school permission), and a member of the Hostess snack cake family — typically, its irascible younger sibling, the Twinkie.

I have consistently defended the Twinkie against verbal assaults from more nutritionally minded acquaintances. However, the Twinkie’s reputation is slightly better than what they assert, although, admittedly, by a small margin. Surprisingly, one Twinkie provides only 150 calories and 4.5 grams of fat. Although it contains corn derivatives and two types of glycerides, the only preservative embodied within its banana yellow sheath is absorbic acid. When introduced in 1933 during the Great Depression, its offering of two cakes for five cents assisted those enduring financial deficit.

Additionally, the Twinkie participated in the war effort. During the 1940s, the Allies wove banana peels into mats to prevent German troops from landing along Britain’s shores. The Continental Baking Company, at the behest of the National Board of Strategic Banana Reserves and Rationing, ceased to make banana flavored Twinkies. And, in the 1960s, the rumor of long-lasting Twinkies made the snack cake a favorite for bomb shelters.

Considering the childhood memories nestled within the oblong shape, I was unsurprisingly overjoyed to discover my ability to create them from scratch without undergoing the shame of purchasing a family-pack in-store, as a non-family person.

So, if you want to create your own ‘Twinkies’ or cream-filled cakes, feel free to follow the instructions below. I particularly owe gratitude to the site that reprinted the Vegan Lunchbox’s recipe.

Homemade Twinkies

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

- Get a normal cupcake/muffin tin. If you want the oblong shape, Hostess sells its own Twinkies Bake Set, but you can purchase a ‘petite loaf pan’ for around $10-12 from any bake or craft shop such as Michael’s.

- If you’re feeling lazy, use a box of yellow cake mix and follow the directions. However, if you’re feeling more adventurous, make your own batter from scratch. However, I suggest using cake flour (which is lighter) and omitting the peaches.

- As usual, Pam the pan, preheat at 350, cook for about 15 min, and cool.

- To make the cream filling, use the typical buttercream frosting recipe . If you have a pastry bag injector (or a quart-sized Ziploc bag with a pastry tip), fill the bag with the frosting until partially full. Now, here comes the magic which made me enamored with Twinkies from childhood on. Stick the pastry bag into the center of the muffin and squeeze until the cream enters the cake and a bit of overflow appears at the cake’s top. If you used the canoe or petite loaf pans, insert three holes into each snack cake. Feel free to fill some with strawberry jam for a healthier and adult treat.

- If you want, stop there and enjoy your moist, buttery snack. However, if you secretly desire to seep those lovely lasso cakes in a vat of hot boiling liquid, continue on your quest.

- A nice offset of creating homemade Twinkies is that they feature half the fat (and half the cost, as one box of cake mix yields almost 20-25 cakes).

Deep Fried Twinkies

- Freeze or refrigerate the cakes for 2-4 hours (to prevent disintegration and oil absorption).

- Once thoroughly chilled, roll the Twinkie in flour, dip into an egg beater batter, and roll in flour again.

- In the meanwhile, heat four cups of vegetable oil in a large, covered soup pot until it reaches a boiling point. Once it is hot enough, reduce the heat to a simmer. When you sense the oil will no longer rebel against you, uncover the pot, and insert your cake into the oil. Allow it to remain for 30 seconds (but no more than 90-120 seconds) and use metal tongs or a fork to submerge and rotate the Twinkie. Leave it in for the full time limit if you want a crispier snack cake.

- Fry 1-2 cakes at a time until complete.

- Enjoy with whipped cream and a glass of milk.

On a side note, because the homemade snack cakes lack cellulose gum they will absorb less oil and might not require the glass of antacid that I will still suggest you keep on standby.

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I don’t ask for much these days. As a mom of an almost-five-year-old who really, really likes me to put him to bed, I don’t get out much. So after a long week, when Friday night finally rolls around, I drink.

I know what you’re thinking, but work with me here. I’m not talking vodka in a secret flask inside my semi-attractive yet hefty mom purse. The perfect wine to match the delectable meal Keith and I have prepared for ourselves, to unwind and satiate — that’s what I’m talking about.

Sometimes, if we’re really lucky, there’s some of the bottle left for after Owen goes to bed. That’s when the real fun begins. Not because we’re drunk, because by that time the wine has basically put me to sleep. That’s right, it’s time to get out the chocolate. Sure, the caffeine might counteract the alcohol a bit and keep me awake to watch a TV show or two, but really, the pleasure is in how the wine and the chocolate compliment one another. In the words of any Japanese female judge on the original Iron Chef, they make my mouth happy. Or make my taste buds sing.

Last Friday night was a particular treat, because we were drinking Cline Ancient Vine Zinfindel. It went fabulously with our Delmonico steak, but I had forgotten just how perfectly this particular wine goes with chocolate. Believe me, I won’t forget again.

I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t even pair it with any fancy gourmet chocolate, like Green and Black’s 85% Dark, or Dagoba’s Eclipse or Ghirardelli’s Midnight Reverie (just a few of my favorites). No, this particular Friday night was one of desperation, so I shoved handfuls of Sunspire Grain-Sweetened chocolate chips down my wine hole, chased by the Cline Zin.

OK, I’m not ashamed to admit it, because it was perfect.

I’m guessing I know what you’ll be doing this Friday night.

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Our (apparently coerced) Guest-clacker today is Stephen Degon, a retired manufacturing and engineering executive whose hobbies include food and wine. That means he loves to cook, eat, and drink, but not write about it.

Well, it’s that time of year again, when we all start to think about the perfect Thanksgiving feast. Thanksgiving is such a special holiday because it reminds us of how fortunate we are, even if we are in the throws of a financial downturn. It means family and friends without the need for gifts. This should lead to a no stress holiday right?…WRONG! Everyone feels enormous pressure to make the perfect meal, accompanied by the perfect sides, and served alongside a perfect wine.

Which brings us to what we really want to talk about…wine. Turkey is a fowl, so it should have white wine, right? How about the dressing? Does it contain lots of meats? How are the veggies prepared? All of these questions should factor into your wine selection, but most important is “what kind of wine do you really like?”

Here are some suggestions, depending on your particular leanings.

Cote du Rhone is a lighter red from France that provides an excellent alternative to the full bodied reds you might normally love to have with a good steak. Made up of granache, petit syrah, and mouvedre varietals, it has a peppery finish, which pairs well with a meat dressing, and goes great with turkey and gravy. You can find these for $15 to $20 in most wine stores.

If you really don’t like reds, but prefer whites (maybe reds give you a headache), then think about a sauvignon blanc varietal from New Zealand. These highly acidic whites have a flowery nose and a grassy taste which is clean and fresh, and will cut through the sweetness of those yams and squashes which are usually spiked with too much sugar. You can find an abundance of these wines for $10 to $15 a bottle.

Of course, for those who really love red wine, any food provides an excuse to imbibe. A Bordeaux varietal mixture goes great with turkey and all the fixin’s. These wines will contain cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petit verdot, malbec, and cabernet franc. Lighter than a California cab, they will bring some compromise between the wine and the food for the palate to concentrate on. $15 to $30 will be needed for these.

A good California cabernet sauvignon will command your attention more than the food will. You can spend anywhere from $10 to $100+ for these, depending on your budget and taste. Some suggestions are:

• Lower Budget: Sabastiani cabernet sauvignon from the north coast…around $15
• Coppolla Claret for about $18
• Beringer Knight’s Valley for about $22
• Ferrari-Carano cab for about $30

You almost can’t go wrong serving wine with turkey dinner…just try to stay away from anything sweet like a white zin, reisling, or gewurtztraminer, and you’ll do fine.

a retired manufacturing and engineering executive
whose hobbies include food and wine.  That means he loves to cook, eat, and
drink, but not write about it.

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Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

We’re in the heart of it now… the beautiful season we call autumn. There are so many things to love about the fall in New England: the spectacular foliage, the crisp sunshiny weather and the seasonal foods. Let’s celebrate the fresh, whole food and autumn-inspired recipes that the season brings us. You just might find a new favorite.

You’ve read all about our organic apple-picking adventures and some of the ways we love to enjoy our apples. As I type this post, I’ve got some butternut squash seeds roasting in the oven and my house is just starting to take on that glorious toasty smell you only experience this time of year. Owen will be pleasantly surprised when he wakes up and finds he’s got a fun snack to accompany his breakfast (spoiled boy!).

We’re basically purists when it comes to seed-roasting, but if you want to venture out, Heidi Swanson has some unique ideas for fancy toasted pumpkin seeds: three great recipes, to be exact.

You may not associate cabbage with the fall, but we’ve gotten so many wonderful heads of it this year from our CSA farm that we’ve been enjoying it often. We’ve tried sweet and sour cabbage wedges, Moo Shu vegetables and most recently, Heidi Swanson’s (there she is again….) Tassajara warm cabbage salad. This is actually the first year in a long time that I haven’t made some homemade sauerkraut with it, but we’ve still loved every cabbage-y bite this fall.

One last thing that I must eat before I can declare it fall is some type of orange squash stew. Yes, I’ve got to have my butternut squash sage pizza, but I need a stew. Chicken, pumpkin and kale stew is one of my favorites and we finally cooked it up this week. It is astounding how just a few ingredients combine together so perfectly to create a simple and spectacular dish.

What are some of your favorite fall dishes?

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TV’s in full swing and we’re just about to enter November sweeps. Do you have something to say about what you watch? Are you a sci-fi junkie, or maybe nighttime soaps float your boat? Perhaps you’re up-to-date on all the latest TV news and have your own take on what it means for the television world. You might just be a writer looking for an outlet, a place to share your unique voice. Hopefully you’re snarky, knowledgeable and funny, without being insulting and overbearing.

With November also comes the holidays, and well, people eat during the holidays. Do you like to cook? Bake? Eat? Maybe you create original recipes and want to share them with the world. I’m betting you like to scour the internet for top-notch recipes too, don’t you? Maybe you like to eat out and drink out and write about your experiences. You might consider yourself a food snob, or you want to tell all the food snobs where to go and praise the simple food in life. If you’ve got something to share about all things edible, CliqueClack Food may have a place for you.

You can go about writing for CliqueClack in a number of ways:

• Submit a Guest Clack for CC Food or a Guest Clack for CC TV.
• Send a writing sample to applications@cliqueclack.com and tell us the types of posts you’d most likely write for CliqueClack.
• If you’ve got an idea for how you could regularly contribute to either CC TV or CC Food, send your ideas along to applications@cliqueclack.com. Maybe we’ve got a void you can fill!
• Questions? cc-comments@cliqueclack.com works great!

We hope to hear some fresh new voices soon!

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There’s almost nothing good about Daylight savings time. Now that we’ve changed the clocks back (fall back…), I wake up — mind you, at an ungodly early hour — and it’s light out. Yeah, who cares? I’m cooking dinner by the light of the moon and craving foods with vitamin D. How can that be right?

You know what else? I’m hungry. Sure, it made sense that on Sunday we ate dinner at 4:45, since our bodies technically still believed it was almost six o’clock. Yes, you read that right. I might as well start cultivating the white hairs upon my head, because we could have taken advantage of the senior citizen early bird specials that night. But yesterday it was Tuesday, so you’d think my body would have somewhat adjusted.

No dice.

The four-year-old and I went to Trader Joe’s Tuesday morning to pick up a small refrigerator’s worth of groceries, and as soon as we walked in the door, I was overcome with intense hunger pangs. We’re talking “OMG, I must have skipped lunch, I think I might pass out” hunger. Since I’m not fasting (dude, who does that?), I couldn’t explain it, other than the fact that it must have been very close to lunchtime. I checked my watch: ten o’clock.

Now that’s just embarrassing, but as my stomach growled through the almond butter and jelly aisle, I knew something had to be done. That’s when He approached.

I was engrossed with deciding between the curry simmer sauce or the Thai green curry sauce (Thai won this week), when I heard an amiable, “Hello!” right behind me. I turned to see the happiest man alive. Well, I assume he was anyway, because he was holding an open bag of dark chocolate-covered pretzels. And he was offering them to me. For a moment, I thought I might be the happiest person alive, but then I looked at the smiling face in the seat of the shopping cart (yes, I know he’s too big for the cart … don’t judge me) and my smile faded proportionately.

As I wiped the drool from my chin, I explained to Him that Owen was allergic to wheat and that I couldn’t in good conscious eat chocolate-covered pretzels in front of him. While I waited for my mom-of-the-year award, I got something better. He returned with an open bag of Snap Pea Crisps, because He didn’t want Owen to not be able to get a sample of something just because he had a food allergy. And he gave us a nice big handful to share.

With that small act of kindness and mercy, my hunger monster was stopped dead in its tracks and my hope and faith in the kindness of humanity was restored. Yes, Daylight savings time still sucks, but I’m a little less hungry now, thanks to the kindness of a stranger.

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Just the other day an e-mail found its way into my inbox, advertising the new prix fixe menu at one of my favorite local restaurants. Somehow, I’m always excited when I get mail like this, but I’m not quite sure why. After all, prix fixe menus sort of take away all the great parts about eating out. With a prix fixe menu, you don’t get to choose whatever you want, you don’t get to control what courses you are served, and sometimes you don’t even get to pick the wine out!

Yet, there is something really appealing about a prix fixe menu and all the things it does offer.

I don’t know if it’s just the glutton in me, but there is something romantic and fun with a long multicourse meal. Perhaps it’s because it isn’t offered everywhere all the time, but the multicourse prix fixe does have a certain novelty about it. Also, I love that there are multiple courses, usually in smaller portions. I’m one of those eaters that likes lots of different flavors, but in generally small quantities. I always go back to chef Charlie Trotter who I remember saying that the perfect dish should be two bites.

Of course, like any dish or ingredient, the prix fixe really depends on quality. There can be good prix fixe meals and bad ones. I find that the good ones have smaller portions. There’s nothing worse than going to a prix fixe and only being able to get through half of the courses before you’re stuffed to the gills. I like to at least have room for the obligatory soufflé or creme brulee that seem to be always be the dessert option.

Also, they should seem like a good value. Too often, I’ve felt completely ripped off. There’s nothing worse than when you sign up for a five course dinner and one of the courses ends up being the amuse bouche that everyone in the restaurant gets for free, and one course is the sorbet pallet cleanser. That’s not really five courses, that’s three.

With all that being said, I still get excited at the thought of going for a prix fixe. After all, it’s not an everyday experience and because of that, it makes me feel special.

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Entertaining midday is a luxury many working folk don’t get on a regular basis, unless you throw a weekend luncheon. But I’m telling you, this is one of my favorite ways to enjoy good food and a small group of cherished friends or family. From the show-off-the-new-house-to-the-aunties luncheon, to the I-don’t see-my-girlfriends-enough-anymore luncheon, there is always an occasion to have someone — anyone! — over to enjoy some savory lunch fare. I admit, I got out of the habit when Owen came along, complete with midday naps that squashed the happy luncheon party.

My love for the luncheon has ironically come back in recent months, and I have to give all of the credit to Owen. Our local moms’ group has gotten into the habit of throwing a monthly pot luck lunch, and damn, we are having fun! The kids are old enough that they play well together and we can chat and visit and enjoy the recipes that turn up every month. And dare I say you might, on occasion, find some wine at our buffet?

If you love lunch as much as I do, I hope you’ll enjoy this luncheon menu I put together from some favorite recipes that crossed my path recently.

I love that Richard Olney’s garlic soup is a thick and creamy one without any cream. Instead, this recipe uses eggs to thicken and bind, and who doesn’t love the taste and health benefits of an egg? I thought of Kona and her obsessive love for garlic with this soup… here’s betting she’ll either try this recipe or devise something similar just to partake in the yummy goodness of garlic after reading this post.

This isn’t just your average mushroom quiche: this mushroom and fontina quiche is chock-full of five cups — five cups! — of assorted wild and gourmet mushrooms. If you loathe the culinary fungus, then run the other way, but if you adore the earthiness of mushrooms and think they’d be great smothered in cheese and eggs, then join me in worshiping at the alter of Epicurious.

For dessert, how about a rustic tart? This crispy braeburn apple and almond sheet tart caught my eye because it’s light on wheat (just a few sheet of phyllo) and includes delicious almond meal instead. Which, incidentally, is made into almond cream. Yeah, yum.

Really, can you think of anything more delicious than soup, quiche and a seasonal dessert? OK, something with chocolate… maybe in the next menu!

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There’s nothing like starting the day with a warm breakfast … except maybe smelling it cooking while you’re still in bed. That’s the beauty of this crock pot breakfast cobbler.

Another thing I like about this recipe is that it is so easy to prepare the night before. Let’s face it, no one really wants to be making a gourmet breakfast at ten-o-clock at night. What Keith and I do is dump all the ingredients into the crock pot when we are cleaning the kitchen from dinner, then we push the start button before we head to bed.

This is a recipe we’ve made for years, especially when we have lots of apples to use up. I’ve based it on this recipe for breakfast cobbler, but it has morphed throughout the years and we actually make it different every time … and there’s not really a whole lot of measuring going on these days.

Crock Pot Breakfast Cobbler

Ingredients:

• 6 apples, peeled, cored and slice (yes, get the fancy gadget; it’s worth every penny)
• about 2 tablespoons of maple syrup
• about 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• about 2 cups of your favorite granola cereal (we use whatever is in the cabinet by Nature’s Path, who incidentally has a new one sweetened exclusively with agave syrup)
• about 1/4 cup slivered almonds

Place all ingredients in your crock pot. I put the cereal and almonds on top and don’t stir it until the next morning, but anything goes really. Cook overnight on low, about 8 hours.

I like to serve it with a dollop of plain, whole milk organic yogurt. But the spoon’s the most important part!

You can alter this recipe in endless ways — try adding some dried cranberries, using pears along with the apples, or mixing some nutmeg in along with the cinnamon. I’m not sure you could go wrong, unless you put in mayonnaise or something….

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A few years ago I performed a little social experiment that didn’t involve any virtual farms or cafés. I asked a number of people — fine, upstanding citizens — who ate white bread with their dinner and went to church every Sunday what they took from their children’s trick-or-treat bags on Halloween night. After a bunch of hemming, hawing, and utter denials of violating the Eighth Commandment, they confessed what they eventually pilfered from their sweet, apple-cheeked children. With that information in hand, I compiled the Good Halloween Candy Pyramid.

Four years have passed since that world-shattering article and people (all right, my family) have been clamoring for an update. With Halloween right around the corner, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the Pyramid to see if anything had changed. The results weren’t that surprising.

Speaking to members of the CliqueClack staff I found a number of them who stole, or had been robbed of, some of the top, brand-named candies. For instance, CliqueClack founder Keith McDuffee said that he will often swipe peanut M&Ms and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups from his son’s bag due to his allergies. He added that he would have taken those anyway. Bob Degon said simply “My Dad always stole the Snickers.” On the other hand, writer Jeff Love never took candy from his kids. Instead, he would “scare the trick or treaters away so there was plenty left over for me to eat.” Devious!

This is just a small sampling of a global conspiracy. And, it can be backed up by the prices and quantities of the bags of candy sold at your local supermarket. From this information, the Good Halloween Candy Pyramid was able to be constructed.

The top tier of the Pyramid is, as it was in 2005, products made by Hershey or M&M/Mars (except for possibly Hershey’s Whoppers, Jolly Ranchers, and Good & Plenty — more on that later). Obtaining these candies, particularly the full-size bars, is a grand achievement for most trick-or-treaters. Unfortunately, it’s also the most expensive candy for a household to purchase. A “Fun Size Big Bag” of these candies, which is neither fun nor big, can go for as high as $7.00 at your local supermarket. This means doling out over twenty bucks if you want to fill up a large pumpkin bowl for the hungry hordes banging at your door.

The next tier on the Pyramid would be any chocolate candy from the Nestle brand (this does not include Wonka brands, which are mentioned below). Normally, when all of the M&M’s and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are gone, the Nestle Crunch, 100 Grand, and Butterfinger bars are the next to be eliminated from the Halloween stash (add KitKat, Smarties, and Aero bars if you live in Canada). While on second tier below Hershey and M&M/Mars, they are comparable in quality and cost. Though, it can be a bit cheaper if you buy the mix bag that features chocolate-covered candies like Raisinets and Goobers.

The third tier of the Good Halloween Candy Pyramid is reserved for chocolate candy existing in something other than bar format. This includes the previously mentioned Raisinets and Goobers, most of the Tootsie family (Rolls, Pops and Juniors) as well as Junior Mints and Whoppers. Yes, Whoppers are made by Hershey, but they aren’t as popular among the kids (or their parents) as even Mounds or Almond Joy. Because of their lack of popularity, as well as lack of product in each “Fun Size” package, a large bag of Whoppers and Milk Duds normally costs less than an average bag of Hershey bars.

Same thing can be said for a bag of Tootsie products. In fact, you can pick up a five-pound bag of Tootsie candies can be had for the same price of a two pound bag of Milky Way snack bars. While you would rather be the darling of Wisteria Lane by handing out the Milky Ways, passing out Tootsie Pops is more economical and lasts longer.

The land of chocolate is left behind at the fourth tier for the world of hard candies, which can stretch your Halloween budget even further. Items at this level consist of most of the Wonka line of candy (Nerds, SweetTarts, Bottlecaps, Gobbstoppers), Smarties, the ‘…Heads’ family of candies (Lemonheads, Grapeheads), Jolly Ranchers, anything from the LifeSavers brand, and movie theater candy like Good & Plenty, Boston Baked Beans, Mike & Ikes, and Hot Tamales. Most of these items can be purchased in bags of 100 to 300 pieces for around three dollars. While not full of chocolaty goodness, many of these candies are making a nostalgic comeback and do interest both parents and kids alike.

The final tier — Dum Dum Pops; the tiny little lollipops that every bank and barbershop carries by the truckload. These are usually found in a large quantity bag for a steal. Also lump in any other generic lollipops that a child is given, as well as bubble gum, candy corn, pixie sticks, and all other candy with unrecognizable names. Like Dum Dum Pops, these candies come in large quantities for a small amount of money. You’ll be able to feed all of those sugar-craving little ones banging on your doorbell, but they won’t be happy with what they get. Most likely, that candy will be put into their parents’ Halloween bowls for next year.

With the economy in the toilet, what is one to do in order to satisfy the hordes of monsters heading up your driveway? As I recommended back in 2005, mix bargains with bourgeoisie sensibility. Get that five-pound bag of Smarties for $3 for the trick-or-treaters. Then spend another $3 on the 10 ounce bag of Milky Ways for your family. Trust me, your kids will thank you.

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It’s almost Halloween! I love this holiday so much that I’ve actually visited two pumpkin patches so far, and bought more pumpkins than I honestly know what to do with. Maybe it’s because this is the first fall in several years that I haven’t spent in New York City, but I am obsessed with everything fall right now. Because guys, I’m in Virginia right now, and it is pretty.

Anyway, I recently massacred a pumpkin in a very Dexter-like fashion, so I’ve been (literally, at times) up to my elbows in the Halloween mascot. When Elizabeth and I were committing said pumpkin murder, one of the things we did was save the seeds, so we would have something to snack on during the next 80 hours we were spending pureeing the monster pumpkin I bought.

So while the food processor was working overtime, we made some addictive, delicious roasted pumpkin seeds, and it couldn’t have been easier.

The fun thing about pumpkin seeds is that they can basically be any flavor you want them to be. I had had roasted pumpkin seeds once before, when a roommate made them in college, and she just put salt and pepper on them. They were fine, but they didn’t exactly knock my socks off. This time, I wanted to go crazy.

We got a gallon-sized Ziploc bag, put the rinsed and dried pumpkin seeds inside, and just started throwing things in. We started with some olive oil, then added, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Then we just started going through all of the spices in my kitchen and adding them. I think we ended up with cumin, some chili powder, and some white pepper.

We shook it all up in the bag so the seeds were nice and coated, then put it all in a single layer on a cookie sheet. We baked at 375 and checked on them periodically. More salt and pepper was added during the baking process because you really need a lot of flavor for it to show up on the pumpkin seeds. After about a half an hour, they were crisp and roasted to perfection. They were also gone by about 8:00 that night.

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You only think you know how good this recipe might taste. I’m pretty good at reading recipes, in that I can tell not only what a recipe will taste like, but also what to alter to make it better.

I left this one completely alone.

My carnivorous husband, who moans and groans when I serve a vegetarian dinner, said he’d eat this dish as a stand-alone meal. He just offered that information, mind you, he was not asked.

Are you convinced yet?

I lied a little bit when I said I cooked the recipe exactly as was directed. I didn’t have a red onion, so I used a yellow one instead. Also, no golden raisins so I popped in the regular old brown ones. Finally, I used pecorino romano instead of parmesan for the sprinkling of cheese at the end.

A word to the wise: Don’t skip toasting and sugar-coating the sunflower seeds. I almost did, because I am basically a lazy cook. They are so amazingly delicious (and I’ve discovered a new snack!) and combine with the other flavors so well. It is worth the extra step and pan.

Heidi Swanson has never let me down, and she just secured her spot in my gastronomic heart with this recipe. It’s so simple to make and has very few ingredients, but each one is integral — and crucial — to the success of the dish. The flavors meld together perfectly.

The next time I make this, I’ll probably serve it with some curried chicken breasts, or maybe I’ll just add some chick peas for a vegetarian entree.

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Okay, I feel as though I’ve been pretty honest when it comes to my lack of food knowledge. In fact, the main reason I started writing for this site was so I would have a reason to get into the kitchen more. So here’s my confession for the week: other than from a store or a can, I didn’t really know where pumpkin pie came from.

I know that sounds insane, and of course I knew that pumpkin pie, or pumpkin bread, or any pumpkin dish came from pumpkins, but I didn’t really understand the logistics of the situation. I’m not kidding when I say that I honestly believed that the guts of the pumpkin is what got cooked. Sigh. I know.

So my friend Elizabeth came over and explained very slowly and clearly that it’s the pumpkin itself that gets roasted, while the guts just get thrown away. My mind = blown.

My job was to get the pumpkin. I didn’t want to use our happy pumpkin patch pumpkin that we had just picked over the weekend, so I decided to go across the street to the grocery store and buy one there. Now, I love a deal, but this is what got us into trouble. the grocery store pumpkins weren’t being sold by the pound: they were just $5.99 each. So what does that mean? It means that I had to find the biggest, heaviest pumpkin I could, just to get my money’s worth. Because I’m ridiculous.

What I ended up with was pretty much the carriage used in Cinderella. Like, I could hollow this thing out and use it as a dog bed. It was ginormous. It put my 19-lb. cute pumpkin to shame. In fact, we estimated that it was probably around 30 lbs. so yes, I was proud of myself for getting my money’s worth, but dear lord, we did not need that much pumpkin.

So we set to work slicing it apart, and throwing away the guts while reserving the seeds. After we got it into relatively manageable-sized pieces, we stuck it in the oven and baked it uncovered at 375. Because of the insane volume of pumpkin, we weren’t really sure how long to keep it in there, but we knew it was done when it was slightly browned, and a fork went all the way through.

After it was finished roasting, it was time to make the puree. We peeled off the skin and diced the pumpkin into pieces that would be small enough to fit in a food processor. After it was processed, the puree needed to be drained. Cheesecloth would probably be the recommended way of doing this, but I’m not exactly working in the Top Chef kitchen over here, so we used paper towels and a strainer.

At the end of the day (literally, this endeavor took the entire day), we ended up with an obscene amount of pumpkin puree– Something like 7 quarts or more. So what to do with all of that pumpkin? Well, frankly, I’m still trying to figure it out. But we started out with making some pumpkin treats. Luckily for us, Elizabeth has a website with our friend Lauren, and Lauren had just posted a bunch of yummy pumpkin recipes, including one for pumpkin chocolate chip bread that she made for me last year and caused me to see God.

So we made that and the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that were also on that page, and divvied up the rest of the puree into freezer bags, so we can make more delightful fall treats. I’ve still got about five freezer bags left, so stay tuned for more pumpkin adventures!

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It wasn’t a Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin, but the largest pumpkin we got from our CSA farm this season reminded me more of Bert’s head from Sesame Street. When Owen (the four-year-old) decided he wanted to carve it today, we really didn’t know quite what we were getting into, but it couldn’t have had a happier ending.

Owen is by definition a squash-hater. This kid eats just about everything, but I’m sure if you did a Google search for my kid, you’d come up with something like “dresses weird, has the cutest dimples you’ve even seen and hates all things squash with a vengeance.” One thing he’ll definitely eat, though, are roasted squash seeds. So while Keith and Owen carved, I pre-heated my oven to 375 degrees, washed and dried the pumpkin seeds, tossed them in olive oil and sea salt and roasted them for 12-15 minutes (about 14 was perfect for our oven).

It didn’t stop there. We planned chili for dinner, and instead of making plain old cornbread, we thought we’d make some pumpkin cornbread, since we adore the pumpcorn muffins from our Uprisings cookbook. It was also breakfast the next day.

It was about then that Owen decided he’d really like some ice cream. I’m almost sure at this point that Owen doesn’t really understand that pumpkin is a kind of squash, because he begged for pumpkin ice cream. My recipe for pumpkin ice cream was worth an entire post in itself, so be sure to go read it!

So, we used the shell of the pumpkin to make a festive decoration, the seeds a tasty snack, and the carved out flesh (cut into chunks, put in a covered bowl with a tablespoon of water and microwave for ten minutes) for pumpkin ice cream and pumpkin cornbread. I’m pretty impressed with us, and not one part of that pumpkin went to waste.

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When I say orange, I mean the color. The four-year-old and I wanted to make orange-colored muffins befitting of our jack-o-lantern muffin pans. We (read: me) also didn’t want to use chemical food coloring in the batter or the frosting, so we came up with pumpkin carrot muffins. If you were jazzed by the idea of orange-flavored muffins, don’t worry, we’ve got a variation just for you.

We’re about to serve these to, you know, normal kids at a little Halloween get-together we’re having in a few minutes, so I’m coming back to report how they fared with kids who weren’t raised on bizarre vegetable-filled muffins with natural sweeteners. Consider the experiment underway!

I won’t lie — the muffins were a huge hit for one and all. There was even one crafty little three-year-old who ate the rest of someone else’s muffin when she was playing out of visual contact with said muffin, and still he kept begging for more. Now, if a room full of kids, ranging from two to five-and-a-half (and their moms) can enjoy these muffins, I think we have our control group, folks. And our target audience. Which would be everyone. Did you get that?

Pumpkin Carrot Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cup flour (I used sprouted spelt flour)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup agave syrup
• 1 cup cooked pumpkin / carrot puree (I cooked chunks in the microwave and then food-processed them)
• 1/2 cup milk (I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk, my go-to)
• 1/3 cup rice bran oil, or your favorite cooking oil or melted butter
• shredded unsweetened coconut, optional

Combine dry ingredients and spices in a large bowl, and combine wet in another bowl. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. Fill 12 greased muffin tins with batter and sprinkle with coconut if desired (that was Owen’s way of making the ghost muffins look white!). Bake at 400 degrees for about 18 minutes.

Variations:

• Use orange juice instead of milk and add 1 teaspoon orange zest and you’ll get the orange flavor you’re craving.
• Add small chunks of apple. You can’t lose with all the cinnamon and nutmeg in this recipe.
• Frost with your favorite cream cheese frosting. It would make some pretty, white ghosts.
• Or, make a streusel-type topping with cinnamon, butter, brown sugar and a little flour. Combine in your favorite ratio to make coarse crumbs.

Are you brave enough to serve a healthy treat on Halloween?

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If you’ve been following along at home, you know that I’ve never made baked ziti before. Part of me knows why I’ve been avoiding it: it’s a lot of steps, and a lot of dishes! But this particular recipe had a hook that convinced me it was time to try it. It makes enough for two casseroles, and one pops right into the freezer. I’ve become a monster when it comes to having easy meals ready, so I thought it would be worth the time and the mess.

What’s the verdict? Was it worth the sink full of dishes and the time spent on the multiple steps to make this casserole?

I’m on the fence with that answer, mostly because I’m a food snob. Baked ziti … wait for it … is a plebeian dish. When I can make a pasta dish that is more innovative than this one, with more unique flavors and less steps and dishes, I’m not sure why I’d choose this sausage and pepper baked ziti recipe.

That said, we couldn’t stop eating it, even though it was in the back of my mind (and yes, it did come out of my mouth too) that this was a meal that would fit in with the all-you-can-eat pasta buffet at the likes of Olive Garden. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but for a food snob, it does become a factor.

In all honesty, it was very delicious and with just a few tweaks it could be pretty amazing:

• I’d add some frozen spinach next time.
• It also needed some spices, so I’d probably just mix in an Italian spice blend or Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute. This was in the back of my mind while preparing it, but I wanted to be true to the recipe for a test drive, and I thought maybe I was underestimating the sweet Italian sausage.
• Fresh basil would go a long, long way in this dish.
• As would some feta cheese.
• The vegetables would have more flavor if browned instead of (essentially) steamed.

By the way, I was right — it was a huge mess!

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Each week, fabulous recipes grace Debbie’s in-box and pop up on her computer screen, and she’s sharing her favorites with you.

Are any of you familiar with Cathe Olson? I discovered her long ago, when the nearly-five-year-old was just a wee one, first starting on solid foods. She’s got a wonderful cookbook out called Simply Natural Baby Food, which really takes you into preschool and beyond with creative, healthy recipes for feeding your family. She was deceptively delicious long before Jessica Seinfeld burst onto the scene… four years before, in fact.

Recently, a number of her recipes have crossed my path and I thought dedicating a whole column to her recipes would be worth it, especially if you’ve never had the pleasure.

Honestly, I didn’t imagine in my wildest dreams that a recipe for vegetarian Shepherd’s pie would ever catch my eye. And then I saw Cathe Olson’s: lentils, winter greens, miso… that’s gotta make the taste buds sing sweet, sweet songs.

I adore broccoli, any way you cook it or not cook it. Broccoli can do no wrong. So when Cathe Olson made my favorite cruciferous vegetable into a vegan soup, I was enamored. The only problem? Cashew creme, which is delicious but a huge no-no in this house. Probably Owen is so allergic to it because it was my creamy soup go-to while I was pregnant, so I’d use a combination of almond milk and plain yogurt to get the creamy texture this broccoli soup recipe calls for.

Millet used to be a favorite of ours, but we really don’t eat grains that much anymore. I may just revisit millet to make this healthy millet granola recipe. No sugar, only agave or maple syrup, and tahini, sesame seeds, flax seeds and pumpkin seeds. Talk about your healthy fats and nutty flavor.

Yummy… honey-curry dressing! I can just taste this slathered on a salad brimming with toasted pumpkin seeds.

Finally, Asian noodle salad with toasted sesame is a flavorful, versatile dish with some surprises… not your average Asian ingredients.

Which Cathe Olson recipe will you be trying first?

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One of my favorite healthy baking cookbooks is Uprisings: The Whole Grain Bakers’ Book. You’re probably wondering why, since I always substitute sprouted spelt flour for everything anyway, but the real reason is because these treats are creatively sweetened. In fact, this cookbook has made me think even beyond itself. Most of the recipes are sweetened either with honey or maple syrup, which I’ll do, but I like to venture out into other territories as well. Sucanat, agave syrup and different fruits are all sweetening options I think about when baking these days.

Like making this pumpkin cornbread, for instance. The recipe my pumpkin cornbread was based on used a whopping 2/3 cup of brown sugar. To me, that’s gross on so many levels. First of all, I can’t stand a sicky-sweet baked good. Cornbread should be mostly savory, in my opinion, and that much sugar would seem out of place. Did I mention how offended my liver would be, at being asked to process all of that sugar? I’m apologizing to the livers of the world, or at least to anyone who has eaten that pumpkin cornbread.

Pumpkin is pretty sweet on its own (or at least my fresh-from-the-farm puree that I made today was), so like banana bread, I didn’t want to overdo it with the added sweeteners and make it unappealing. I want the real flavors of the ingredients to come through and not be masked by an unwelcome sweetness.

A tweak here and there and I’ve created the corbread that’s perfect for my family. We ate it with chili last night, and again for breakfast this morning, slathered with apple butter or organic butter and dipped in maple syrup (depending on who you are at the McDuffee residence).

Pumpkin Cornbread

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sprouted spelt flour (or whole-grain flour of your choice)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup pumpkin puree (canned or freshly cooked and processed)
• 2 tablespoons Sucanat
• 1/3 cup rice bran oil (or melted butter)
• 2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses

Mix wet in one bowl, dry in another then mix until just moistened. Pour batter into a greased 10-inch pie pan and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until springy.

You might think with all the cinnamon and netmeg that this cornbread wouldn’t go very well with chili, but somehow it worked. And trust me, I am not a nutmeg fan….

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Jessica Seinfeld, eat your heart out — I just made pumpkin ice cream for my four-year-old. Yes, ice cream with a vegetable in it, and get this — he asked for it. That’s right. Some would even have referred to it as begging. So when my self-proclaimed squash hater begs for pumpkin ice cream, is there really a choice?

There’s not even a small part of me that would have thought to put pureed pumpkin in ice cream, but Owen decided he wanted “pumpkin freeze” (still not clear on exactly what that was supposed to look like) at about the same time he realized he finished off all of the coconut milk ice cream yesterday, so our pumpkin coconut ice cream was born.

Pumpkin Coconut Ice Cream
Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Ingredients:

• 1 can coconut milk
• 3 tablespoons agave syrup
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup pureed pumpkin
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (or combination of cinnamon and nutmeg)

Whisk together ingredients until well combined and freeze according to your ice cream maker’s directions.

This ice cream screams autumn (lame pun semi-intentional). There’s only a hint of pumpkin flavor and I love the texture the puree adds. We ate most of this ice cream right out of the maker with our three combating spoons, but it would be perfect on apple crisp or poached pears.

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