Pumpkin Muffins with Kefir and Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin Muffins with Kefir and Pepitas 

As soon as I see that pumpkins have replaced the corn and tomatoes at the market I start hungering for food that’s autumn-like. Mostly pumpkin bread and muffins to snack on when I need a little something in the late afternoon with my last cup of coffee for the day. 

I don’t make pumpkin muffins as often as I do banana bread, but almost. This is my latest version, which has kefir because I happened to have some in the fridge. But buttermilk is fine too. 

Reheat leftovers in a toaster oven for a few minutes if you need a quick breakfast. 

Btw, I used to bake and mash the pumpkin insides to get the puree, but most of the time I use canned pumpkin or squash. NOT pumpkin pie mix. I want to mix in the spices of my choice, not theirs.

Pumpkin Muffins with Kefir and Pumpkin Seeds

• 3  tablespoons butter

• 1-3/4 cups flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

• 2 tablespoons brown sugar

• 1 cup mashed pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)

• 3/4 cup kefir

• 1/4 cup molasses

• 1 large egg

• 2-3 tablespoons crushed pumpkin seeds 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease 9 muffin tin cups. Melt the butter and set it aside to cool. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and brown sugar. In a separate bowl, combine the pumpkin, kefir, molasses, egg and cooled, melted butter. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ones and mix only long enough to combine. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin cups. Scatter the pumpkin seeds evenly on top of each muffin. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

Makes 9

Brussels Sprouts with Tangerine and Hazelnuts

I may have mentioned that long, long ago my husband Ed once told me that if I ever cooked Brussels sprouts he would divorce me. 

Just kidding of course, which is why I felt confident to cook up some of these tiny cabbages once when I had to write an article about them. I made several recipes in one day figuring I would get the aroma and arguments all over with in one swoop, as they say.

But surprise of surprises! He liked them! All of them. Every version I made.

So it just goes to show that sometimes you might actually like something you thought you hated if you try it again.

Maybe.

The thing about Brussels sprouts, like all cabbages, is that they can produce an awful smell, especially if you cook them too long, which is what so many cooks did in the days that Ed’s and my mom cooked vegetables. So we grew up believing vegetables should be mushy, army green and, if in the cabbage family, smelly.

No more of that.

This recipe for Brussels sprouts has a small amount of maple and sweet tangerine to tone down the bitter cabbage. 

Brussels Sprouts with Tangerine and Hazelnuts

• 16-18 Brussels sprouts (about 12 ounces)

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

• 1/2 cup tangerine juice (or use orange juice)

• 2 tablespoons maple syrup

• 2 teaspoons grated tangerine peel (or use orange peel)

• 1/3 cup coarsely chopped toasted hazelnuts

• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the Brussels sprouts in half, rinse them, then drain and dry on paper towels. Place the vegetable oil, tangerine juice, maple syrup and tangerine peel in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook for 3-4 minutes or until slightly thickened. Place the Brussels sprouts in a roasting pan and pour the tangerine mixture on top. Toss to coat the vegetables evenly.* Place the pan in the oven and cook for about 30 minutes or until tender. Mix once during this time. Remove the Brussels sprouts from the oven, toss with the hazelnuts and sprinkle to taste with salt and pepper.

Makes 4 servings

*Can prepare ahead to here

Bitter Greens Salad with Orange

Bitter Greens Salad with Orange 

There’s always so much food on Thanksgiving that everyone I know complains, including me.

Before: there’s going to be too much food. Day of: there’s too much food. Day after: there was too much food.

The complaining is a necessary part of the routine IMHO, maybe in a way to forgive ourselves the plenty. And for overeating of course. 

But the whole idea of Thanksgiving IS the plenty. Isn’t that symbolic of all the things we are thankful for?

Well, I don’t want to get any more philosophical. So I’ll just say I like serving lots of food, even if everyone groans “there’s too much!” and then eats everything and then complains. Call it the Jewish mother in me.

But honestly, one thing I find helpful when serving a meal of plenty that includes heavy dishes like stuffing and potatoes and gravy and vegetables with crusts or sauces, is to have a salad too. Not just as an extra, another side dish to put on the table, but because salad ingredients, especially if they have robust greens (arugula, endive, radicchio, watercress and so on) and acidic dressings (vinaigrette as opposed to Ranch or thick sour cream dressings) help balance and lighten up the meal. 

Here’s a salad made with three kinds of hardy greens, cut with chunks of orange, a little crunch of nuts (you can leave these out if you wish) and a light citrusy dressing. It’s pretty too, adding a bit of color to the meal.

Bitter Greens Salad with Orange

• 3 navel oranges

• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

• 3 large Belgian endives

• 1 bunch watercress

• 1 small head radicchio

• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

• 3-4 tablespoons toasted pignoli nuts, optional

Grate enough of the peel of one orange to equal one teaspoon. Place in a bowl and add the white wine vinegar, olive oil and mustard. Halve the orange that has been grated and squeeze the juice from one of the halves into the bowl. Mix to blend the ingredients completely and set aside. Reserve the other half of the orange for other purposes. Peel the remaining two oranges and remove all the white pith that surrounds the segments. Cut the orange flesh into thick slices, then cut the slices into chunks and set aside. Wash and dry the endive leaves and cut them in half. Place the endive in a bowl. Wash and dry the watercress, discard any thick stems and add to the bowl with the endive. Wash and dry the radicchio leaves, cut them if they are large, and add them to the bowl and toss the greens. Pour the dressing over the leaves and toss. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Scatter the nuts over the salad if desired.

Makes 8 servings

Root Vegetable, Caramelized Onion and Chestnut Crumble

Parsnips, carrots and onions are my comfort foods in the vegetable world. Even though I like these three ingredients all year, there’s something better about them when the weather gets colder. Maybe because they’re earthy and sturdy and instead of steaming them or roasting them as “fries” like I do year ‘round, I can use them as part of another filling winter dish, like beef stew or vegetable soup.

Or for those dinners when the vegetable is more the star, not the meat or fish.

Or those times when I have a traditional meat or fish meal but have vegetarians as guests and need something substantial for them. Thanksgiving for example. I make a lot of side dishes so none of the folks who don’t eat turkey goes hungry as the rest of us are stuffing ourselves.

This Root Vegetable Crumble contains the big three plus winter squash and chestnuts, which make the dish even more suitable for winter. The streusel top gives it some eye appeal don’t you think? And has a lushly soft texture to it. 

I make this dish a day ahead and pop it into the oven for dinner.

Root Vegetable, Caramelized Onion and Chestnut Crumble

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 3 medium carrots, diced
• 2 medium parsnips, diced
• 1 cup diced butternut squash
• 1 dozen cooked, peeled chestnuts (I use packaged)
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup fresh bread crumbs
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped almonds
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 4 tablespoons cold butter or margarine

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a casserole dish. Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-low heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes or until they are golden brown. Place the onions on the bottom of the casserole dish. While the onions are cooking, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the carrots, parsnip and squash. Bring to a second boil, lower the heat to a simmer and cook for about 3-4 minutes or until almost tender. Drain and place in the casserole dish on top of the onions. Scatter the chestnuts on top. Make the crust: mix the flour, breadcrumbs, almonds, thyme and some salt and pepper to taste. Mix well. Add the butter in chunks and work into the dry ingredients until they are crumbly. Scatter on top of the vegetables. Bake for about 45 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes 4 servings

Baked Cranberries

On Thanksgiving when I was a kid the cranberry sauce choices were either the jellied kind that trembled or the lumpy kind that clumped together on the plate. In either case, from the can. The lumpy stuff was way too sophisticated for me. The shivery kind went down easier.

Then my mother discovered fresh cranberries. We never looked back. Especially because the recipe is so easy you could do it in less than 5 minutes prep time. And even though it is lumpy, the fruit has a faintly resilient texture and your tongue can actually tell it’s berries you’re eating. It doesn’t cook into an indistinguishable mass. It’s good and beautiful too.

Baked Cranberries

• 12 ounces fresh cranberries (3 cups)

• 1-1/2 cups sugar

• 3 tablespoons Grand Marnier or other orange flavored brandy

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Wash and drain the berries and place them in a single layer in a baking dish. Add the sugar and toss to coat all the berries. Cover the dish tightly with a lid or aluminum foil. Bake for 45-50 minutes. Remove the cover and stir thoroughly. Let the berries cool. Stir in the brandy. Chill thoroughly.

Makes 6-8 servings

Which is better, the food or the memory of the food?

Was your mother really a good cook? Was that chocolate cake or those hash browns you had 20 years ago at that restaurant really fabulous?

Food memories can be funny. Our tastes change. Maybe Mom’s chocolate chip cookies weren’t really that good, maybe those hash browns were actually a bit too greasy and if we ate these foods today in someone else’s kitchen or in a different restaurant we wouldn’t rave.

But we remember them so fondly that we think we’ll never find the ultimate recipe for whatever it is we thought was so wonderful.

I have that feeling about a lot of foods. My Mom’s Nut Roll. The Apple Tart at L’Orangerie in Los Angeles. My grandmother’s baked blintzes. The Hot and Sour Soup at Temple Garden in New York’s Chinatown.

When autumn comes and I see the trees turning orange and gold, my food memory turns to pumpkin pie and that makes me remember the Automat. It went out of business when I was a little girl, but I still remember my Aunt Roz and Uncle Mac taking me there for lunch or dinner when we went into Manhattan to go ice skating or to see a show. They were the kind of aunt and uncle that took their nieces and nephews to places and we all loved them so much that the food that came with the day would of course be wonderful no matter where or what it was.

At the Automat, if it was autumn, there was pumpkin pie.

It was the very best pumpkin pie. In my memory. I have been trying to duplicate its flavor and texture since I started cooking. But food memories linger so no matter what I come up with, it’s never “the one” even if the results are fabulous. Someone once gave me a recipe that was supposed to be the Automat authentic version and I made one. Of course I didn’t remember the pie tasting like my pie did.

So which is better, the food or the memory of the food?

Both really, for different reasons. We can savor the memory and eat something delicious even if it isn’t quite the version you remember.

Here’s a terrific recipe for Pumpkin Pie. Not too spicy and with a hint of molasses. Don’t use pumpkin pie “mix”, use plain pumpkin puree or fresh mashed pumpkin (press fresh mashed pumpkin to extract excess liquid).

Pumpkin Pie

• 1-1/2 cups mashed pumpkin (canned is fine)

• 1/3 cup brown sugar (any kind)

• 1/4 cup white sugar

• 3 tablespoons molasses

• 3 large eggs

• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 3/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1-1/2 cups half and half cream or evaporated milk

• 1 9-inch single pie crust, unbaked

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Spoon the pumpkin, brown sugar, white sugar and molasses into a bowl and blend ingredients thoroughly. Beat in the eggs. Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and cream. Blend ingredients thoroughly. Pour the mixture into the crust. Bake for 8 minutes. Reduce the heat to 325 degrees F and continue baking for 55-60 minutes or until set. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Makes one pie

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