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Post by ganews on Nov 4, 2017 12:37:42 GMT -5
Tonight I'm going to turn one of the wedges of fairytale pumpkin into a savory pumpkin custard. There's just eggs and salt in it, so that should let the flavor shine through more and give me a better idea of what I'm working with. Please post the recipe after. |
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Post by pairesta on Nov 5, 2017 9:39:54 GMT -5
Tonight I'm going to turn one of the wedges of fairytale pumpkin into a savory pumpkin custard. There's just eggs and salt in it, so that should let the flavor shine through more and give me a better idea of what I'm working with. Please post the recipe after. I winged it. 2 lbs of pumpkin 1 egg, three yolks Splash of bourbon Ground clove, ground cinnamon, just a pinch of each Roast the pumpkin for 40 minutes to an hour at 425 until completely soft through, remove, cool. Mix with the rest of the ingredients (I probably should have pureed it; it had a bit of a grainy texture from the fibers still). Pour into buttered ramekins or molds. Place the molds in a roasting pan, put in the oven, fill the roasting pan halfway up the sides of the custard cups with boiling water, bake at 425 for 40 minutes until set (a toothpick comes out clean). So I'm afraid I have to admit that this pumpkin is kind of bland, not as sweet as I'd hoped it would be. ALot of it, I know, is due to the high water content. But with so little going into the custards, they just tasted like eggs more than anything, with the pumpkin bringing very little character to the game. |
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Post by Floyd Diabolical Barber on Nov 5, 2017 14:38:27 GMT -5
Where pumpkins go after the holidays.
And I do love pumpkin pie.
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Post by ganews on Nov 8, 2017 11:53:25 GMT -5
I was going to post I'm Hummus in dwarfoscar 's joke thread, then I realized I might as well look for pumpkin hummus, then I realized this sounds pretty great.  |
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Post by pairesta on Nov 11, 2017 12:58:23 GMT -5
Pizza with pumpkin, feta, leeks, and mint
We had a pizza night last night and I decided to use one of the wedges of fairytale pumpkin on a pizza, then came up with using feta, sauteed leeks, and fresh mint as the condiment toppings. I cut one wedge into small cubes and roasted it. Again, the inherent wetness of the pumpkin thwarted me, and the small cubes liquefied in the oven, sticking to the pan and being unsalvageable. Since I have so very much left, I just tossed that batch, cut another wedge into much fatter cubes, and roasted it plain, without seasoning it first. This worked alot better; they softened some but not as much with salt on, which seems to make them liquefy faster. Out of the oven and off the heat I seasoned them with salt and sugar.
I crumbled feta over rolled out pizza dough, then spooned the sauteed leeks over, then the pumpkin, then tore the last of the spindly mint from my garden over it. (I make many pizzas--including this one--without tomato sauce; olive oil is the only "sauce" that goes on them).
It was really good; my wife said it was her favorite of the night (the other two I made were margherita and one with bacon and caramelized onion, then sprinkled with lots of parsley, orange zest, and pecorino out of the oven). There was definitely a pumpkin taste to it this time; it has a slight vegetal taste, kind of like a very intense zucchini.
Tomorrow night I'm roasting a wedge whole, then using that to stuff ravioli.
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Post by ganews on Nov 11, 2017 16:27:03 GMT -5
I haven't done much in the branded pumpkin flavoring this year. But I bought some pumpkin spice Cheerios.  Not bad. Good dry out of the box, with the spice present but not overpowering. With milk, less strong of a flavor. |
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Post by pairesta on Nov 13, 2017 7:20:13 GMT -5
For the ravioli, i roasted a wedge of pumpkin first thing, then scooped out the flesh and put it in a strainer to drain off. A good half cup of water came out. Then, when mixing it with the rest of the filling ingredients, I noticed it was very fibrous still, so I pureed it, which in turn set off even more water, which never went away. It was a very wet filling and made working with the pasta difficult.
And again, it didn't taste of much other than the nutmeg and lemon zest that I put in the filling. So at this point I'm going to have to recommend against a fairytale pumpkin, for how flavorless it is and how watery it is, unless someone can recommend a remedy for that. Would a smaller fairytale be better?
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Nov 13, 2017 11:12:43 GMT -5
For the ravioli, i roasted a wedge of pumpkin first thing, then scooped out the flesh and put it in a strainer to drain off. A good half cup of water came out. Then, when mixing it with the rest of the filling ingredients, I noticed it was very fibrous still, so I pureed it, which in turn set off even more water, which never went away. It was a very wet filling and made working with the pasta difficult. And again, it didn't taste of much other than the nutmeg and lemon zest that I put in the filling. So at this point I'm going to have to recommend against a fairytale pumpkin, for how flavorless it is and how watery it is, unless someone can recommend a remedy for that. Would a smaller fairytale be better? I'm so sorry your fairytale pumpkin turned out to be one of those dark, horrible fairy tales. My experience with fancy pumpkins has always been just to roast them in wedges, puree them, and then strain. And then use the puree in place of canned pumpkin in baking applications. (Or, now that I think about it, to make stews with chunks of them.) I've never tried using one in a straight-up squash-y sort of treatment, like you did with your roasted cubes of them. Because even considering how much fleshier they are than jack-o-lantern pumpkins, they're still pumpkins -- they're going to be fibrous and wet. There's a reason pumpkins were such peasant food, traditionally! As for the flavor, the fact that it didn't taste especially great is a bummer. If you did want to try again, I'd recommend trying other varieties; my CSA grows some cheesewheel-shaped ones that are a deep red-orange color that are fantastic, and some that are paler than the Fairytale ones generally are. You might have more luck with a different type? Or maybe you just had a bad one. If it isn't too hard to get a hold of, and you don't mind trying again, who knows if this pumpkin of yours was a dud and the next one would be great? Of course, all of that said, canned pumpkin is a marvelous convenience and is consistently delicious, and there are countless types of squash that work better in squash settings than even the best pumpkin ever will!  |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Nov 13, 2017 11:14:14 GMT -5
Oh, and in my continuing efforts to pimp the Winter Luxury pumpkin, if you can find one of those I'd HIGHLY recommend trying it. I didn't even have to strain the puree from the one we grew, and it was sweet as candy! (I would still have wanted to puree it, rather than eating it in pieces, though.)
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Post by pairesta on Nov 13, 2017 11:56:00 GMT -5
Oh, and in my continuing efforts to pimp the Winter Luxury pumpkin, if you can find one of those I'd HIGHLY recommend trying it. I didn't even have to strain the puree from the one we grew, and it was sweet as candy! (I would still have wanted to puree it, rather than eating it in pieces, though.) Does size of the pumpkin have anything to do with it? This was the smallest of the ones available, but it's still pretty large. I wonder if they get more fibrous as they age (get bigger) and they'd be okay smaller. I'm just so disappointed because I was salivating when I cut into it and it had this deep, pure orange, thick flesh. It's so easy to carve and skin and cut but it just doesn't taste like anything. I'm googling "best edible pumpkin" right now and most recommendations are the sugar or sugar pie pumpkin and I know those suck. The best I'd had the the Red Kuri squash: almost red flesh, dense, sweet, with a very distinctive flavor. but those completely disappeared the past few years. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Nov 13, 2017 12:15:08 GMT -5
Does size of the pumpkin have anything to do with it? This was the smallest of the ones available, but it's still pretty large. I wonder if they get more fibrous as they age (get bigger) and they'd be okay smaller. I'm just so disappointed because I was salivating when I cut into it and it had this deep, pure orange, thick flesh. It's so easy to carve and skin and cut but it just doesn't taste like anything. I'm googling "best edible pumpkin" right now and most recommendations are the sugar or sugar pie pumpkin and I know those suck. The best I'd had the the Red Kuri squash: almost red flesh, dense, sweet, with a very distinctive flavor. but those completely disappeared the past few years. I doubt size would have much to do with it. The fact is that pumpkins aren't as flavorful as squashes, even at their tastiest! It's just the nature of the beast. Where did you get yours from? When I've grown sugar pie pumpkins they've been so-so for eating, but the ones we get from our CSA are generally stellar (as pumpkins go*). I suspect it's because the seeds I get are probably meant for pumpkins of more ornamental purpose, while our farmer is growing varieties specifically selected for flavor. It might be that the availability of cheesewheel- or fairytale-type pumpkins is more because people like the look of them now, and less because they're being grown for eating? *And their fairytale-style pumpkins are -- again, by pumpkin standards -- super-tasty, so I'm still so disappointed for you that yours turned out so awful! |
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Post by pairesta on Nov 13, 2017 12:33:22 GMT -5
Where did you get yours from? When I've grown sugar pie pumpkins they've been so-so for eating, but the ones we get from our CSA are generally stellar (as pumpkins go*). I suspect it's because the seeds I get are probably meant for pumpkins of more ornamental purpose, while our farmer is growing varieties specifically selected for flavor. It might be that the availability of cheesewheel- or fairytale-type pumpkins is more because people like the look of them now, and less because they're being grown for eating? *And their fairytale-style pumpkins are -- again, by pumpkin standards -- super-tasty, so I'm still so disappointed for you that yours turned out so awful! This was on a display in front of our local grocery chain. This same chain has a more upscale version in the city, and they had the same variety of pumpkins on display there, so I figured I'd go with it. I strongly suspect these were intending to be bought for ornamental purposes rather than eating. I'm just curious about the size thing, since it holds true for their cousins the zucchinis and summer squashes that as they get bigger, they get more seedy, watery, fibrous, and flavorless. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Nov 13, 2017 12:44:52 GMT -5
This was on a display in front of our local grocery chain. This same chain has a more upscale version in the city, and they had the same variety of pumpkins on display there, so I figured I'd go with it. I strongly suspect these were intending to be bought for ornamental purposes rather than eating. I'm just curious about the size thing, since it holds true for their cousins the zucchinis and summer squashes that as they get bigger, they get more seedy, watery, fibrous, and flavorless. It makes a certain amount of sense, but unlike summer squashes and zucchinis, pumpkins do stop getting bigger on the vine. You can leave your zucchini plants unattended and get zucchinis as big as logs, but leaving a pumpkin plant unattended will just leave you with pumpkins that grow to their intended size and then ripen up. (In my experience, at any rate. I have no idea how people grow those 700-pound behemoths, but that's another beast altogether, right?) Anyway, these kinds of pumpkins have a pretty broad range of sizes that are still within standard range. Looking at some seed catalogs, you'll see the descriptions say the fruits should be, like, 8-25 pounds. That doesn't necessarily mean the ones at the high end are older and woodier; it's just that they're bigger. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Nov 14, 2017 23:44:24 GMT -5
Ha, as I just said in the Holiday cooking thread, tonight I attempted to make some Pumpkin Cookie Bars for our holiday bake sale at the office this week. A friend passed me the recipe. The entire house now smells like pumpkin and cinnamon.
My friend instructed me to let these cool overnight, then frost them in the morning. Otherwise they are too moist. I made no attempt to make the cream cheese frosting from scratch.
So... we shall see. I bake very rarely. Really hope these work. No one from the office has brought in anything pumpkin flavored yet. Apple pies, apple cakes, various chocolate goods, but no pumpkin yet.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Nov 15, 2017 22:18:49 GMT -5
Okay, update on that attempt at Pumpkin bars. My friend was correct, it is very moist. I'm just going to call it Pumpkin cake, and cut very big squares of it.
I took a bite of it this morning. Wow, that is very good. It isn't cookies, but it is an excellent Pumpkin cake.
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Post by pairesta on Nov 25, 2017 9:21:10 GMT -5
I still have a good five or six wedges of that fairytale pumpkin left, wrapped in cling wrap in my crisper drawer. I was going to use two of those wedges to make a sweet and sour dish with for a small plates dinner I was doing for extended family. But, when I dug them out of the fridge, all had become moldy, seemingly overnight. So ends my fairytale pumpkin experiment.
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Post by ganews on Dec 6, 2017 19:29:38 GMT -5
 This was on sale at the store for $1.25 each with a coupon for a dollar off milk if you buy two. It's pretty good for snacking dry, but the pumpkin spice flavor nearly disappears in a bowl of milk, much like the pumpkin spice cheerios. |
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Post by ganews on Feb 10, 2018 23:25:23 GMT -5
It's not just for the holiday season - I had squirreled away Pumpkin Spice soy milk. Delicious!  I have the chocolate peppermint saved away too, probably to mix with vodka. |
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Post by ganews on Sept 10, 2018 9:45:25 GMT -5
The 2018 pumpkin season is off to a bit of a weak start. We got two sugar pie pumpkin seedlings from the University of Maryland back in the spring to put in the garden. One produced a tiny pumpkin barely wider than your palm. The other I kept going to see if it would grow, then it rotted.
At this Saturday's gelato festival I had a pumpkin spice coffee flavor that was just unfortunate - it tasted like cappuccino spiked with stereotypically bad pumpkin spice, not the good stuff mentioned elsewhere in this thread. At least the other 11 flavor cups I had (*dies, Xed-out eyes*) made up for it.
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Crash Test Dumbass
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ffc what now
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Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Sept 10, 2018 11:21:12 GMT -5
Keebler apparently has Pumpkin Spice Fudge Stripes, which is a flavor I guess could work with chocolate, except the 'fudge' is orange and therefore made of white chocolate which is a crime against nature.
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Post by Pastafarian on Sept 11, 2018 7:32:31 GMT -5
Keebler apparently has Pumpkin Spice Fudge Stripes, which is a flavor I guess could work with chocolate, except the 'fudge' is orange and therefore made of white chocolate which is a crime against nature. Unless it tastes like liver and onions, I'll allow consume it. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Sept 11, 2018 8:38:04 GMT -5
The 2018 pumpkin season is off to a bit of a weak start. We got two sugar pie pumpkin seedlings from the University of Maryland back in the spring to put in the garden. One produced a tiny pumpkin barely wider than your palm. The other I kept going to see if it would grow, then it rotted. At this Saturday's gelato festival I had a pumpkin spice coffee flavor that was just unfortunate - it tasted like cappuccino spiked with stereotypically bad pumpkin spice, not the good stuff mentioned elsewhere in this thread. At least the other 11 flavor cups I had (*dies, Xed-out eyes*) made up for it. We planted some Winter Luxury pumpkins in our foundation plantings and then had a very unfortunate summer of thistle overgrowth. So now I know there is a big vine growing through the jungle thicket there, but have no idea whether there are any pumpkins on it. And kind of no way to find out, because I'm sure as shit not rummaging through head-high thistles to look. |
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Sept 14, 2018 7:39:45 GMT -5
I got a customized iced PSL this morning (3 shots of espresso in a grande, 3 pumps pumpkin spice, 1 pump vanilla, light ice) and it was like $6 but I regret nothing.
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Post by Pastafarian on Sept 14, 2018 7:44:57 GMT -5
Has anyone had it?  |
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Post by ganews on Sept 19, 2018 18:54:47 GMT -5
Some really nice pumpkin cookies at the wedding reception last weekend. Specifically, salted caramel ice cream scoop sandwiched by two pumpkin cookies.
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Ben Grimm
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Post by Ben Grimm on Sept 21, 2018 10:33:50 GMT -5
Included in an email I got today:  One of these things will be real by next year. |
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Post by Pastafarian on Sept 22, 2018 13:32:48 GMT -5
Yesterday night Halo Top Canada's website was running a promo where you could get a coupon for a free pint of their Pumpkin Pie flavour of ice cream. Yeah it's Halo Top, but free is free. I've got the coupon, now I just need to go and collect from my local participating retailer.
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Crash Test Dumbass
AV Clubber
ffc what now
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Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Sept 22, 2018 21:37:55 GMT -5
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Post by ganews on Oct 1, 2018 14:16:50 GMT -5
About a year ago Wifemate gave a sampler pack of Chups, which I mostly only use on mostly-flavorless bean burgers. I saved the pumpkin ketchup until just this weekend's sad burger - and it was pretty good! Not overly sweet like the cherry or cranberry varieties. |
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Oct 1, 2018 21:45:49 GMT -5
I have acquiesced and purchased pumpkin cream cheese and an imperial pumpkin porter.
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