Pumpkin Recipes!

These recipes appeared in the Make It From Scratch, Fall Colors Edition at Stop the Ride.

In the spirit of October I’ve been thinking about pumpkins. There are lots of pumpkins in the store and the small pie pumpkins are pretty cheap. I decided to think about pumpkins as another winter squash and see what I could do with them. This past week I made a pumpkin soup and some pumpkin muffins. Although I’ve been seeing recipes for both of those items all over the web this month, I decided to post my original recipes too! The soup has a nice bite to it, thanks to the chili and curry and the muffins were completely delicious! Roast two pumpkins at the same time and use one for the soup and the other for the muffins.




Curried Pumpkin Soup

Medium-sized pie pumpkin
3 med. Granny Smith apples
2 med yellow onions
1 head garlic
4 carrots
1 med long green chili
2 Tablespoons olive oil
4 cups stock (chicken, vegetable or beef)
2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 Tablespoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon ground nutment

1. Split the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds. Peel, core and halve the apples, peel and halve the onions, peel the carrots. Place them plus the garlic and chili on sheet pans and drizzle with olive oil. Roast all the vegetables on sheet pans at 400° until tender (approx. one hour).

2. Pop garlic cloves out of their skins, scoop pumpkin out of its shell. Peel chili and remove seeds and top. Cut everything roughly, feed into the blender with enough stock to blend smooth.

3. Put the blended vegetables in a large pot with the rest of the stock. Add seasonings. Simmer until heated through and flavors are blended. Approximately 10 minutes. Adjust seasonings to taste. Leave as is for rustic texture or sieve for a smoother texture.

Don’t forget to compost your vegetable peelings or, even better, feed them to your worms! (No chili, onion or garlic peelings to the worms, please.)




Pumpkin Cranberry Pecan Muffins

Vegetable oil cooking spray
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 pie pumpkin
½ cup pecan pieces
½ cup dried cranberries
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
¼ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup crème fraiche or sour cream

1. Halve the pumpkin, scoop out the seeds and place the pumpkin on a sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil and roast in a 400° oven until tender, approximately 1 hour.

2. While the pumpkin is roasting, toast the pecans in the oven for about 7 minutes, or until lightly browned. Let cool and then coarsely chop.

3. Reduce the oven to 350°. Spray your muffin pans cooking spray. I used mini muffin pans. Scoop the roasted pumpkin out of its shell and mash with a fork until relatively smooth.

4. Sift the flour with the baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with the sugar until pale yellow. Whisk in the oil and crème fraiche or sour cream. Stir in the pumpkin, cranberries and pecans, then stir in the flour mixture until blended.

5. Pour the batter into the muffin tins, filling about ¾ full and bake for 15 – 20 minutes, checking after 10 minutes, or until risen and a cake tester inserted in the center of one or two muffins comes out clean. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then turn them out onto a rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!