Pumpkin Cornbread

Recall the ill-fated muffins from yesterday?  Well, they only used a half a can of pumpkin and I was taunted with the rest of the can, just sitting in the fridge.  I decided that the best way to proceed was to make pumpkin corn bread.  This time, however, my recipe tweaking was rewarded.

Pumpkin Cornbread

1 c cornmeal
1 c AP flour
1/3 c sugar
1/4 t cinnamon
1/2 t grated nutmeg
1 T baking powder
1 t salt

1/3 c oil (I used grapeseed oil, but vegetable oil works here too)
1/2 c milk (or more)
1/2 c pumpkin
1 large egg, beaten

Set oven to 400 F.  Whisk together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt.  In a separate bowl, mix together the oil, milk, pumpkin, and egg.  Fold in the dry ingredients.  Pour into an 8x8 or 9x9 baking pan and bake until a toothpick can be cleanly removed, about 15 minutes.

The reason why I say that you may need more milk is that it depends on the consistency of your pumpkin.  The pumpkin I used was fairly watery, but the batter was still pretty thick.  Thin it with milk a couple Tbsps at a time if the batter turns to dough.  You should be able to shake the pan to (mostly) smooth out the batter into one even-ish layer.

Thanksgiving Recapped

I celebrated my first Thanksgiving away from home and it made me realize two things: a) my friends are wonderful and b) I really want a *real* dining room table instead of the card table that we inherited from Kyle. I sent an open invitation to the department and had about 12 people show up. It was the perfect size for the party and now I'm looking forward to planning a miniature white-elephant exchange Christmas party.

I took a lot of recipes from all over and modified them to fit my tastes/pantry. I made the homemade rolls from the pioneer woman cooks, which were tasty if not a bit heavy. Turkey, of course, with stuffing a la Chris complete with breakfast sausage and sour dough bread from the farmers market. We also had the Alton Brown version turkey and green bean casserole (although, I didn't have the patience or time to make my own french fried onions). Both came out wonderfully, and the turkey was made even better with cranberry apple chutney. There were also mashed potatoes with roasted garlic (along with plenty of cream and butter) and we mashed sweet potatoes from the farmer's market with cream, butter, smoked sweet paprika, and just a hint of cayenne. We also had apple and pumpkin pies which were made courtesy of my new pink KitchenAid stand mixer. Way tasty and easy too! :) In all, it was very successful and I'm looking forward to winding down the rest of the semester and going home.

Pumpkin Pie (revised)

So in the holiday spirit, Chris hosted pie-stravaganza and it was amazing. I made a pumpkin pie and he made the apple pie and there was much happiness and rejoicing. A bunch of the grad students + Katie went bowling, but whilst they were chucking 12 lb gutter balls, we were hard at work in the kitchen.

This pie was particularly rewarding because I made the crust my own damn self. Also, the exact amounts could be off, so I'm going to have to check with Chris to see if it's right.

Crust:

1 1/2c flour
9 tbs cold butter
1/2 tsp salt
3-4+ tbs cold water

Cut the butter into the flour until it appears to be a crumb-like texture. Begin to form it into a ball and add water in order to make it stick together. The amount of water varies as the humidity varies, so good luck. Wrap wad of dough into a ball and put in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Take the dough out and roll it until it's ~1/4 in thick/large enough to suffice as a pie crust. Place the dough into the container and press it into the corners making sure that there's enough dough around the edges where the wall of the pie tin meets the bottom. Prick the bottom with a fork. Cut off the excess dough and then you can make "pie leaves", which essentially boil down to creating an edge crust for the pie. I cut out stars and moons because I'm sweet like that, but it's kind of unnecessary if you just leave enough edge on the pie. Put back into the fridge for 20 minutes.

Take it out and place pie weights in the center of the pie and pre-bake for 12 minutes at 400 F. Take it out again and then take off the pie weights and put back into the oven for 6-8 minutes or until the pie looks goldenish. If you do it right, the crust should lie flat against the bottom. If not, no worries, the weight of the filling should be enough to compensate and if not, then who cares? It's pie. Everyone loves pie.

Filling (do whilst things are in the oven or something)

2 c pumpkin filling
1 c heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
4 tbs corn syrup
1/2 c brown sugar, packed
2 eggs, beaten (and take out the albumen!)

I think this is all there is to it. Essentially all you do is mix thoroughly and hard. Apparently there is an advantage to incorporating air into the mix.

Pour the filling into the crust and bake at 375 for ~40 minutes or until the crust had browned and the filling appears to be set. Pumpkin pie is best served the next day after it's had time to set.

So this was from a recipe from a cookbook that I don't own. I think in the future, I'm going to be more careful/anal about how I handle the dough and I'm going to play around with the pumpkin pie spice. It was good, though and pie-stravaganza was a success.