It's officially November and it doesn't feel like it at all. On the one hand, I've only lived here in Seattle for about 5 months so far, and yet on the other hand I feel like I've lived here for at least a year if not more. I guess that's what happens when you go out and explore the city and enjoy something new every day. It also doesn't feel like November because despite all the rain for the past week or so, there's not a cloud in the sky today and it's bright and warm. Hopefully tomorrow will remain so when Ian and I head over to Bremerton (1 hour ferry west of Seattle).
Beautiful day! Trees changing colors
Fresh snow on the Olympic Mountains
Nevertheless, time for food ...
Lots of different beans were on sale at the co-op market, so I tried my hand at making a vegetarian chili with red and black beans:
My first batch of chili
Saw some blue cornmeal at the co-op market, so I decided to try it out for cornbread instead of the more common yellow cornmeal. Here's the batter.
It was a success! Blue cornbread with the chili :)
Now seeing as it was the end of October (yes, I'm a little late with this blog post) and a bunch of pumpkins were on sale, I wanted to try to make a pumpkin pie completely from scratch. What I learned from my research was that small sugar pie pumpkins are not the same as those big carving pumpkins. In other words, I don't think you'll be as successful making a pumpkin pie from one of those pumpkins you make a jack 'o lantern out of ... the pie pumpkins are drier and more dense inside. That being said ...
Here is a pie pumpkin (also called a sugar pumpkin or - rarely - a "cheese" pumpkin ... don't ask me why haha). These are small and dense pumpkins - this one is about 2 pounds. Oh, just for reference (and also for myself in case I lose my recipe, so I can look it up here on my blog) ... 1 pound of raw pie pumpkin is equal to 1 cup of cooked pumpkin purée or 2 cups of chopped cooked pumpkin. In this case, my 2 pound pumpkin will yield 2 cups of pumpkin purée necessary for the pie. Here's the recipe: http://www.joyofbaking.com/pumpkinpie.html . Only change I made was that I used significantly more spices (I finely ground up cloves, cinnamon, allspice, dried ginger, and one star of anise, and then used about 3 tablespoons of this mix) and baked for 10 minutes longer (it will depend on your oven)
Carefully cutting open the pumpkin and cleaning out the seeds and membranes - use a serrated knife so it doesn't slip and cut you (I actually used a hand saw - haha!). Save the seeds! You can roast them and eat them.
Steam the pumpkin face down for about 20-30 mins until soft
After steaming, the skin should just slip off so you can basically "squeeze" out the flesh into a bowl
My homemade short crust pastry (in french, called pâte brisée) for the crust - rolling it out was a bit difficult and it kept sticking/ripping, so I ended up rolling it out on top of plastic wrap and then putting the pie tin upside down on the dough, then flipping it all over (rather than trying to transfer the dough into the tin). Of course, then remove the plastic and crimp the edge with a fork before pouring the filling in. This is a "wet" bake, meaning that the crust is NOT baked before pouring the filling in.
Don't forget to also roast the seeds with some olive oil and salt in the oven at the same time while your pie bakes! yum
After baking (I baked slightly longer than the recipe suggests, so for about 55-60 mins since watery pie is not yummy). Like my pumpkin in the middle? The darker color than most pumpkin pies is due to my use of more spices
Use some of the heavy cream left over from the pie to whip up some fresh whipped cream. I added some local honey into the cream (1 tablespoon)
And now for something more savory. With our leftover chili, we decided to make a tortilla bake after grabbing some fresh poblano peppers from the farmer's market (you can substitute any other large, milder peppers like Anaheim or Hatch, but you'll want a little bit of heat). In a casserole dish, we just put tortillas on the bottom, then layered chili, red kale and cheese, and the peppers (after roasting) on top - tortillas in between each layer, of course.
I mentioned before how I've fallen in love with concord grapes - they're unlike any other grapes. Intensely grapey with skins that slip off in your mouth as you eat them. I was getting sad that so soon after this latest discovery I would have to wait an entire year to taste them again since the season was coming to a close. However, this past sunday at the farmer's market, we spotted just one bin of the last of the concord grapes left!
Of course, I bought a good 3-4 pounds worth for $10 - I was not ready to be without concord grapes for a whole year. So, what do you do with so much fresh fruit that you want to make last an entire year? Well, make preserves of course ...
This is the book I've been waiting for - the Seattle Public Library just acquired it a week ago. Rachel Saunders' "Blue Chair Jam Cookbook". It's 350 pages of every jam, jelly, marmalade, and preserve imaginable - organized by season. She emphasizes minimal use of sugar to let the natural fruit taste shine through, and avoiding the use of powdered pectin since nature's fruits have their own pectin (albeit, in differing amounts). Even then, I still used 1/2 as much sugar as she suggested - I'm really not a fan of super sweet.
With concord grapes, you have to separate the skins and the flesh ... then cook the flesh really quickly to soften it a little, and finally run it all through a strainer to remove the seeds from the grapes. Here, I have returned the grape pulp from the flesh back with the skins and 1/3 cup orange juice (I didn't have lemon juice, so orange juice served as the acid required to activate the pectin in the skins necessary to get jam to thicken and set). Notice how clear the juice of concord grapes look. However...
After cooking it down to about 1/3 original volume, the skins release their gorgeous color and the jam looks so smooth and gets so dark it looks like glass. I was afraid the mix wouldn't thicken and would remain syrupy, but I had to remind myself that fruit naturally has pectin (concord grapes = high pectin content) and my apple butter thickened and set nicely without me adding powdered pectin, so all I had to do was just keep cooking it down.
Made 5 jars last night and let them cool on the counter to seal for breakfast this morning
This may be the prettiest jam - so intensely dark and glossy
Harvested the majority of tomatoes outside on the balcony seeing as the red tomato plan is beginning to die slowly (it's getting too cold and wet). There are still a few green, unripened tomatoes on the golden tomato plant - I'll leave those on the vine a little longer.
As far as other gardening news, I received my paperwhite bulbs and Peter Stuyvesant hyacinth bulbs in the mail, so I look forward to the paperwhites brightening up our apartment in the middle of the dark, grey winter ... and then the hyacinths popping up in early spring. Here's what they'll look like:
http://shop1.actinicexpress.co.uk/shops/rosecottageplants/images/catalog/Peter-Stuyvesant-big.jpg
The hyacinths
http://www.stylehive.com/tag/white_flower_farm
Paperwhite (Ziva) bulbs
I will be "forcing" the paperwhites indoors (growing them in the winter in the warmer indoors, tricking them into thinking it's spring). You can grow paperwhites like the picture above without any soil. The hyacinths, however, will have to wait - they need a long cold winter in order to bloom in the spring so I'll just set them up in their pot and leave them outside.
I guess that's it for now ... orchestra concert in three weeks. Better find a tux and get my bow rehaired ...
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