So, as I was waiting for this cake to bake, I wondered: am I the only person who can't get her tongue in between the handheld mixer attachments, or are there others?

I swear I was done.  You weren't going to hear any more about pumpkins, baked pumpkins, roasted pumpkins, pumpkin granola, pumpkin puree, or pumpkin succotash.  (Okay, you hadn't heard about half of those things, but still.  I was thinking about them hard.  You might have heard from how hard I was thinking.)

I certainly wasn't going to tell you about the pumpkin soup from last night.  And there are DEFINITELY no pictures of it!  But since I was sabotaged, let me tell you about the soup.

Pumpkin-Black Bean Soup

1 red onion, finely diced

1 yellow pepper, chopped

1 clove garlic

1 can black beans, rinsed

1 small piece pork belly

Several pieces pumpkin, cubed (sorry, can't be more specific - maybe it was 4 cups?)

1 quart chicken broth

handful cilantro

1 capful lime juice

salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, cayenne

Fry up the pork belly, remove from pot and dice.  Saute onion and yellow pepper, add in beans and spices.  Add in pumpkin and chicken broth and simmer until pumpkin is fork-tender.  Puree briefly with immersion blender so that the soup is part smooth, part chunky.  Pour in lime juice, diced pork belly, and cilantro and keep on a low simmer until ready to serve.

Back to the sabotage.  I was in the midst of making these cookies for my daughter's Halloween party, and thought I'd throw in a batch of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies just for good measure.  I haven't made chocolate chip cookies for longer than I realized, so I sneaked a quick look at the bag to remember the measurements.  I had thought earlier about making some kind of pumpkin cookie, but just didn't have the mental energy to act on that idea.  And then, out of nowhere, what did I see when I looked at the chip ba

g??!!

 

It never seemed strange to me, growing up, that we didn't go trick-or-treating on Halloween, but always on a day or two before, or even the week before.  (A conversation with my mother confirms that it is always on a Thursday.)

Now that I live in New York, and we go trick-or-treating on Halloween, I am ashamed to say I join my husband as we sniff our noses in disdain at the ways that I grew up with! 

(It's quite possibly my least favorite holiday, by the way.  I'm forced into eating too much candy, costumes cost too much money, and my poor little brain topped itself last year with the robot costumes...

...so I simply was unable to come up with some ingenious idea for this year.  School Halloween parties are usually disastrous, although my Little Mermaid did look quite adorable this year holding hands with the Pink Pirate at their very first Halloween soiree...  I will never be the person who calls it the "devil holiday" and turns off my front porch lights and sits in the dark watching Disney movies all night, but I do look forward to a time when my role will simply be to sit on my front porch with my husband, handing out candy and oohing and aaahing over all the kids who come to the door.)

But back to the pumpkins, for goodness sake!!  Of course we scooped out our pumpkin seeds to set aside for roasting, and then I remembered the pumpkin puree that has been fortifying my oatmeal all week.  And then I thought about how long it's been since I've had granola.  And then the plan came together.

Pumpkin Pie Granola

3 cups whole oats (not instant)

1 cup crisp rice cereal

1 handful sunflower seeds

1 handful sliced almonds

1 handful pumpkin seeds, raw if possible

1 tsp salt

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/4 cup oil

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

1/3 cup brown sugar

Mix the dry, mix the wet, add the wet to the dry and stir until there's no dry left.  (It's fun to hear the rice cereal crackle while you mix it.  Fun because I'm a total kitchen nerd.  You should see me when my lids pop during canning.  But anyway.)  Bake at 350, stirring every 5 minutes, for about 20-30 minutes.

Had I thought of it, I might have decreased the pumpkin puree just a bit and used some orange juice, and maybe some orange zest.  Play around and see what you get!

Before I turn you over to someone else's great pumpkin ideas, here's another preparation for pumpkin oatmeal.  You so don't need instant oatmeal at the store, not even in their special novelty flavors.  Every morning I've been making my regular batch of oatmeal, but now with a bit of brown sugar, a bit of pumpkin pie spice, and several spoonfuls of pureed pumpkin from last week's farmers market.  (Pureed pumpkin that was destined for the freezer, but I don't think it will make it.)  A sprinkling of sunflower seeds makes this a super-healthy, super-delicious breakfast.  In about 3 minutes.  You couldn't drive to McDonald's, order their "healthy option" of oatmeal (not) in 3 minutes! 

But I digress.  Check out Zomppa's post on pumpkin, and then go get some pumpkin and spend some time in your kitchen!

Tonight's dinner was so good!  Pork roast in the oven, with a homemade barbecue sauce that started with a jar of my spicy peach jam.  Local cole slaw (except for 1/3 of an onion) rounded out this meal, but my husband wanted more veggies.  All I had was... right.  Pumpkin.

So I cubed some of it, tossed it in a baking dish with olive oil (not much), salt, pepper, Adobo, cayenne, paprika, dried cilantro, and 1/2 a can of chickpeas.  Baked at 400 for about 30 minutes, topped with Parmesan cheese at the end.

Truly, I wasn't expecting much from this, but it turned out to be a real winner, and something I'll definitely make again.

Part 3 was pumpkin cookies.

Every year since kindergarten, somehow, I have made my son pumpkin cookies to take to school to share with his friends.  (I'm not sure how that happened as I am a rather inconsistent person when it comes to such things, but there it is...)

There are no pictures.  Some things just aren't around long enough.

 

Part 3a was the result of a burst of energy I had this morning, completely unexplained. 

Pumpkin Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup milk

1/4 cup oil

1/2 cup pureed pumpkin (preferably fresh, not canned)

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

small handful whole oats

small handful slivered almonds

small handful mini chocolate chips

Mix all the dry.  Mix all the wet.  Mix the wet to the dry.  Pour into muffin pans and bake 15-18 minutes at 400.

Oh, how I love to eat oatmeal for breakfast!  (Not the instant stuff, but the kind you need a pot for.  Well, a pot, or a cup, hot water, and five minutes...)

So on the off chance that you have some raw pumpkin salad* (see Pumpkin: Part 1) left over, here is what you shall do:

Saute the whole thing with brown sugar and butter (or white sugar, molasses, and butter, if you should find yourself in the unfortunate position of being OUT of brown sugar), and add in some pumpkin pie spice.  If you should find yourself in the position of being out of pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, clove, or any combination thereof will do the job nicely.

Assuming this is just for you, add in one cup of water (or milk) and 1/2 cup of not-instant oatmeal, and a pinch of salt, and cook it as you regularly would your oatmeal.

Add in a small bit of applesauce and some slivered almonds for crunch, and I defy you to not be carried through to lunchtime!

*Yes.  I know the pumpkin salad recipe called for cider vinegar.  When I said just a splash, I meant it, and it isn't noticed at all in this recipe.  If you went for more than a splash, then perhaps you should finish the pumpkin salad in its original form - or on top of a tuna salad sandwich!!

You know that carrot salad, the one with raisins, pineapple, and an unidentifiable creamy dressing?

This isn't that.

What this IS, is pumpkin, with dried blueberries and crystallized ginger, splashed just a bit with some cider vinegar, a teensy pinch of salt, and a healthy shake of black pepper.  What??  Raw pumpkin??  Yes, and here's why: I am a great big giant Mark Bittman fan, so when he wrote about raw butternut squash salad with dried cranberries, I was game to give it a whirl. 

My farmer gave me some gorgeous pumpkins last week, and while I steamed most of them to freeze for puree, this one little hunk of it just said "No, not me!"  So I grated it into this salad.  I didn't have cranberries, but I did have dried blueberries, and the cider vinegar provided the acid that Bittman's recipe called for in the form of orange juice.  Finally, I had grated all my fresh ginger into this tomato jam (if you haven't, do yourself a favor and visit the Food In Jars website - very informative and full of great recipes), but I did have some crystallized ginger that gives the appearance of the pineapple in that sad carrot salad.

So!  Here you have it:

Raw Pumpkin Salad

small hunk of pumpkin, raw, grated

smattering of dried blueberries

1 piece crystallized ginger, chopped fine

1 1/2 capfuls cider vinegar

salt & pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together.  Eat.

 

But wait!  This says "Pumpkin: Part 1!!"  That's right.  Stay tuned for how I used the leftover amount of the pumpkin salad.

(I won't mention that they're healthier, too.)

Yes, your children CAN have chocolate chip granola bars.  I don't mean these, but I mean REAL granola bars, that are healthy AND delicious.  Let me rephrase. 

Yes, your children CAN have chocolate chip granola bars, as long as you don't scarf down the whole container in one sitting. 

(Yes, I have lost around 55 pounds, and yes, I intend to keep it off.  But these bars are something special.)

I am a HUGE fan of The Kitchenette.  I like her style of writing; I like her recipes; I like the person that I think she is, having never met her.  I made these espresso-laced granola bars for my kids' teachers on the first day of school and I don't want to come right out and say that I became their favorite parent, but...  I really appreciate The Kitchenette.

Although my oldest well remembers eating coffee beans in the coffee aisle at the grocery store when she was a mere 5 or 6 years old, I am actually not a proponent of giving kids espresso.  So I sought to make them chocolate chip granola bars that would satisfy their sweet tooth (teeth?), keep them going through the long morning until lunch, and not be full of non-food ingredients.  I roughly followed the espresso granola bar recipe and came out with a beautiful pan of delicious-looking granola bars.  I let it cool overnight and flipped them out of the baking dish the next morning.  What a mess!  They were soft, crumbly, and, well, not good, texturally-speaking.  What's worse, what's the greatest insult of all, is that they came back in my kids' lunch bags, untouched.

Oh.  That hurts.

I sat there in the kitchen, both cursing and eating the limp and flimsy granola "bars," as if they could ever hope to be called such.  So loyal was I to the recipe that even as I cranked the oven to 350 for that last-ditch effort at salvaging them, I knew it wouldn't work.

I picked up the pieces and put them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, set the timer for 10 minutes and walked away.  The kitchen smelled good, but of course it would; those were good ingredients.  That didn't mean they would taste good.

I took them out, let them cool, put them into a container and went to bed.  This morning when I woke up I tried one and... what an utter and complete transformation!  Crunchy, yet chewy, sweet, yet not overly so, and with the most delightful nutty taste!  How could yesterday's disaster be such a wonderful success today?!!

You should make these, and you should not wait a day for the extra step of baking.

Chocolate Chip Granola Bars, adapted from The Kitchenette

1 cup slivered almonds
1 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1/3 cup brown rice syrup
1/4 cup honey

scant 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
2 tablespoons peanut butter

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups rolled oats (not instant oatmeal)
1 1/2 cups unsweetened crisp rice cereal

about ½ cup chocolate chips

In a saucepan, heat the brown rice syrup, sugar, peanut butter and vanilla until bubbling just around the edges and all ingredients are blended. 

In a large bowl, mix almonds, coconut, flax seed, salt, chocolate chips, oats, and rice cereal until well mixed.

Pour syrup mixture into dry mixture and stir until all ingredients are coated.  Have patience!  Persevere!  It will seem like there isn’t enough wet to coat all of the dry.  Just keep stirring and have faith.

Press into a buttered baking dish.  Press hard, with the heels of your hands and a piece of parchment, trying to keep the granola the same thickness all around.  Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.  Slice into bars in the dish while warm, let cool, then break apart.

This recipe is HIGHLY customizable.  Have different nuts?  Use them!  Peanut butter not allowed in your kids' school?  Take it out and increase the brown rice syrup a bit.  Don’t have brown rice syrup?  Try agave or (gulp) corn syrup instead!  (I wouldn’t use all honey – too sweet.)

Play around, and don’t fear if you end up with something less than desirable.  Take it one more step and you might end up with something amazing!