Spiced Pumpkin Bread

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Pumpkin spice bread by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

This bread is such a treat - fragrantly spiced with just the right amount of sweetness. I like to toast it and eat it with a little butter and a sprinkle of salt.

Prepping the sugar pumpkin for roasting by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

I baked it because I had a bunch of pumpkin puree left over from the sugar pumpkins I'd roasted to make my prize-winning pie. Those two cups of pumpkin puree turned into two steaming loaves of pumpkin bread with beautifully cracked tops. Yum!

Roasted sugar pumpkin by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

Our older son, who has been more or less refusing all offers of food lately (sigh) has always liked pumpkin bread and has been scarfing it down like there's no tomorrow! Although it's not my first choice for one of his primary sources of nutrition, I was beginning to worry that he was actually losing weight (and he's got nothing to spare) so I just bought another pie pumpkin to make a couple more loaves.

You can certainly substitute canned pumpkin if you're in a rush, but if you have time, use a real sugar pumpkin - they're super cheap, the flavor is way better and it's suprisingly easy. Just cut the pumpkin in half, scoop the seeds out, place the halves, cut-side down on a baking sheet and roast at 350 for about an hour or until you can easily pierce the skin with a fork. Remove, let them cool until you can handle them without getting burned, then scoop the flesh out with a spoon. That's it! Just make sure you buy a pie or sugar pumpkin, not one you'd carve for Halloween as that variety would not taste good.

This is simple recipe that I've adapted slightly adapted from the Joy of Cooking - adding vanilla and a few other spices. I was also out of brown sugar so I used some of the big bag of organic, fair trade coconut sugar my mom gave me recently instead. I was happy to find that the bread tastes great and is a teeny bit better for you since coconut sugar has a relatively low glycemic index for a sweetener and boasts a little bit of nutritional value. Don't get too excited, though, it's still sugar. But I do love that you can do a straight up substitution for cane sugar - no math=good!

Big Tree organic coconut sugar by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

I've been loving this bread just as it is, but if you want to dress it up a bit, fold in a cup of chopped nuts, chocolate chips or diced crystallized ginger after you add the flour in step 3 below.

Pumpkin spice bread by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

-- print recipe --
Spiced Pumpkin Bread
Makes two loaves

Ingredients

* 3 cups flour
* 3 tsps baking soda
* 2 tsp baking powder
* 3 tsps ground cinnamon
* 1/2 tsp ground cloves
* 1 tsp grated nutmeg
* 2 tsps pure vanilla extract
* 1 tsp sea salt
* 1 cup (2 sticks) organic butter, melted and cooled
* 2 1/2 cups firmly packed coconut or brown sugar
* 4 eggs (use pasture-raised if you can find them near you)
* 2 cups cooked, pureed pumpkin or winter squash

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 9 x 5-inch loaf pans and set aside.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt in a medium bowl.

3. In a large bowl, whisk the butter and sugar until well-blended. Beat in the eggs and pumpkin puree until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture until mixed. Scrape the batter into the greased loaf pans.

4. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool in the pans for about 10 minutes then remove from the pans and cool completely.

You might also like:



Prize-Winning Pumpkin Ginger Pie

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Gingery pumpkin pie with graham cracker and ginger snap crust by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

Ginger and pumpkin are a winning combo. So much so that I won the pumpkin pie contest at Wednesday's Woodstock Farm Festival with this here pie! Actually, I tied for first with a woman named Nancy - here's a photo of our big moment -- I'm on the left with my eyes closed, oh well...


When I began plotting my path to victory, I knew two things -- I wanted to use fresh pumpkin rather than canned and I wanted to highlight the warm, spicy flavor of ginger. As a result, the recipe below is a Frankenstein made up of bits and pieces that I liked the sound of -- Faith Durand's ginger pumpkin pie, the crust from this pie, and Simply Recipes' old-fashioned pumpkin pie.

Prepping the sugar pumpkin for roasting by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

The pumpkin part turned out to be easy. Our younger son had a field trip to Kelder's Farm last week and the first stop on the hayride was a field where each child was invited to pick one pumpkin. The vines were a bit too prickly for my son's taste so I yanked the pumpkin from its vine in the dusty field while the sun shone down from the bright blue sky -- it made a marvelously satisfying cracking noise.

A few days later, I cut the pumpkin in half and scooped out the seeds and guts -- I saved my seeds to roast -- they make a great, healthy snack.

Prepping the sugar pumpkin for roasting by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

I placed the halves cut-side-down on a baking sheet and roasted them for almost an hour at 350 degrees, until I could easily pierce them with a fork.

Once they'd cooled down enough to handle, I scooped the flesh out with a spoon. Boom! Done! Not quite as easy as buying a can of pumpkin puree but a heck of a lot tastier, plus we got to eat the seeds. If your pumpkin is stringy post-roasting, use a masher or immersion blender to puree it until smooth.

Roasted sugar pumpkin by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

As for the ginger, I used it three ways just like the Chopped contestants do when they want to impress the judges...

I used a bag of organic ginger snaps to amp up the gingery flavor of the crust.

Crushing ginger snaps into crumbs for the crust by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

I also chopped up some crystallized ginger to add to the cookie crumbs for the crust.

Chopping up the crystallized ginger for the crust by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

And, last but not least, I added a healthy dose of shredded, fresh ginger root to the pumpkin custard filling.

The crust was very easy. I pulsed the cookie crumbs and ginger with a little sugar, then added plenty of melted butter and mixed it all together with my hands. Then I patted it into the pie pan and put it in the oven for a short while to pre-bake while I got the filling together.

Patting the cookie crumb crust into place before it goes in the oven by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

Other than the fresh ginger, the ingredients I used in the filling were fairly standard -- organic heavy cream, eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, lemon zest, salt, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon. I don't think this photo sells it very well... If you want your final, cooked pie filling to look more orange, use white sugar instead of brown.

Pumpkin custard mixture for filling the pies by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

Then I poured the custard filling into the pre-baked crust and put it in the oven for a long bake at 375 until the center was set, covering the crust partway through as it was getting pretty dark. I love the way it "cracked".

Gingery pumpkin pie with graham cracker and ginger snap crust by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

A warm, rich, spiced custard in a delightfully gingery cookie crumb crust that won the Woodstock Farm Festival pumpkin pie contest! Serve with fresh whipped cream sweetened with a jot of maple syrup.

Hope you enjoy it!

-- print recipe --Ginger Pumpkin Pie with Graham Cracker Crust
Makes one 9-inch pie

Ingredients

For the crust:
* 1 1/4 cups finely ground gingersnap cookie crumbs (about 25 cookies)
* 2 Tbsps sugar
* 3 Tbsps finely minced crystallized ginger
* 6 Tbsps unsalted organic butter, melted

For the filling:
* 1 3/4 cups (or 1 can) pumpkin puree
* 2 large eggs + 1 large egg yolk
* 1 1/2 cups organic heavy cream
* 2/3 cup dark brown sugar
* 3 Tbsps grated fresh ginger
* 1/2 tsp lemon zest
* 1 tsp ground cinnamon
* 1/4 tsp ground cloves
* 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
* 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
* 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Directions

1. Make the crust: preheat the oven to 350°F. Pulse the gingersnap cookie crumbs, sugar and ginger several times then add the melted butter and stir until the mixture is eventy moistened (I used my fingers.) Transfer the mixture to a 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish and press the buttery crumbs firmly and evenly into the bottom and up the sides to the top of the dish. Bake the crust until firm and slightly darker in color, about 8 minutes. Remove and let cool.

2. While the crust is baking, turn the oven up to 375°F and then make the filling: whisk the pumpkin puree with the eggs, egg yolk, and brown sugar. Grate the ginger using a Microplane or fine grater - you don't want any of the fibrous stringy bits to remain. Add the grated ginger, spices, lemon zest and cream to the pumpkin mixture and whisk well to combine.

3. Pour the mixture into the graham cracker crust and bake for about 50 minutes or until the filling is just set - it will continue to set a bit more after it comes out of the oven. After about half an hour, check the pie, rotate it and tent with foil if the edges of the crust seem to be browning too quickly.

4. Remove to a rack and let cool. Serve with fresh whipped cream.

You might also like:



Growing Rice In The Hudson Valley - New Article

Monday, October 3, 2016

I had the privilege of writing about a fascinating family who is growing several delicious varieties of short-grain rice not far from where I live for the new issue of Edible Hudson Valley.

Photo by Meredith Heuer for Edible Hudson Valley.
I first met Nfamara and his wife, Dawn at a West African dance class I go to every week in Kingston, NY. Nfamara is a master drummer from the Gambia whose smiling presence is always a pleasure and his wife, Dawn, is an American woman who is a beautiful dancer. That was about all I knew about them until after a class last fall when our teacher, Pam, announced that Nfamara and Dawn had brought rice from their farm to sell if anyone was interested in buying a bag.


I was definitely interested. Nfamara and Dawn were growing rice? Here? In upstate New York? I had not even known it was possible! I thought most rice came from Asia though I knew there was some grown in California and that some native American tribes still harvested wild rice from lakes. My curiosity was piqued...

Photo by Meredith Heuer for Edible Hudson Valley.
Long story short, my editor was interested, too, so I donned my rubber boots and headed out to their farm which is located in Ulster Park, right near Kingston, NY. It's called the Ever-Growing Family Farm and, indeed, there family is expanding it quickly. Rice farming is in Nfamara's and his friend and farming partner, Tapha's blood - they are both from the Jola tribe in the Casamance region of Africa - a people for whom rice is synonymous with life.

Photo by Meredith Heuer for Edible Hudson Valley.
You can read more here. Or, better yet, if you're here in the  Hudson Valley, they're having a community rice harvest party this coming Saturday, October 8th and you're welcome to come help them harvest the rice. Dawn says they'll start around 10 AM and go 'til sunset. Bring a small sharp knife and boots. They will have food and Nfamara and Tapha will be demonstrating the traditional drum rhythms and songs that accompany the rice harvest (here's a little preview from last year's harvest.) Come for the day or just for an hour. Raindate Sunday. Feel free to spread the word! Address is 115 Union Center Rd, Ulster Park, New York 12487. Give a ring if you need directions or have a question: (845) 750-7168

Photo by Meredith Heuer for Edible Hudson Valley.
You might also like:

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Spiced Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin spice bread by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

This bread is such a treat - fragrantly spiced with just the right amount of sweetness. I like to toast it and eat it with a little butter and a sprinkle of salt.

Prepping the sugar pumpkin for roasting by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

I baked it because I had a bunch of pumpkin puree left over from the sugar pumpkins I'd roasted to make my prize-winning pie. Those two cups of pumpkin puree turned into two steaming loaves of pumpkin bread with beautifully cracked tops. Yum!

Roasted sugar pumpkin by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

Our older son, who has been more or less refusing all offers of food lately (sigh) has always liked pumpkin bread and has been scarfing it down like there's no tomorrow! Although it's not my first choice for one of his primary sources of nutrition, I was beginning to worry that he was actually losing weight (and he's got nothing to spare) so I just bought another pie pumpkin to make a couple more loaves.

You can certainly substitute canned pumpkin if you're in a rush, but if you have time, use a real sugar pumpkin - they're super cheap, the flavor is way better and it's suprisingly easy. Just cut the pumpkin in half, scoop the seeds out, place the halves, cut-side down on a baking sheet and roast at 350 for about an hour or until you can easily pierce the skin with a fork. Remove, let them cool until you can handle them without getting burned, then scoop the flesh out with a spoon. That's it! Just make sure you buy a pie or sugar pumpkin, not one you'd carve for Halloween as that variety would not taste good.

This is simple recipe that I've adapted slightly adapted from the Joy of Cooking - adding vanilla and a few other spices. I was also out of brown sugar so I used some of the big bag of organic, fair trade coconut sugar my mom gave me recently instead. I was happy to find that the bread tastes great and is a teeny bit better for you since coconut sugar has a relatively low glycemic index for a sweetener and boasts a little bit of nutritional value. Don't get too excited, though, it's still sugar. But I do love that you can do a straight up substitution for cane sugar - no math=good!

Big Tree organic coconut sugar by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

I've been loving this bread just as it is, but if you want to dress it up a bit, fold in a cup of chopped nuts, chocolate chips or diced crystallized ginger after you add the flour in step 3 below.

Pumpkin spice bread by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

-- print recipe --
Spiced Pumpkin Bread
Makes two loaves

Ingredients

* 3 cups flour
* 3 tsps baking soda
* 2 tsp baking powder
* 3 tsps ground cinnamon
* 1/2 tsp ground cloves
* 1 tsp grated nutmeg
* 2 tsps pure vanilla extract
* 1 tsp sea salt
* 1 cup (2 sticks) organic butter, melted and cooled
* 2 1/2 cups firmly packed coconut or brown sugar
* 4 eggs (use pasture-raised if you can find them near you)
* 2 cups cooked, pureed pumpkin or winter squash

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 9 x 5-inch loaf pans and set aside.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt in a medium bowl.

3. In a large bowl, whisk the butter and sugar until well-blended. Beat in the eggs and pumpkin puree until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture until mixed. Scrape the batter into the greased loaf pans.

4. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool in the pans for about 10 minutes then remove from the pans and cool completely.

You might also like:



Thursday, October 13, 2016

Prize-Winning Pumpkin Ginger Pie

Gingery pumpkin pie with graham cracker and ginger snap crust by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

Ginger and pumpkin are a winning combo. So much so that I won the pumpkin pie contest at Wednesday's Woodstock Farm Festival with this here pie! Actually, I tied for first with a woman named Nancy - here's a photo of our big moment -- I'm on the left with my eyes closed, oh well...


When I began plotting my path to victory, I knew two things -- I wanted to use fresh pumpkin rather than canned and I wanted to highlight the warm, spicy flavor of ginger. As a result, the recipe below is a Frankenstein made up of bits and pieces that I liked the sound of -- Faith Durand's ginger pumpkin pie, the crust from this pie, and Simply Recipes' old-fashioned pumpkin pie.

Prepping the sugar pumpkin for roasting by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

The pumpkin part turned out to be easy. Our younger son had a field trip to Kelder's Farm last week and the first stop on the hayride was a field where each child was invited to pick one pumpkin. The vines were a bit too prickly for my son's taste so I yanked the pumpkin from its vine in the dusty field while the sun shone down from the bright blue sky -- it made a marvelously satisfying cracking noise.

A few days later, I cut the pumpkin in half and scooped out the seeds and guts -- I saved my seeds to roast -- they make a great, healthy snack.

Prepping the sugar pumpkin for roasting by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

I placed the halves cut-side-down on a baking sheet and roasted them for almost an hour at 350 degrees, until I could easily pierce them with a fork.

Once they'd cooled down enough to handle, I scooped the flesh out with a spoon. Boom! Done! Not quite as easy as buying a can of pumpkin puree but a heck of a lot tastier, plus we got to eat the seeds. If your pumpkin is stringy post-roasting, use a masher or immersion blender to puree it until smooth.

Roasted sugar pumpkin by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

As for the ginger, I used it three ways just like the Chopped contestants do when they want to impress the judges...

I used a bag of organic ginger snaps to amp up the gingery flavor of the crust.

Crushing ginger snaps into crumbs for the crust by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

I also chopped up some crystallized ginger to add to the cookie crumbs for the crust.

Chopping up the crystallized ginger for the crust by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

And, last but not least, I added a healthy dose of shredded, fresh ginger root to the pumpkin custard filling.

The crust was very easy. I pulsed the cookie crumbs and ginger with a little sugar, then added plenty of melted butter and mixed it all together with my hands. Then I patted it into the pie pan and put it in the oven for a short while to pre-bake while I got the filling together.

Patting the cookie crumb crust into place before it goes in the oven by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

Other than the fresh ginger, the ingredients I used in the filling were fairly standard -- organic heavy cream, eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, lemon zest, salt, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon. I don't think this photo sells it very well... If you want your final, cooked pie filling to look more orange, use white sugar instead of brown.

Pumpkin custard mixture for filling the pies by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

Then I poured the custard filling into the pre-baked crust and put it in the oven for a long bake at 375 until the center was set, covering the crust partway through as it was getting pretty dark. I love the way it "cracked".

Gingery pumpkin pie with graham cracker and ginger snap crust by Eve Fox, the Garden of Eating, copyright 2016

A warm, rich, spiced custard in a delightfully gingery cookie crumb crust that won the Woodstock Farm Festival pumpkin pie contest! Serve with fresh whipped cream sweetened with a jot of maple syrup.

Hope you enjoy it!

-- print recipe --Ginger Pumpkin Pie with Graham Cracker Crust
Makes one 9-inch pie

Ingredients

For the crust:
* 1 1/4 cups finely ground gingersnap cookie crumbs (about 25 cookies)
* 2 Tbsps sugar
* 3 Tbsps finely minced crystallized ginger
* 6 Tbsps unsalted organic butter, melted

For the filling:
* 1 3/4 cups (or 1 can) pumpkin puree
* 2 large eggs + 1 large egg yolk
* 1 1/2 cups organic heavy cream
* 2/3 cup dark brown sugar
* 3 Tbsps grated fresh ginger
* 1/2 tsp lemon zest
* 1 tsp ground cinnamon
* 1/4 tsp ground cloves
* 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
* 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
* 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Directions

1. Make the crust: preheat the oven to 350°F. Pulse the gingersnap cookie crumbs, sugar and ginger several times then add the melted butter and stir until the mixture is eventy moistened (I used my fingers.) Transfer the mixture to a 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish and press the buttery crumbs firmly and evenly into the bottom and up the sides to the top of the dish. Bake the crust until firm and slightly darker in color, about 8 minutes. Remove and let cool.

2. While the crust is baking, turn the oven up to 375°F and then make the filling: whisk the pumpkin puree with the eggs, egg yolk, and brown sugar. Grate the ginger using a Microplane or fine grater - you don't want any of the fibrous stringy bits to remain. Add the grated ginger, spices, lemon zest and cream to the pumpkin mixture and whisk well to combine.

3. Pour the mixture into the graham cracker crust and bake for about 50 minutes or until the filling is just set - it will continue to set a bit more after it comes out of the oven. After about half an hour, check the pie, rotate it and tent with foil if the edges of the crust seem to be browning too quickly.

4. Remove to a rack and let cool. Serve with fresh whipped cream.

You might also like:



Monday, October 3, 2016

Growing Rice In The Hudson Valley - New Article

I had the privilege of writing about a fascinating family who is growing several delicious varieties of short-grain rice not far from where I live for the new issue of Edible Hudson Valley.

Photo by Meredith Heuer for Edible Hudson Valley.
I first met Nfamara and his wife, Dawn at a West African dance class I go to every week in Kingston, NY. Nfamara is a master drummer from the Gambia whose smiling presence is always a pleasure and his wife, Dawn, is an American woman who is a beautiful dancer. That was about all I knew about them until after a class last fall when our teacher, Pam, announced that Nfamara and Dawn had brought rice from their farm to sell if anyone was interested in buying a bag.


I was definitely interested. Nfamara and Dawn were growing rice? Here? In upstate New York? I had not even known it was possible! I thought most rice came from Asia though I knew there was some grown in California and that some native American tribes still harvested wild rice from lakes. My curiosity was piqued...

Photo by Meredith Heuer for Edible Hudson Valley.
Long story short, my editor was interested, too, so I donned my rubber boots and headed out to their farm which is located in Ulster Park, right near Kingston, NY. It's called the Ever-Growing Family Farm and, indeed, there family is expanding it quickly. Rice farming is in Nfamara's and his friend and farming partner, Tapha's blood - they are both from the Jola tribe in the Casamance region of Africa - a people for whom rice is synonymous with life.

Photo by Meredith Heuer for Edible Hudson Valley.
You can read more here. Or, better yet, if you're here in the  Hudson Valley, they're having a community rice harvest party this coming Saturday, October 8th and you're welcome to come help them harvest the rice. Dawn says they'll start around 10 AM and go 'til sunset. Bring a small sharp knife and boots. They will have food and Nfamara and Tapha will be demonstrating the traditional drum rhythms and songs that accompany the rice harvest (here's a little preview from last year's harvest.) Come for the day or just for an hour. Raindate Sunday. Feel free to spread the word! Address is 115 Union Center Rd, Ulster Park, New York 12487. Give a ring if you need directions or have a question: (845) 750-7168

Photo by Meredith Heuer for Edible Hudson Valley.
You might also like: