If you happen to have some leftover pumpkin puree, chances are, you’ve already made something sweet or otherwise indulgent. Using whole wheat flour and just enough enrichments to make a firm batter, this pumpkin bread adds some much needed balance and nutritional value to the pumpkin-centric diet.
You could, of course, forget about counting calories, toast a thick walnut-studded slice, and slather with cream cheese. Either way works.
View Pumpkin Quick Bread Recipe - Whole Wheat with Walnuts »
Poke around my burgeoning list of recipes and you may notice that outright lack of knowledge and unpronounceableness haven’t deterred me in the least from trying out new foods. In keeping with the spirit of blissful ignorance, here are a handful of things I know about dal makhani, a slow-cooked lentil stew with black gram and red kidney beans.
View Dal Makhani Recipe (Kali Dal) - Buttered Black Gram Beans »
Cooking suji halwa is a lot like preparing risotto, but with a lot less stirring. Coarse-ground semolina is first toasted and rendered aromatic in ghee, the Indian version of clarified butter. Raisins and a simple syrup are then poured over the semolina and stirred over low heat until the sweet liquid is fully absorbed.
Since the semolina is first coated in ghee, the semolina puffs up as it absorbs some of the syrup but remain separate, resembling tiny grains barely clinging to each other. I’ve been avoiding this word because one of the most important figures in my life have full dentures, but it really is appropriate in this case — suji halwa has a pleasing toothsome texture. Other people avoid the word for different reasons.
Finished off simply with ground cardamom, a spice I’ve developed an intense liking to through Indian sweets, this warm dessert pudding is always a good option as the mercury dips.
View Suji Halwa Recipe - Indian Semolina and Raisin Pudding »
This 100% whole wheat loaf is my idea of the perfect homemade bread. The ingredient list is fairly short and calls for only a few kitchen staples in addition to the requisite whole wheat flour, salt, water, and yeast. Compared to white flour loaves, whole grain breads are also undoubtedly the healthier choice, but its more assertive flavor and denser nature understandably takes a bit of getting used to.
Based on the master formula in Peter Reinhart’s award-winning whole grain breads book, the recipe may seem intimdating at first. The process is spread out over two days, but after trying it a few times, you’ll find that the techniques and scheduling are far more forgiving than other traditional methods.
Are your attempts at pumpkin pie dough getting you down? Can’t roll it out because it’s either too tough or crumbly? Is it sticking to your counter and rolling pin even with heavy dustings of flour? Did the crust turn into a soggy mess after baking?
Ditch the pie dough and bake it on streusel instead.
Baked flat and sliced into square or rectangular portions, pavé pastries are so named because of its resemblance to tiles or paving stones. The dessert itself is the farthest thing from a brick, though. In this recipe, the smooth cream cheese filling is lightly sweetened to let some of its mellow tang through. With the addition of allspice and cinnamon, pumpkin pavé will be familiar even if its name and appearance are anything but.
Aside from being less finicky than pie dough, streusel is probably the ideal serving platform for the creamy pumpkin filling. Its crumbly texture provides much-needed contrast, and more importantly, because of the addition of ground pumpkin seeds, doesn’t fade into the background flavor-wise.
View Pumpkin Pavé Recipe - Spiced Pumpkin Filling on Streusel »
