Happy Pumpkin Day!

For some people, this time of year is exciting because of halloween. For me, it is exciting because of all of the pumpkin related things there are to eat. This past week I went on a bit of a pumpkin bender. I started by cleaning and baking 2 pumpkins.

Then I scooped out the innards and mashed them all up.

At this point I had a ton of fresh pumpkin that could be used in any recipe that calls for canned pumpkin. I used it throughout the week and made the following:

Pumpkin Cake with Brown Butter Frosting

This cake was phenomenal. I highly recommend it. In the process of making the frosting, I learned how flavorful browned butter is. So, if you make this recipe, don't skip the frosting!

Pumpkin Hummus (modified from this recipe)

this recipe yields a lot of hummus (around 6 cups)

This pumpkin hummus was my contribution to a work potluck party. It won the Best Side Dish award! The proportions in the recipe below don't yield a blatantly pumpkin-y flavor, so I bet you could tweak the recipe to make it more obviously pumpkin, if you wanted to.

• 
  

• Ingredients:
• 2 cans (15 oz) of chickpeas
• 2 cups pumpkin puree
• 1/3 cup of lemon juice
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup tahini
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon cayenne
• a handful of chopped fresh parsley

salt to taste

Directions:

1. Drain chickpeas, reserving liquid
2. Place chickpeas and half of reserve liquid in a large capacity food processor
3. Puree until mostly smooth
4. Add in pumpkin, lemon juice, olive oil, tahini, garlic and spices
5. Puree until smooth, adding more reserve liquid if necessary
6. Add in parsley and salt
7. Puree to blend
8. Adjust spices to taste

Curried Pumpkin Seeds

Of course, when you cook a pumpkin, you can't let those seeds go to waste. I was in the mood to try something a little funkier than the usual salt and pepper variety and the link above definitely had some unique options.

And, after all of that, I still have some pumpkin left! I froze some in quantities appropriate for pumpkin tea bread and/or pumpkin pancakes (a.k.a pumpcakes). I also reserved a 1/2 cup in the fridge for making Pumpkin Biscuits with Orange Honey Butter. Oh, goodness! When going to grab the link for that recipe, I came across her next post that references recipes for Pumpkin Muffins and Pumpkin Pie Pudding. So much pumpkin goodness! I guess this means the pumpkins in my root cellar will be finding a delicious fate this winter.