Happy Halloween!

Well, I didn't get around to carving any pumpkins this year, but here is some pumpkin-ginger bread instead! Happy Halloween!!

In closing, here are two of my favorite pictures from the annual Ghoul's Procession at St. John the Divine, one of my favorite NYC Halloween events! The full set is here.

Resolutions

Happy new year! How did you celebrate? We started things off with prosecco and ichigo-shu (so yummy) and then spent the rest of the night at a friend's place, nice and low-key, just how I like my NYEs! I'm not big on resolutions, but I did make a few this year--eat more vegetables, procrastinate less, be less grumpy. And I will take my additional vegetables in any form I can get, so I think that this pumpkin flan qualifies for my first resolution VERY WELL, THANK YOU!

I was trying to reproduce a pumpkin pudding I'd had before at a Japanese restaurant in midtown (Katsu-Hama, actually. One of the things I miss about midtown)--there, it comes in a wedge and is a fairly firm textured but very smooth pudding. I think they might actually use kabocha squash (the texture of kabocha puree is drier, which might account for why their pudding was so firm and mine was so collapse-y) versus the canned pumpkin puree that I used. I used this recipe from Tales from a Tokyo Kitchen (a great blog!) and baked mine in a bain marie instead of steaming. Also, I had to use a variety of molds as I (shockingly) do not own any actual pudding cups. I ended up using two small bowls, a mini milk bottle, and a canning jar:


Actually, because the pudding was so soft, the jar kind of worked out well! No worries about turning it out, just make sure you scoop all the way down to get the caramel sauce. I definitely need to experiment with this a bit, because the texture of my pudding was not smooth enough and had lots of air bubbles in it (I'm guessing temperature too high; maybe I will try to work out a steaming device next time). Be that as it may, it certainly TASTED very close to what I was trying to recreate! And I love the caramel sauce, although it's hard to watch it caramelize based on color because of the maple syrup. Anyway, it was good enough for a first try, especially since I've been sick for the last 3 days; I am so sick of tea and SO HAPPY to eat something that's not congee!

Anyhow, so next time--kabocha squash, steam vs. bake, and strain strain strain!

Bread Failure=Delicious Pudding

I was browsing food blogs last week when I came across this post from Ping's Pickings with a recipe for a really soft Asian-bakery style bread. I was also intrigued because it's made with what is basically a pastry cream base, and her photos reminded me of the loaves of super rich, super soft bread I get at Boloniya (a Japanese bakery). Well, I think I may be in need of some new yeast, because my bread came out surprisingly dense!


I made a couple of mini loaves, and although the texture is nice and fine grained, it is almost like dense sandwich bread, instead of the soft bread that I was hoping for (the kind I buy just pulls apart into long bread "ribbons", if that makes any sense). I'm going to have to give it another try with some new yeast, and maybe a longer rising time because it would be awesome to be able to make this type of bread at home.


But of course, I'm not just going to let bread go to waste, right? And hey, this bread was just perfect for bread pudding! And since I had half a can of pumpkin left in the fridge (from the muffins I made last time), it made sense to go with an autumn-themed pumpkin bread pudding. This baked up nicely, almost caramelized along the bottom, crunchy on top, and custardy in the center, with little pockets of hot sugary ginger throughout. Have some bread to use up? Try this.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup raisins
3/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger
approximately 4 cups of bread cubes (3/4")

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin, sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg until smooth. Fold in raisins, ginger, and bread cubes, and let stand for 20-30 minutes, until most of the liquid is absorbed. Pack into buttered baking dish(es) (either an 8" square, or custard cups, or individual bakers, or whatever you feel like) and bake until an inserted knife comes out clean. I baked mine in two individual bakers and a mini loaf pan and it took about 30 minutes. Eat warm or hot. It would be great with a little maple syrup...or there's always ice cream!

Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck

What's that you say? Where's the food in my alleged food blog? Don't worry--there's some food in this post, and hey, there's even a recipe at the end! But I have to admit, I have not been doing much baking (or interesting eating) lately because I've been so freaking busy!! Still, it's my favorite season and I've had a few moments to enjoy the cool weather (perfect tea-drinking weather), sunshine, and this past weekend, we escaped the city for a little while to pet sheepies at the Sheep and Wool Festival! Yay sheep!! How can you resist a face like this?


Okay, that's not a sheep, it's an alpaca. But how gorgeous is she? I desperately want to move somewhere where I can have a mini farm which will be the home of a mini sheep, mini alpaca, mini pony, mini donkey...you get the idea, right?


This sheep reminds me of a friend of mine (same haircut, heh).


Rhinebeck is about a 2 hour drive north of NYC, so with that in mind, I made a batch of pumpkin muffins to tide us over until we could eat an appropriately unhealthy fair lunch. What's not to like about pumpkin muffins? These have a sprinkling of crystallized ginger inside and a dusting of pearl sugar on top; when I make them again (and you know I will!), I'll double the amount of ginger. In the end though, we were too busy talking on the drive to actually eat any--I ate one afterwards :) (Recipe is at the bottom of this post!)


It was a gorgeous day for a drive and along the way we saw lots and lots of fall foliage (I was driving though, so mostly I saw road, hah!). And when we finally arrived, we browsed a couple of buildings' worth of yarns and fleeces before we stopped for a snack:


It's not a fair unless you have something fried, and this fit the bill. I felt mildly queasy afterwards and so skipped the fried dough and other fried goodies available. Actually now that I think about it, those cheese fries were pretty much all we ate all day (except for my muffin later on). Oh wait, we also had cups of cocoa on the way out, more to warm up our chilly fingers! Enough babbling, here are some more pictures of sheepies and alpacas and goats!


An extremely regal and aloof alpaca. I don't know if you can quite see it, but his name tag is Emperor Alexander. Indeed!


Hooves.


Smiley sheep.


Eeeeevil sheep.


Inquisitive horned sheep!


We spotted this on the bouncy castle; I'm pretty sure this is a knight wearing assless armor-chaps. What's up with that? We remain befuddled.


An Ewok. No, no. It's a miniature sheep! And I desperately, desperately want one. Even though we left with no sheep, I had a lovely day out, so thanks to my buds for coming along, and thanks to the sheep for letting me pet you (soooo soft and squishy).

Gingery Pumpkin Muffins
Makes 12 muffins, one loaf, or 3 mini-loaves

1 cup pumpkin (canned is fine, but make sure you use plain pumpkin, not pumpkin PIE filling)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup flavorless vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 - 3/4 cup crystallized ginger, chopped
Additional ginger or pearl sugar, optional

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 12 muffin cups with papers (or whatever baking vessel you are using). Sift flour, baking soda and powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt together into a small bowl. Toss in the crystallized ginger bits and set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine pumpkin, sugars, syrup, and vegetable oil and beat until combined. Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir the flour mixture in with a wooden spoon, just until combined. This is a fairly soft batter, so this should not be difficult. Spoon batter into muffin cups, about 2/3rd full (or pour into a greased and floured loaf pan or mini pans). Sprinkle with pearl sugar or additional ginger chips, if desired. Bake muffins about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. A full sized loaf pan will take about 45 minutes and mini pans will take about 30. Enjoy! Preferably with some hot tea...or maybe hot cider. Mmmm, cider...