Tis the season for pumpkin, pumpkin pancakes

 

Is everything pumpkin this time of year? Seems so. Last month’s Trader Joe’s flyer was pages of pumpkin. Why not jump on the bandwagon?

This is a tasty way to use up part of a can of pumpkin puree, something that I find shows up in my fridge this time of year. Again, my pancakes are not very sweet. You can serve them with maple syrup or honey to sweeten them up.

You can also use pumpkin pie spice instead of the separate spices in the recipe, if you have that in your pantry. Use 1 Tablespoon to replace the cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and cloves.

You don’t need to add the granola (see photo below), but it adds some nice crunch. I like using Nature’s Path Pumpkin-Flax Granola but you can use whatever granola you have, including my recipe made with some pumpkin seeds. 🙂

Don’t crowd these pancakes because that makes them harder to flip

Pumpkin Pancakes

(serves 5-6)

Dry Ingredients

2 cups flour (can use 1 cup all purpose and 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour)

1 teaspoon baking powder*

¾ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon allspice

¼ teaspoon cloves

Wet Ingredients

2 eggs

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil or melted butter

2 Tablespoons packed brown sugar

½ cup pumpkin puree

2 cups low fat buttermilk

oil for greasing griddle

about 1 cup pumpkin seed granola (optional)

Combine all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, fat, and brown sugar until smooth. Mix in the pumpkin puree and buttermilk. Stir in the dry ingredients until the flour is incorporated with the wet ingredients. Some small lumps are OK.

Heat a well-seasoned or non-stick griddle over medium heat. Brush lightly with vegetable oil. Use a scant ¼ cup for each pancake, spreading out the batter to a 4″ circle. It’s fairly thick so it doesn’t spread much on its own. Sprinkle on about 1 Tablespoon of granola, if desired. Don’t crowd them in the pan. They can be tricky to flip. Flip when the bottom is nicely browned and the edges have set. Repeat greasing and pancake-making until batter is gone. Serve hot with maple syrup or honey. They are best hot from the griddle, like all pancakes. But if you find you have extra, they can be refrigerated and reheated, either in the oven at 300°F or in the microwave.

* This is the proper amount for Boulder elevation, about a mile high. If you live at sea level, use 1½ teaspoons baking powder. The amount of baking soda does not need to be adjusted.

Pumpkin Apple Breakfast Bread

A not-too-sweet quick bread with chunks of apple and the flavors of Autumn

I am a big fan of quick breads. They are yummy for snacks and as an on-the-go breakfast. But, so many quick breads are really cakes in disguise. They are so damn sweet they make my teeth ache. Admittedly, I don’t eat a lot of sweet things. Which is my way of saying, this quick bread is not very sweet. I’m just giving you heads-up on that. Don’t expect cake. If you need to sweeten it up, slather on some apricot jam or apple butter. It does taste of the season with pumpkin, apple, and warm spices like cinnamon, but minus a lot of the sugar.

I specify separate spices but you can use premixed pumpkin pie spice instead. Substitute 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice for the ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

Pumpkin Apple Breakfast Bread
(makes 1 9″x5″ loaf, about 12 servings)

non-stick cooking spray
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ teaspoon baking powder (use 1 tsp. at sea level)
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
2 large eggs
½ cup packed brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup unsweetened pumpkin puree
⅓ cup low-fat or whole milk
½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1 apple, peeled, cored, and cut into ¼” dice

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

In a medium bowl combine the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, both sugars, and the oil. Beat until smooth – brown sugar tends to be lumpy. Add the pumpkin puree and milk. Beat again until well-combined. With a spatula, mix in dry ingredients, walnuts (if using), and apple pieces. Do not over-mix; mix only until all the flour is incorporated into the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Tap a few times on the counter to shake out any big air bubbles in the batter. Bake for 55-60 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean with no liquid batter sticking to it. Set the loaf to cool on a rack for 10 minutes. Turn out and let it finish cooling to room temperature. You won’t be able to slice it until it’s completely cool. To store, wrap tightly in plastic wrap. It can be stored at room temperature for about 3 days. After that, store in the fridge to prevent mold.

Daal: Red Lentils with Bengali Spices

My breakfast: dal and fresh whole wheat tortilla chips

I am a huge fan of Indian food. All regions, vegetarian, not vegetarian. Doesn’t matter. The spices in Indian food are sensually lush and totally addicting. The downsides of cooking Indian food are a) you need a lot of uncommon (to Americans) ingredients, and b) it’s time-consuming. But, when I do it from scratch (rather than run down the street for Indian take-out), it’s so so satisfying.

Daal means beans and vegetarian cooking in India is about richly spiced beans. Most people are familiar with lentil daal because it is served alongside the rice at many Indian restaurants. This recipe uses red lentils though you can substitute yellow split peas. Red lentils are smaller and more delicate than typical brown lentils. They do not cook up red – they cook up golden. They are bland on their own, soaking up Indian spices. They also cook down smooth so the daal is like a thick porridge. Serve as a thick soup, a side dish, or over rice as a main dish. It will thicken in the fridge but the flavors only get better.

Bengal Red Lentils with Spices
(serves 4-6)

Daal
1 ½ cups red lentils, rinsed and picked over
1 hot green chile, such as a small Thai chile or serrano, stemmed
½ teaspoons ground turmeric
4 ½ cups water
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Onion/Tomato
1 small onion, minced
¾ cup diced peeled tomatoes (canned is fine)
1 Tablespoon grated fresh ginger
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

Spiced Oil
1 ½ Tablespoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon whole cumin seeds
½ teaspoon whole fennel seeds
½ teaspoon whole black mustard seeds
½ teaspoon black onion (kalonji or kalaunji) seeds
½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds (or same amount ground)
2 bay leaves
1 Chinese dried hot red chile pepper, stemmed

To cook lentils, place all dal ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally to prevent clumping and sticking to the bottom of the pot. Once it reaches a boil, turn down to medium-low and partially cover. Cook for 25 minutes.

While lentils are cooking, heat up the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook, stirring often. When the onions start to brown, turn down heat to medium-low. Continue cooking until onions are toasty brown. Add tomatoes and ginger. Cook for a few minutes. Remove from heat. When the daal timer goes off, add this to the daal and mix in. Set the timer for another 10 minutes.

Heat oil in a small skillet. Add all the remaining ingredients and fry the spices until they are fragrant and the chile and bay leaves start to brown. Remove chile and bay leaves. Add seeds and oil to the dal when timer goes off. Check seasoning; add more salt if necessary. Serve hot.

Recipe can be doubled. Leftovers freeze well.

Recipe adapted from Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking by Julie Sahni, William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1985.

Photo of Red Lentils: By Sudeshna Banerjee (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Indian Lamb and Lentil Stew

This recipe is based on this one at Epicurious.com. They look similar but are really quite different. Garam masala is sort of curry powder, but it lacks turmeric (the spice that gives curry its distinctive yellow color). Many of the spices are the same (cumin, cardamom, black pepper, coriander) but without turmeric, garam masala is sweeter. Sounds good to me! Nowadays, a well-stocked supermarket carries both so you don’t have to make your own or find a specialty shop. I do make my own (because I’m crazy like that) and have included the recipe at the end.

I also added the lime juice. This is a very earthy dish. Though the tomatoes add some acid, they really aren’t very bright after cooking with the lamb and spices for an hour. The lime juice brings back some of the high notes. I happen to believe that acid is a very under-rated ingredient. Salt is important but you can only go so far before the dish gets too salty. Acid enhances many flavors in another way, making it complementary to salt

Indian Lamb and Lentil Stew
(serves 4-6)

1 pound lamb, cut into ½” pieces (from the leg or sirloin is best)
salt and pepper
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 Tablespoon grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tablespoon garam masala 
1 ½ cups tomatoes (diced, pureed or crushed will all work)
2 cups water
1 cup brown lentils
3 carrots, cut into 1″ chunks
1 cup frozen green peas
juice of 1 lime or lemon

Season the lamb with salt and pepper. Heat a dutch oven over medium-high heat until very hot. Add oil, then the lamb. Cook until the lamb is browned. Add onions, ginger, and garlic. Lower heat to medium. Cook until onions start to soften, about 5 minutes. Add garam masala and mix in to onions and lamb. It will become fragrant within 30 seconds. Add tomatoes, water, brown lentils, carrots, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper, and carrots. Mix well. Bring to a boil. Reduce to low heat, cover, and simmer for at least an hour, but longer won’t hurt. Five minutes before serving, mix in peas. Cover and cook about 5 minutes to warm up peas. Mix in lime or lemon juice. If served as is, this will serve about 4 people. If you serve it over rice, it will serve 6.

Garam Masala
(makes ¾ cup)

the seeds from 1 Tablespoon green cardamom pods
1 4″ cinnamon stick, broken into small pieces
½ Tablespoon whole cloves
2 Tablespoons black peppercorns
¼ cup cumin seeds
¼ cup coriander seeds

Grind the cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns, cumin, and coriander until the mix is an even texture. Store in a tightly sealed jar. Will lose its pungency over time but keeps surprisingly well.

Recipe from Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni, William Morrow and Company, Inc.,1980.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Zucchini bread, the classic way to use up too much zucchini from the garden. Or your neighbor’s garden. But, my zucchini plant was chewed up by a squirrel, then yanked up by a deer who didn’t even have the decency to eat the thing. So, definitely a zucchini shortage in my house this summer. A friend of a friend bestowed an overgrown zucchini so I was able to test out a new chocolate zucchini “cake.” I have a recipe that is a bit out of control – too much sugar, too much fat, and too much cake unless you are bringing it to a large gathering. But, I like the concept.

The first time I baked this, I used a loaf pan (see picture above). But, it’s so moist and soft that it really works better in a square cake pan. It also bakes up faster because it has spread out more.

I used Dutch cocoa the first time, which results in a darker color and a richer chocolate flavor. The second time, I used natural cocoa (most commonly seen as Hershey’s cocoa). The color is lighter as is the flavor. Feel free to try it either way. Both are good, as my husband and friends will attest.

If you end up using a baseball bat zucchini, don’t grate up the center part with the seeds. Just use the fleshy outside layer.

If you are baking this cake at sea level (I live at 5400 ft above sea level), increase the baking powder to 1 teaspoon, which is my best guess on the correct amount for you flat-landers.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake
(serves 9-12)

cooking spray

Dry Ingredients:
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon allspice (optional)
2 Tablespoons cocoa
¼ teaspoon salt

4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature and soft
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup buttermilk
1 cup shredded zucchini (1 to 2 medium zucchini)
½ cup bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 9″x9″ baking pan with cooking spray and set aside.

Combine all the dry ingredient in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Beat together the butter, oil, and sugars until smooth and well-combined in a large bowl. Beat in the eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk. Mix in the zucchini and dry ingredients by hand until just combined. Add in the chocolate chips and mix gently to distribute.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean (The chocolate chips may stick to the toothpick so you are looking for no batter sticking, not no chocolate.)

Cool for 15 minutes in the pan on a rack before trying to cut the cake.

This is really tasty with vanilla buttercream, but it’s darn good without any adornment. I had some leftover frosting from another cake so I had to make sure it was OK. It was. 🙂