Pumpkin nut bars

Around my forth bite of the persimmon nut bars I made recently, I thought, "hmmm...these are really tasty, but the persimmon flavor isn't quite strong enough, I bet they would be yummy with another kind of fruit."

A few days later, I had just been to the grocery store, and excited to see pumpkin was back in stock after the fall harvest, I had bought 3 cans, without any direct intention of how to use them. It was an impulse buy, like gum at the cash register or big blocks of feta cheese.

The fates coincided. I would make pumpkin flavored [persimmon] bars. I decided to double the recipe and make a 9x13 pan of said bars because I had a friend who'd be coming to stay in a few days and I thought it would be nice to have something to feed her. And I like pumpkin, have I mentioned this?

I start mixing up my ingredients and realize I'm just tad short of almost everything essential to make a double batch. I needed 1 cup vegetable oil and had to use about a 1/4 cup of olive oil to make it. I was almost a whole cup shy of flour and tossed in some bread flour, not really sure what the difference was and what the consequences might be. I also noticed half way through that I made a serious judgement mistake in trying to make the persimmon bars with pumpkin puree. Anyone see it? Yea the texture of the two is totally different. I thought with the spices it would be a nice flavor combo but I probably should have looked up a pumpkin bar recipe, batter was very cake-like. I even put in some extra (bread) flour. But I baked it anyway. What's the worse that can happen? Already used all the ingredients, might as well go all the way!

Results? Pumpkin cake. So not bars, but very moist and fluffy pumpkin cake. It also made a ton, I've been eating it for days and still have some, plus I put a fair amount in the freezer. So sometimes the random experiments work! But I still probably need to learn to check my ingredients before I start.

Persimmon nut bars

One of my coworkers brought some persimmons to the office this week because she had received way too many from her aunt. What is a persimmon? Good question! It's a fruit! It kind of tastes like a berry flavored apple with a very apple like texture (depending on ripeness). The photo below shows persimmons, see the slice in the back for an idea of what it looks like cut open. These are fuyu persimmons, what I understand to be the less common variety.

I had drank persimmon juice blends, but this was the first time I'd actually seen one in the flesh (pun so intended). So I took a few and set about to figuring out what to do with them. My coworker recommended a persimmon bunt cake.

I found a recipe online for some persimmon bars, seemed tasty and lots of people had rated it highly. Plus I had almost everything needed to make it so, why not? When else am I really going to make persimmon bars? Probably never. See the original source of the recipe here.

They were tasty! Very spicy and nutty (I put walnuts in). I skipped the raisins, I honestly thought adding raisins would be a bit overkill, maybe if you prefer to skip the nuts go for the raisins. Definitely plan to bake them longer than 20 minutes! Mine were very gooey, to the point I considered sticking them back in but I had already put the glaze on. Plan to bake them at least 25 minutes, be warned they looked done and "fluffy" when the 20 minutes were up, so proceed with caution. The glaze also pooled a little bit, so you might want to try spreading it with a pastry brush. I attempted to drizzle it, but it did not really work.

Twice baked butternut mousse

It's officially fall. I'm buying butternut squash and thinking about recipes for pumpkin...though canned pumpkin is still in short supply. Come on harvest! Aside from the food, I'm not ready for the cold weather, but I digress.

My mom makes an excellent twice baked potato. So I was thinking, why not try a twice baked butternut squash? Yummy.

Ingredients

1 butternut squash (I think mine was 2lbs)

8 oz cream cheese (spreadable)

1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs

salt

pepper

Equipment

Hand mixer

Slice squash in half, remove seeds and fibers. Place in a pan with 1/4 inch of water in the bottom, season squash lightly with salt and pepper, cover with aluminum foil and bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes or until squash is tender. Allow cooked squash to cool, and remove cooked flesh from peel and place in medium size mixing bowl. Using hand mixer, blend cream cheese with squash. Put squash mixture in baking dish and sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake at 350 for an additional 20-25 minutes.

This turned our pretty well considering I kinda winged it, though I had my doubts at times. It was very rich and had a creamy texture. I might work with it a little more and try to get the consistency to be a bit more firm like a twice baked potato, maybe I need to bake it longer the second time or less the first time, I'm not sure. I'll be honest, after mixing the squash with cream cheese it kinda looked like baby food...so a little firmer of a texture would be an improvement!

Roasted rosemary potatoes

I also made rosemary potatoes with my windfall of free herbs. Rosemary is delicious on roasted vegetables, or chicken and very tasty in bread. All fresh bread should have rosemary! Too bad I don't have time to make any.

Making these potatoes is very simple. Chop a potatoes into evenly sized pieces, put in a baking dish. Coat lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with fresh rosemary, pepper and salt. Bake at 350 to 400 for about 45 minutes, or until tender. They can be baked at just about any temp, it will only take more or less time for them to be ready, making it easy to make them while also using the oven to make something else.

Bruschetta

Bruschetta (Bra-ske-ta) is a very simple appetizer and Italian staple. I recently had a fresh herb windfall of basil and rosemary, courtesy of one of my coworkers who must be a gardening prodigy based on the size of this basil plant.

What I love about Italian food is that it's not about quantity or complexity, it's all about simple, fresh, quality ingredients. Bruschetta is a prime example of this, it requires only a few ingredients, which must be fresh and combine to create an amazing (and healthy!) flavor.

This is a small size recipe for 1-2 people to share, you can double it (or more) if you're having a party.

Fresh Italian bread, light toasted

1-2 ripe roma tomatoes

1 clove garlic

1 Tb olive oil (use a quality one!)

8-10 fresh basil leaves

Toast thick slices of Italian bread either under a broiler or in a toaster oven. Chop tomatoes and garlic and place in a small bowl. Tear basil leaves into small pieces and mix with tomatoes and garlic. Toss tomato mixture in olive oil and spoon onto bread slices. Serve.

Sorry the photo is a bit dark, but I sure you it was a rich red and delicious!

Cinnamon scones

This time around I made a sweet scone. Cinnamon scones seemed like they would be tasty, so I started with my basic scone recipe (see below) that I used for the cheddar & thyme scones I made a while back. I'm still shocked how easy scones are to make!

Basic recipe

2 cups flour
1 Tb sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
1 egg

Cinnamon editions

2 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 Tb of sugar

Cooking Equipment

Pastry blender

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon in a large bowl. Blend butter in using either a pastry blender (or fork) until well blended and a mixture of course crumbs forms. Stir in milk and lightly beaten egg. A slightly moist, crumbly dough will form. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface and form in a round, flat mound. Place on a greased cookie sheet and cut into 8 wedges. Separate the wedges and bake for 15-20 minute or until lightly browned.

The cinnamon scones were pretty tasty, however, I think that I should have added more sugar. The scones weren't quite sweet enough and therefore slightly lacking in flavor. I might add a little more cinnamon the next time also. Keep this in mind if you use this more 'savory' basic recipe but want to make a sweeter scone. Happy baking.

Cheesy pasta sauce

I saw a recipe for pasta sauce made with cream cheese and milk and that's all. Is using cream cheese to make cheesy pasta sauces a thing and I'm just not aware? Anyway, I of course had to try it because it was either going to be amazing or a total disaster.

The recipe where I got my sauce idea is here. The fact it came from Better Homes & Gardens gave me hope it wouldn't be terrible. Yea, BH&G has recipe street cred.

Sauce ingredients:
1 9oz tub veggie cream cheese spread
1/2 cup fat free milk

Place cream cheese and milk in a small sauce pan on medium heat and stir until well-blended and creamy. Place on top of warm pasta.

I made the sauce to top some whole wheat pasta with sausage and broccoli but you can put it on any kind of pasta you like.

First, plan on using more than 1/2 a cup of milk, I think it was a better consistency for pasta sauce after I tossed in about a full cup. If you decide to use whole or 2% milk, you might want a little but more even. This was a very easy and pretty tasty sauce (after I added more milk to thin it) but be warned that it's also very heavy, (because it's cream cheese!) so choose your pasta combo accordingly. Happy eating!

Cost: B+
Waste: A
Taste: B+