Pumpkin Pecan Bread with Chocolate Glaze

I started developing a recipe for pumpkin bars a few months ago with some of my pumpkin puree .  Unfortunately, the bars turned out too gooey and soft to be called bars, so I kept trying and tweaked my ingredients.  I had added a chocolate glaze to the top of them, and for my family, that was all they needed to give them a thumbs up, but I knew it was just the chocolate channeling through them.  So, as I fiddled with the ingredients, I thought I had come up with a winner.  However, this batch turned out more like pumpkin bread, but it was good pumpkin bread! I wondered if I should keep forging ahead with the idea of bars or just settle for good bread.  I decided good bread was good enough...for now.  I thought I would just give it to my family, as is, but the uproar for the chocolate glaze was deafening, so on the bread went the glaze.  I made two square loaves of bread and froze one for Christmas dessert.  If you also decide to freeze extras, just freeze the bread, and add the glaze before serving.  I also suggest rewarming the bread in the oven, instead of just serving after thawing. However, I noticed that my thawed out bread was drier than the one that was freshly made, so I would freeze with caution.

Pumpkin Pecan Bread with Chocolate Glaze

Here's a square of that yummy bread.  See those pecans nestled within?

Pumpkin Pecan Bread with Chocolate Glaze

Ingredients:

Non-stick spray 

Bread:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup oats
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 and 1/2 cups rice milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract.
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup whole pecans, chopped

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 Tbs. cocoa
2 Tbs. soy milk

Directions:

For the bread:  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Spray an 8x8 pan with non-stick spray and set aside.  In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients: the flour through the cinnamon.  Add the rice milk and vanilla and beat on medium speed with electric mixer until well blended.  Add the pumpkin and nuts and stir well with a spoon, until blended in.  Pour batter into pan.  Bake for 60 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.  Cool pan on cooling rack. 

For the glaze:  When the bread is completely cooled, remove from pan and place on serving platter.  Mix together the glaze ingredients in a small bowl with a spoon.  Spread over bread.  Let firm up before cutting.  Very good.  Feeds five hungry vegans for a couple of days.

Creamy Pumpkin Curry Soup

I've been trying to continue to come up with creative ways to use up my pumpkin puree, and I've never made a pumpkin soup before, so I thought I'd give it a try with the ingredients I had on hand.  It turned out pretty well, and I will make this again.  I'll keep you posted as I develop more pumpkin recipes - I've been working on some bars.  :-)

Creamy Pumpkin Curry Soup

Ingredients:

1 Tbs. olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
4 cups of pumpkin puree
5 cups of vegetable broth
2 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 cup soy milk
1/4 cup fresh basil, sliced thinly width wise
More basil for garnish, if desired

Directions:

Heat oil in a large pot on medium heat.  Add the red onion, and cook for at least fifteen minutes, until caramelized.  Add the next six ingredients (pumpkin puree through pepper), and cook for a half hour.  Lower the heat to low, and add the soy milk and basil.  Cook for five more minutes.  Ladle into bowls, and add additional basil for garnish.  Simple and elegant.  Feeds five hungry vegans.

Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Creamy Pumpkin Sauce

This is a very easy and quick dish to make, if you have pumpkin on hand. I used four of my bags of pumpkin puree and came up with a new twist on pasta sauce. I also put soft silken tofu in to add a creamy texture: I mashed mine this time, but I think blending in a food processor would be a great idea. It warmed our tummies and was fun to try something a little different. I hope you give it a shot.

Also, be sure to swing by Millie's blog to check out my recipe for Pecan Pie Cookie Cups for her Holiday Cookie Extravaganza. She invited me to contribute, and I was more than happy to oblige. My recipe will appear on her blog on December 7th, and I'll post it on mine some time after.



Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Creamy Pumpkin Sauce
Ingredients:

1 lb. pkg. whole wheat spaghetti
1 cup silken soft tofu, mashed by hand or blended in food processor
4 cups pureed pumpkin
1 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
salt and pepper to taste
Optional:
Nutritional yeast flakes
Red pepper flakes

Directions:

Prepare pasta according to package directions. While water for pasta is heating up, combine remaining ingredients, except for the optional ingredients, in a medium pot. Cook over medium heat for ten minutes, then turn down heat to medium low for an additional fifteen minutes. Spoon sauce over pasta and top with nutritional yeast flakes and red pepper flakes, if desired. Feeds five hungry vegans.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Roll and Thanksgiving, 2010

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving again. It's the one holiday that my family spends at our home, instead of joining the extended family. It seems to be the least child-oriented, and we can have an entire feast that is vegan. A few years ago, I changed what I did and started letting my family pick their favorite dishes to be served at this meal. So, sometimes we get a mix of traditional and unorthodox menus. Last year's menu is under my Savory Bulgur Dressing recipe.

This is this year's menu:

Tofurky with Gravy: picked by both GR and SR

Cranberry Sauce: picked by SR

Homemade Fries: picked by SR

Tofu Rice Rolls: picked by GR

Slow Cooked Pinto Beans: picked by G

Squash: picked by G (I baked zucchini and crookneck along with potatoes, red onions, celery and carrots with the Tofurky Roast)

Sparkling Apple Cider: picked by Me

White Cake with White Frosting: picked by JK

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Roll: picked by Me

Besides JK not understanding why he couldn't have his cake now the day before Thanksgiving, at breakfast on Thanksgiving, for lunch on Thanksgiving, and on his dinner plate on Thanksgiving, things went very well. You can see the Pumpkin Cream Cheese Roll below, along with my plate and the cake. What follows are pictures for the Roll and the recipe. It's something I've made before and is a hit every time.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Roll

My delicious plate, mm-mmm!


JK's White Cake with White Frosting. I mean our cake, right, JK?


What the beaten Egg Replacer will look like


Rolling up the cake part of the Roll


The Roll cooling inside its towel


The cream cheese filling


A slice of Pumpkin Cream Cheese Roll


Okay, who am I kidding? This is what I really ate; I had to move it to a bigger plate to accomodate both pieces.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Roll
Ingredients:

Pumpkin Cake:

1 and 1/2 Tbs. of EnerG Egg Replacer
6 Tbs. of water
1 cup vegan sugar
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup walnuts, ground coarsely (I use the food processor)
1 cup or so of powdered sugar

Cream Cheese Filling:

8 oz. package of vegan cream cheese, room temperature
4 Tbs. vegan margarine room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

For the Pumpkin Cake: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 10 by 15 inch jelly roll pan with an oil spray, or you can use a cookie sheet with a one inch lip all the way around. Cover the pan with a sheet of waxed paper and spray that as well. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat the Egg Replacer with the water for five minutes on medium or medium high speed, until it loses its watery consistency and slightly thickens. Continue beating and slowly pour in the sugar, and beat well. Stir in the pumpkin puree and lemon juice. In another bowl whisk the rest of the cake ingredients together, except for the walnuts and powdered sugar. Stir the dry ingredients in with the wet and pour over waxed paper. Make sure it is evenly spread and reaches all the edges and corners of the covered pan. Sprinkle the nuts over the batter. Bake for 15 minutes. While its baking, lay out a clean dish towel and sprinkle enough powdered sugar to cover the entire towel with a thin layer. Remove cake from oven and quickly flip the pan upside down over the towel. Carefully remove the waxed paper, and starting at the short end, slowly roll up the towel with the cake inside it. Let it cool completely on a cooling rack, with the towel's seam down.

For the Cream Cheese Filling: While the cake is baking and cooling, set your margarine and cream cheese on the counter to get room temperature. When the cake is completely cool, begin to make the filling. In a small bowl, beat all the filling ingredients together at medium speed, until smooth and creamy. Carefully unroll the cake, leaving it on the towel, and spread the filling evenly over the cake. Re-roll the cake, this time leaving the towel on the counter. Place on a serving dish and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. You will have nuts and sugar left over on the towel, so fold it up and either sprinkle in a bowl for some future delight or shake it off in your sink. This is very good and looks decadent, perfect for a holiday meal. Feeds five hungry vegans for a couple of days.

Pumpkin and Kale Quesadillas

Here is the very first recipe I made with our pumpkin puree. It was actually a dish of necessity because I had to go grocery shopping, and our cupboards were down to their last. So, I made some flour tortillas, picked some kale from our garden, used up the last of our vegan cheese and didn't freeze one of our bags of pumpkin puree. And, ta-daa, pumpkin and kale quesadillas! They were pretty darn good, if I say so myself, and a bit on the elegant side for my clan.

Pumpkin and Kale Quesadillas
Ingredients:

1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
salt and pepper to taste
3 cups kale, stems pulled and chopped
1 Tbs. canola oil
1 cup Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet Monterey Jack cheese, finely shredded
10 homemade flour tortillas (or your favorite store bought brand)

Directions:

Set oven rack to second from bottom position. I have four positions, so if you have just three, set it on the bottom position. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. In a small pot, heat the pumpkin puree and spices on medium heat. If it bubbles too quickly, turn heat down to medium low. Heat until warmed through, then set aside. In a medium skillet, heat the oil. When heated, add the kale and saute until they turn a bright green, about five minutes or less. Divide the pumpkin mixture, kale leaves and shredded cheese evenly between the tortillas on one side. Fold them in half and bake for about ten minutes until the cheese is melted. Be careful not to burn the tortillas. If you have a couple of too-crisp edges, just crack those off. Cut each tortilla in half, so you have twenty triangular quesadillas. So good. Feeds five hungry vegans.

Final Pumpkin Harvest and Prep

Well, after the children picked their pumpkins that were dedicated to become jack o'lanterns, and after the neighborhood kids picked out theirs, these are the pumpkins that were left in our garden to harvest. Quite a lot, I think, for a home garden. The children's pumpkins were pardoned from the slaughter; they will go to seed back in the garden bed. SR's pumpkin, Penelope, made a showing for this picture: she's the pinkish one in the back right corner. Preparing the pumpkins for the freezer was quite laborious, but now I have plenty of bagged pureed pumpkin for future dishes. Well worth the effort! See below my steps to get them from the wheelbarrow to the freezer.

This is G's wheelbarrow full of different varieties of pumpkins. He cut them all off the vine for me, which is harder than it sounds. They can stubbornly cling to the vine, and the stems of our pumpkins had spiny thorns all over them.

Washed free of loose dirt, waiting for processing. You can see some of those thorny stems I mentioned.

They were hard as rocks, unlike the ones you get at stores or pumpkin patches. So, G suggested I boil them first to soften them, much like a potato. Very ingenious. I fit as many pumpkins as I could in my largest pot and boiled for at least fifteen minutes. Some took twice as long, depending on their size. They were done when I could either stick them with a fork or a sharp knife. Be careful during this step. Use tongs to put them in the water and remove them, by their stems. Turn them over a few times while they boil. When you prick them, they release hot, liquidy bubbles. Set them aside to cool enough, so you can handle them.

This is what a boiled pumpkin looks like inside. Scoop out the guts and seeds and set aside - you can rinse and bake the seeds later. I actually have so many seeds, several cups worth, that I'm still sorting them! Yay!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Wrap each pumpkin half with foil, just covering the top is fine, or wrapping the whole half is fine, too. Bake for at least an hour. If your pumpkins are soft when you get them, you can skip the boiling step and bake for an hour and half. Remove the foil and set aside for a few minutes to cool. I had all the pumpkins going in different stages: while some were boiling, others were baking. Also, some of my pumpkins were so soft after the boiling step, that they skipped the baking step and went straight into the food processor to get pureed.

Scoop out the flesh from the shell and puree in a food processor until completely smooth. Some pumpkins were still a little firm after baking; it didn't seem to matter their size. For these, I chopped first and added a couple of tablespoons of water to get them moving. Don't add too much because you don't want watery puree. If you feel they are too firm, bake them a little longer. Pretty color, don't you think?

Cool the puree enough , so you can bag it. I scooped out one cup measurements and put them in sandwich bags. I ended up with 23 cups of puree! My garden is my number one way I have saved money on groceries. If you have space for even a small pot, I highly recommend planting something to grow and eat.

Now, on with the pumpkin recipes! You should be seeing these very soon and later, as well. That's what's so nice about freezing and canning: you can have wonderful dishes from fruits and veggies that were harvested at the peak of their season and have kept their rich taste. Have fun!