Monthly Archives: December 2009

08Dec / 2009

Pumpkin Doesn’t Have to Come from a Can

This is another one of those things that, like making stock, I think everyone should know how to do.  It’s ridiculously easy, much cheaper, and tastes a lot better.  Of course I’m talking about making pumpkin puree.

The finished product: light, fluffy, and delicious.

The finished product: light, fluffy, and delicious.

Homemade pumpkin puree can be used in place of canned pumpkin with no trouble.  It won’t keep very long in the fridge, however, so if you don’t plan on using it within a few days I recommend freezing it.  I’ve had great success filling and stacking ziploc bags in my freezer.  One thing I really like about making my own pumpkin puree is that there is so little waste–even the seeds can be eaten, and literally every other part of the pumpkin can be composted.

Start with a sweet little pumpkin, halved and with the insides scooped out.

Start with a sweet little pumpkin, halved and with the insides scooped out.

I have a bigger pumpkin I’m planning on using as well, but I started with this sweet little guy (called Pick A Pie, according to the sign at the pumpkin patch) with the noble aim of making a pumpkin pie from scratch for thanksgiving. That didn’t exactly pan out, but the puree still went to good use. Anyway, start with your desired pumpkin. Cut it in half and scoop out the guts, making sure to save the seeds for something tasty (I think Martha’s Pumpkin Seed Candy or Trail Mix would both make wonderful gifts!).  Compost the remaining gooey innards.

 Open part down in a couple of inches of water.

Open part down in a couple of inches of water.

Place the pumpkin halves face-down in a baking dish so that they’re sitting in a couple inches of water. Bake at 350° for about an hour, or until the outside of the pumpkin is noticeably darker and easily pierced with a fork.

The shell is supposed to be this flimsy.

The shell is supposed to be this flimsy.

Remove the pumpkin halves from the oven and allow them to cool, then scoop the soft insides into a big mixing bowl if you have an immersion blender, or into your food processor if you have a food processor (if you have both, I suggest the immersion blender because they’re so much easier to clean).  Puree the pumpkin flesh so that it’s smooth and fluffy.  Use immediately in your favorite pumpkin recipes, store in the fridge for a few days, or freeze!

It looks a litle like bad spaghetti squash before you puree it.

It looks a little like bad spaghetti squash before you puree it.

Related Posts:

Posted in DIY

Tags: , , ,

Permalink 1 Comment

06Dec / 2009

The Best Banana Bread of All Time

I feel very confident that this is the only banana bread recipe I will ever use or need to use. I’ve had it so long I don’t remember where I got it (my grandmother? my neighbor? my aunt?), and it really is a breeze to make. Maybe it’s not the best thing in the world for me, but I can name all of the ingredients and it’s a great way to use up really ripe bananas.

So ripe I made sure to check them for maggots first.

So ripe I made sure to check them for maggots first.

To make this delicious bread, you’ll need:

  • three large, ripe bananas (the riper the better)
  • 2 C self-rising flour
  • 1 C sugar
  • 1/2 C oil
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 325°.  In a smallish bowl, mash the bananas with a fork.  In a mixing bowl, stir the flour and sugar together. (At this point, my mother has taught me to put a little flour on my face to make it seem like I’ve been working a lot harder than I actually have.)  Then add the bananas, oil, and eggs and mix well.  At this point, feel free to fold in nuts, chocolate chips, or anything else your heart desires!  Pour mixture into a greased and floured loaf pan and bake for one hour, or until golden brown.  Serve with coffee and watch your friends and family swoon.  This bread is great hot, and it’s equally great cold the next day as breakfast (if there’s any left, which there isn’t around here).

They should look like this when you're done with them.

They should look like this when you're done mashing them.

This is what the perfect loaf of banana bread looks like.

This is what the perfect loaf of banana bread looks like.

Related Posts:

Posted in eats

Tags: , , , , ,

Permalink 3 Comments

04Dec / 2009

For All You Crummy-Apartment Dwellers

This post probably won’t appeal to a lot of people because most people probably don’t live in crummy apartments with medicine cabinets full of mold, peeling paint, and God-knows-what-else. But, for the few of you out there who do, this is something I recently did that has made getting ready in the mornings a little less scary. There are no before pictures because, honestly, I’m ashamed at how bad this cabinet was looking. Like everything else in my lovely, too-small rental bathroom, the inside of the medicine cabinet was covered in paint which I assume to have one day been white.  In places it was peeling to expose some awful green, and in others the original wood below (if only they’d left the wood in this apartment alone!).  To make matters worse, we have a real humidity problem in the bathroom.  There is no ventilation system, so the door really must almost always be left open or it’s mold city in there.  This is true for the medicine cabinet times a million.  Everything in there, including our toothbrushes, always stayed slightly moist.  Certain bottles (ones we don’t use often, like peroxide) actually had mold growing on them.  I’m really ashamed that we’ve lived this way for a year and half, although I don’t think it’s always been this bad.  I’m not sure what happened to upset the balance in our medicine cabinet, but I finally got tired of looking at three colors of paint and fifteen species of mold every morning and decided to do something.  I initially thought about wallpaper, but nice-looking inexpensive wallpaper is tough to come by around here.  I have been really, weirdly into wood grain lately, so I decided to use wood grain contact paper instead.

After removing all of the products and shelves (which also required a thorough wipe-down), I used a natural cleaner to scrub down the inside of the cabinet, trying not to chip off any more paint (I’m not sure if there’s lead somewhere under there, but it wouldn’t surprise me). I then measured the dimensions of the cabinet and used one long piece to go from top to bottom, and big pieces to fill in the gaps between where the shelves are perched.  Surprisingly, wood grain is a very forgiving pattern and I was able to cover the entire inside except for the shelf supports.

The camera highlights all my mistakes--I promise it's stunning in person!

The camera highlights all my mistakes--I promise it's stunning in person!

This was also a good reason to throw things away.  I love throwing away things I no longer use or shouldn’t use because they’re expired.  I was also able to take stock of what I have (too much damned soap; there are seven bars in the medicine cabinet and two in the shower), which will hopefully prevent me from buying any more (I just love nice soap too much!).  A project like this isn’t really a big deal and doesn’t take up much time, but I really like the effect.  Not having to see at peeling paint and mold every day certainly cheers me up!

Note to all: If you were thinking of getting me soap for Christmas, think again.

Note to all: If you were thinking of getting me soap for Christmas, think again.

Related Posts:

Posted in DIY

Tags: , , , , ,

Permalink 1 Comment

03Dec / 2009

Asparagus Potato Soup

I didn’t fall into a well or anything, but it’s finals week around here and I’ve been pretty sick with an ear infection. I could probably handle one or the other, but the combination rendered me pretty worthless for a few days. But I’m back and medicated and taking my last final in a couple of hours, so all is well!

A Quartet of Awesome: butter, onions, asparagus, and garlic.

A Quartet of Awesome: butter, onions, asparagus, and garlic.

I finally got tired of eating Thanksgiving leftovers and wanted something a little lighter than dressing, mac and cheese, and pie (this could also have a lot to do with the fact that we’ve run out of vegetarian stuff so all that’s left is meaty treats). To complicate matters a bit, we haven’t been grocery shopping in a really long time. I picked up some asparagus on a whim recently because it was too beautiful to pass up, but other than that we’re down to potatoes, carrots, onions, and not much else. I decided to make Asparagus and Potato soup, but I couldn’t find a recipe I liked. Although my past attempts to “just whip something up” often end in tasteless failure, I decided to try my hand at adapting a recipe for Asparagus Soup from The Complete Encyclopedia of Vegetables and Vegetarian Cooking, a cookbook given to me by my grandmother a long time ago.

Maybe I should've used a smaller pot?

Maybe I should've used a smaller pot?

To make this tasty soup, you’ll need:

  • 1 lb asparagus, chopped
  • 1 medium onion
  • 2 cloves of garlic, diced
  • 2 T butter
  • 1 T all purpose flour
  • 2 large or 4 small potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 1 T lemon juice
  • 4 C vegetable stock
  • immersion blender or blender

In a soup pot, cook the onions and garlic in the butter until the onions are translucent.  Add the asparagus and cook over low heat for about a minute.  Add the flour and cook for another minute, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pan so it doesn’t burn.  Add the stock, lemon juice, and potatoes and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are done.  Remove from heat.  At this point it’s easiest to just stick your immersion blender in the pot and let it go until it’s at the consistency you like.  Mine was somewhere between creamy and kind of chunky.  If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can transfer the soup to a regular blender or food processor and smooth it out that way.  I feel like some garlicky croutons would be a nice topping for this soup, but I didn’t have any so I just did freshly ground black pepper, which was also good.

I'm not going to lie, this soup was rad.

I'm not going to lie, this soup was rad.

Related Posts:

Posted in eats

Tags: , , , ,

Permalink Leave a comment