Happy Halloween

 

I once intentionally grew pumpkins. It was one of my first forays into growing things from seed as a kid. It was not a particularly auspicious start for my gardening career. The pumpkins grew large, sprawling out on wayward vines, but their tendency to take up residence in a little-used laneway was their undoing, and my brother ran over them with a tractor.

This year we unintentionally grew pumpkins and had a much greater degree of success. We nearly always have some sort of mystery vine that volunteers, but this is the first time it's turned out to be pumpkins. They did an impressive job of taking over a large area of the lawn where presumably a farmer squirrel had deposited the seed the previous fall. 

I can't claim that it was the most sincere pumpkin patch, and of course since we've had frost it's no longer extant and eligible to be visited by the Great Pumpkin in any case. Having grown them, we now question how Linus could spend any time sitting in a pumpkin patch, because those vines are very scratchy.

Our main question was whether these were eating pumpkins or ones best left for decor. They aren't the really large jack-o-lantern shape, but they aren't the cute pie kind either. We roasted a small one yesterday as a test and the flesh turned out to be suitably mashable just with a fork and not particularly stringy, so I think you'll be seeing a lot more pumpkin recipes soon.

 We opted for this soup recipe for lunch to use up our first small pumpkin.  

Oktoberfest pizza

 

Pizza Lucé teamed with Kramarczuck’s for a special Oktoberfest style pizza. We happened across it on one of those nights where you start out thinking you’re actually going to get to go out for a walk after work like you planned, but then someone encountered a problem just after you should be done for the day. So then the mental bargaining begins, and you pass through the denial stages where you think maybe a short walk and stop at the pizza place down the hill since it’s getting late. And then you’re three hours into trying to help someone and you ask if it’s OK to order pizza. But otherwise we probably wouldn’t have got to sample this one. Which of course we then tried to reverse engineer because it was only offered during their Oktoberfest celebration.

The Krautwürst
Inspiration: Pizza Lucé
Note: For quick pickled onions, you could follow the instructions in this recipe, or try the recipe below.

Ingredients
Pizza crust (either prebaked like a Boboli or dough for one pie)
½ tablespoon olive oil
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons coarse grainy mustard
¾ cup grated muenster cheese
⅓ cup well-drained sauerkraut
¼ pound smoked knackwurst, sliced ¼-inch thick (1 link)
2 ounces bratwurst, sliced ¼-inch thick (1 link)
½ grated mozzarella
2 tablespoons pickled red onions (see recipe)
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley

Method
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. If using a pizza stone, place in oven while preheating.

Place a prebaked crust on a pizza pan, or form pizza dough into a round on a peel sprinkled with cornmeal. Combine olive oil, garlic powder and mustard. Spread over crust/dough. Top with muenster cheese, followed by sauerkraut, sausages and then topped with mozzarella. Place pan in oven or slide pizza onto baking stone. Bake for 12 minutes for a prebaked crust (or 15-20 minutes for an unbaked crust) or until pizza is golden. Remove from heat and served topped with pickled red onions and parsley.

Rating: Again, not really an approximation of the original pizza. Again, not really caring, because this one works for me. Both of them taste mostly of Kramarczuck’s smoked knackwurst and pickled onions, and both are plenty tasty if you like something that tastes kind of a like a really good sausage roll in pizza form. And boy, is Kramarczuck's crammed on a Saturday mid-morning these days. Glad to see they're busy, but vowing to get going earlier in the morning next time.

Quick-pickled red onions
From “Picture Perfect Parties” by Annette Joseph

Ingredients
1½ cups red wine vinegar
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 to 5 whole cloves
1 large red onion, cut into ¼-thick slices

Method
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine vinegar, sugar, salt and cloves. Simmer for 2 minutes. Add onion and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let onion cool. Transfer to a jar for longer term storage in the refrigerator.

Feel free to mix up the spice to your liking. Fennel, caraway or celery seed would be viable alternatives. 

This was the inspiration pizza.

Here's where we landed. This one mixes bockwurst and knackwurst.

Slow cooker vegetable lentil soup

 

Slow-cooker lentil soup with crispy tortillas
From “It’s All About Dinner: Easy, Everyday Family-Friendly Meals” by Nicky Corbishley, as published in the Star Tribune Sunday Supper column

Ingredients
1 onion, peeled and diced
1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
3 carrots, peeled and chopped into small pieces
2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped into small pieces
½ cup red lentils
3 cups stock
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 cups of baby spinach leaves (packed)
¾ cup grated Cheddar
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ teaspoon garlic salt
½ teaspoon dried parsley or cilantro
1 large tortilla

Method
In a large crock pot, combine onion, bell pepper, carrots, potatoes, lentils, stock, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours or on high for 4 hours. Stir in spinach and cheddar shortly before serving to wilt spinach and melt cheese.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine olive oil, garlic salt and herbs. Brush over tortilla. Cut into long thin strips and place on baking sheet. Bake for 5 to 7 minutes until crisp. Let cool. Serve soup topped with tortilla crisps, if desired.

Rating: My first thought was “actually not bad.” That might not seem like high praise, but my expectations had kind of sunk while it cooked because there wasn’t really any spice or herbage going on outside of the homemade broth, and unlike some slow-cooking soups that drive you crazy with hunger because of the aroma all day, this one didn’t seem to smell like much of anything. But it was indeed a reasonably tasty soup that was nice to have at the end of a long day, and fairly fast to mix up. The lentils more or less dissolve into creamy texture so the main thing you notice is the potatoes.

Now, about that garnish treatment. Some people believe that all soups deserve a good garnish. My opinion is that a good soup does not require one, and in this case the called-for garnish was not only uncalled for, it was actively not what was called for if one wanted to garnish this particular soup. The tortilla texture seemed like piling starch on starch, so I would suggest a sprinkling of more cheese or a thin chiffonade of spinach leaves if you are one of those people who require lily gilding. (I'll note that the photo that appeared in the paper showed it clearly had been garnished with some grated Parmesan as well.)

That said, the remaining tortilla crisps worked fine as a topping on a chop salad, so they have their uses.

Whether this soup qualifies as kid friendly would depend entirely on your kid. I suspect as a kid I would have looked at it pretty skeptically, but perhaps children are more adventurous these days. The recipe says it serves 3 to 4. If you’re serving much of anything with it like a salad and some bread, 4 is realistic. It reheats fine.

Caramelized onion, cherry tomato and goat cheese tart; cherry tomato and tapenade tart with mascarpone

 This is a good way to use up some of the bowls of tiny tomatoes in late summer. Or early fall. Like when you bring in the last blast ahead of frost. And then it snows (????!) before the Ides of October.

Caramelized onion, tomato and goat cheese tart
Adapted from “The Savory Baker by America’s Test Kitchen as published in the Star Tribune Sunday Supper. It included a somewhat unusual method for caramelizing onions. Since I was making this to take to a gathering with friends, I decided this wasn’t the time to fool around and find out, so I opted for the lengthy but reliable method. Two hours later, really wishing I’d planned far enough ahead that I could have done the crockpot method. (Evangelizing on this method again.) Note that onions cook way, way down, so for a half cup of onions you’re probably going to want to start with 1½ pounds or more.  You can always freeze the extras. Or do what I did, and try the recipe again with the other half of the puff pastry box.

Ingredients
½ cup caramelized onions
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
6 ounces cherry tomatoes, halved
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves plus sprigs for garnish
½ cup (2 ounces) goat cheese, crumbled

Method
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. On a very lightly floured board, roll out puff pastry to a 10-inch square. Brush outer ½ inch of pastry with water and then fold toward center, pressing to seal.

Spread caramelized onions over the area within the pastry border. Top with halved tomatoes. Sprinkle with thyme leaves. Tuck crumbled goat cheese in between the tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake until puffed and golden, about 24 minutes.

The recipe called for slicing it into four pieces to serve 4. I sliced it into 9 since I was counting it as an appetizer. You’d probably want to make two of these if you wanted to serve this as a main course to 4 people.

Rating: Best served warm, which we did the second time we made it. Fine enough at room temperature if you’re offering as a buffet appetizer, but really good when consumed immediately out of the oven. Truly hard to go wrong with this combo pack, and it looks pretty, too, especially with multiple colors of tomatoes. If you have lemon thyme, that’s a really nice addition. I'll definitely give this a spot in the summer recipe rotation. 

This batch got a little over brown; the recipe below reflects dialed-back suggested baking times.

We also tried this recipe with more of the little tomato excess. Actually, it's not really truly possible to have an excess of tomatoes in my opinion.It's not like zucchini.Or kale.

Tomato and tapenade tarts
From “The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Four Ingredient Cooking” by Joanna Farrow

Ingredients
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
4 tablespoons olive tapenade, divided
1 ½ pounds cherry tomatoes, halved unless very small
½ cup mascarpone cheese

Method
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

Roll out pastry and cut into 4 squares, or in 6-inch circles using a plate as a guide if you want to be fancy. Transfer to baking sheet. Score ½ inch from the edge with a sharp knife to make a rim.

Spread ½ tablespoon tapenade on each tart, making sure to keep it off the edges. Top with tomatoes, keeping them within the rim. Sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until puffed and golden. Remove from oven. Dot with remaining tapenade and put a dollop of mascarpone in the middle of each tart. Season with pepper and bake another 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Rating: It wasn't bad, but I really thought I'd like it a lot more than I actually did. We used purchased tapenade, and it's possible it didn't bring as much to the party as some do. It's a pretty fast fix, so I won't rule out making it again when I have my own tapenade made fresh. And when there are tomatoes back on the vines again. It's little green tomato time on the counters again. Oh, fall.

Chickpea salad with tuna, feta and red peppers

 

This recipe is a good choice now that we're back in soup and a salad mode. You can make it well ahead, so it's quick to get on the table between meetings. OK, really between my meetings and Dave's workouts.

Chickpea salad with tuna
From Better Homes & Gardens August 2020

Ingredients
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas, drained
4 green onions cut into 1-inch pieces
½ cup chopped roasted red peppers
½ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 (12-ounce can) oil-packed tuna, drained
½ cup crumbled feta

Method
Combine lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, cumin, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Add chickpeas, green onions, roasted peppers and parsley. Let mixture stand at room temperature for 15 minutes. Add tuna and feta and serve, or chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve. The recipe says it serves 6, which seems reasonably accurate.

Rating: If you like cumin, you'll probably like this salad, since it stands out among the other flavors. Very substantial salad, with bright flavors. Points for the Italian flag color effect.