PUMPKIN BREAD

We don't really do pumpkin in Britain. We buy oversized pumpkins in October ready to carve into ghoulish grimaces but I'm willing to bet, that just like we did as children, most people scoop seeds and flesh straight into the bin (believe me when I say that I admire you if you do, and have always done, differently). I remember seeing recipes for using up the pumpkin flesh but there was always something about them that made it unlikely I would ever bother, maybe just the size and weight of dragging a pumpkin home.

But then, last week, in the run up to Halloween, I started to see recipes on US sites that called for canned pumpkin and they started to sound tempting, particularly a recipe for pumpkin bread on Culinate. Surely the leap from loving banana bread to loving pumpkin bread couldn't be too big? A small search for canned pumpkin ensued (those of you used to buying it from any local store should know that it isn't always easy to find here) but I eventually found it jarred and looking a lot like pureed carrot baby food. All that remained was a small division exercise to make a recipe for one loaf instead of two and I was ready to go. It takes all of five minutes to make and 45 plus to bake. I managed to wait about another five before cutting a slice and deciding that spreading it with cream cheese and washing it down with a glass of milk might well be a wonderful thing, try it you'll see.



PUMPKIN BREAD
from Culinate and the Jes Burns collection
makes 1 loaf

2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup water
1/2 can (8oz) pumpkin
1 3/4 cups plain flour
1 cup caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (or 350 degrees F). In one bowl mix together the eggs, oil, and water then mix in the pumpkin. In a different bowl mix the remaining dry ingredients together. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet and scrape the batter into a greased loaf tin. Bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the loaf comes out clean (mine took closer to an hour but it is worth checking at 45 minutes as this will depend on the consistency of your pumpkin puree and the size of your loaf tin). Turn the loaf out of its tin and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

THE QUIET WEEKEND

A weekend away and the intention to write a post on paper yesterday to satisfy my duties, instead I found myself documenting the Autumn colours so you get a small photo montage to sum up the weekend and the knowledge that we ate very well - butternut squash salad, passionfruit mess, and pancakes with blueberry maple syrup to name just some of the treats...

CUPCAKERIES

While I am obviously delighted by the opening of any new cupcake supplier does anyone else think that buttercup cake shop is a little too close to buttercup bake shop? Oh well, never mind they look great, definitely one to visit on my next London trip.

PAIN AU CHOCOLAT

On the first day of this, hopefully, monumental month (I keep reading this back as 'monumental moth' which is a terrifying picture, I have a deep fear of moths and now a deep hatred as our resident clothes moths spent the summer eating the thumbs of my Icelandic gloves) I have decided to ease myself in with a treat (obviously always a tough decision). We are lucky enough to live close to a fantastic little bakery called Circle. It used to be a French cafe and bakery but when Circle took over the bakery remained, much to our joy. The baguettes are very French (good chewy but solid crust, nice air holes, and fabulous flavour), the sourdough is addictive, and the croissants are like the butteriest dreams of croissants that you count yourself lucky to find in France let alone in a corner of Edinburgh. But today is a pain au chocolat day.

As a child on holiday in France being allowed to go to the bakery with my sister to ask for crossants, pain au chocolat, and a baguette was a highlight and when I realised that French children drank hot chocolate out of bowls I was in heaven, why couldn't all breakfasts be this way?

As I grew up I switched my morning allegiance to caffeine but that love of dark chocolate encased in pastry stayed with me ready to be indulged when the mood hits. I mean, how could you resist...

NaBloPoMo (or... what the hell am I thinking)

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon something that, in my ignorance, I had been oblivious too until now (I guess this is fair enough, I started blogging in January so why would I know about a November event). NaBloPoMo, or to use the full name National Blog Posting Month (it should really be WoBloPoMo as it isn't actually limited to one country), is a challenge to write and post every day in November.



I have decided to go for it but with one slight concern (aside from the obvious worries about inspiration and energy), this weekend I will be staying in a cottage with no internet access, which is obviously a hindrance for blogging (apart from that I am totally looking forward to the food, wine, bonfire, sparklers, and fireworks). So, trying to find a suitable solution I looked into mobile blogging but, nope, Vodafone in the UK won't let me do it. Anyway, as the electronic world is determined to thwart my plans what I will do is this... on Saturday I will write my post on paper and will photograph it showing the date to prove I wrote it on the day. I will have written but you will just have to read it on Sunday, I hope that's fine with the Gods of NaBloPoMo? Now back to compiling the list of potential topics...

AN AUTUMNAL SALAD

I love this time of year. It has started to get a little cooler but is not yet so cold that I don't want to leave the house. It is getting darker but not yet so dark that all of the time not spent at work during the week is spent in the dark. We seem to have had a mild October so far but that doesn't stop the need for warmer and heartier food, it just alters the way that food needs to appears on the table. It isn't yet time for stews, soups, and pies (although Monday was so wet and cold that I found myself buying a steak and ale pie from the butcher for dinner) but the scarf around my neck and the slow drift of leaves onto the pavement suggests the time has come to move away from summer and towards the shorter days to come.

With this is mind I pulled out 'roast figs sugar snow,' Diana Henry's ode to winter cookery from countries where they really know how to make it through the cold and dark months. Often this means comfort in the form of heartwarming stodge. I have nothing against the comforting properties of a tartiflette but we're not quite there yet so I turned to a roast squash salad with lentils and goat's cheese for tonight's dinner which turned out to just be a pleasurable nudge towards winter and the promise of a new season's cooking.



ROAST SQUASH SALAD WITH LENTILS AND GOAT'S CHEESE from roast figs sugar snow by Diana Henry
serves 6

1.5kg butternut squash
salt and pepper
olive oil
30g butter
250g goat's cheese, broken into small pieces

For the lentils:
275g Puy lentils
1/2 a small onion, finely chopped
1 small stick of celery, very finely chopped
15g butter
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

For the dressing:
1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar
A smidgeon of dijon mustard (I used 1/2 tsp)
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Good pinch of caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Halve the squash and scoop out the seeds and fibres. Peel and cube into rougly 2cm chunks. Put the squash into a roasting tin, dot with the butter, drizzle over the olive oil and season well. Roast for 15-20 minutes until the squash is tender. Turn it occasionally so it doesn't dry out or scorch.

While the squash is cooking rinse the lentils and put them in a pan, cover them with cold water and bring them to the boil. Cook the lentils until they are tender which can take anything from 15 - 30 minutes so check them frequently as you don't want them to start falling apart.

While the lentils are cooking sauté the onion and celery in the butter and oil until they are soft but not coloured.

Make the dressing by mixing together all of the ingredients, season.

When the lentils are cooked, add them to the pan with the onion and celery and stir. Add two thirds of the dressing and the chopped parsley and season well.

To serve put a mound of lentils onto each plate and top with the roast squash. Dot with the goat's cheese and drizzle with the remaining dressing.

EASILY INFLUENCED

Yesterday, while trying to wake up, I was reading a few of my favourite blogs and as usual my mouth was watering when I read Orangette. I love this blog, the food is invariably gorgeous (and Molly shares my love of banana bread), the writing is honest and personal, and the photography is uncluttered and beautiful, if you don't read it yet you really should start. So, yesterday I read Molly's account of a recipe from Casa Moro and very quickly decided to recreate the meal I had eaten in Moro in August.

Have I mentioned that we went to Moro? Probably not as I was in deep blogging malaise over the summer, completely unable to cook or write, I even wrecked a batch of blueberry muffins that I have made a million times before. In August we had a weekend in London and as part of that weekend we managed a trip to Moro. I had been itching to go since buying Casa Moro a few years ago but somehow none of our rushed trips to London had seen it happen - another oddity that has just occurred to me is that I still haven't bought the first Moro book. Anyway, on a hot August night we found ourselves in the restaurant imagining how great it would be to regularly pop in to eat a few tapas at the long zinc bar instead of having to get our fix in one fell swoop. We were ravenous and guzzled the bread (twice over - oops) and, discussing the meal over dinner last night, both agreed that we would eat everything we had again in a second (although maybe not in one sitting). The flavours were beautifully matched and although we had struggled to finish our main courses we somehow convinced ourselves that ice cream would be a good idea, it was.

That evening in Moro I had wood roasted chicken with pistachio sauce and tabbouleh. Obviously I can't quite manage wood roasted chicken in my flat so basic oven roasting had to suffice but with very little effort I found Moro recipes for both tabbouleh and pistachio sauce in The Observer Food Monthly. I did some shopping, some (a lot) of chopping and stirring and we sat down to a passable, and very tasty, imitation of the meal I had been served two months ago. If you make the sauce don't both trying to chop pistachios in the food processor, it just reduces the outside of the nut to dust while leaving the rest whole, I found a mezzaluna much more useful for this rather long winded task.



TABBOULEH
serves 4

85g fine bulgur wheat
400g tomatoes, diced
4 spring onions, finely chopped
3 small bunches fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped (use a very sharp knife or mezzaluna so that the herbs don't get bruised)
1 small bunch fresh mint, roughly chopped

For the dressing:
1 garlic clove, crushed to a paste with salt
1/4 tsp of ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp of ground allspice
2 tbsp of lemon juice
3 tbsp of olive oil
sea salt and black pepper to taste

According to the recipe with fine bulgur all you have to do is wash it well in a sieve and shake it dry and it will have absorbed enough water for it to swell. If, like me, you can only get medium bulgur, it needs to sit in cold water for 3 minutes to swell before it is put in the sieve.

Mix all of the salad ingredients together and then make the dressing by adding the garlic, salt and spices to the lemon juice so that the flavours disperse properly and then stir in the olive oil. Toss the salad just before you are ready to eat and finally check it for seasoning.

PISTACHIO SAUCE
serves 4

100g shelled unsalted pistachios
2 tbsp of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 dtsp of finely chopped mint
1 dtsp of lemon juice
1 tsp of caster sugar
7 tbsp of extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp of finely grated lemon zest
4 tbsp of water
1 tsp of orange blossom water (optional)
sea salt and black pepper to taste

Finely chop the pistachios by hand or in a food processor. Mix together with the other ingredients and season to taste with salt and pepper.