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Pumpkin Pucks and Pumpkin Scones

I love that so many people were interested in my pumpkin pucks and the resulting pumpkin scones. I’ve had questions about both, so here are my directions to preserve your own pumpkin pucks and bake up these dreamy pumpkin scones.

PUMPKIN PUCKS

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Ingredients: sugar pie pumpkin, olive oil

Wash your pumpkin. Cut it in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy bits, and cover both inside and outside with olive oil. Place the halves face down on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Use a fork to poke holes all over the two halves. Bake until all areas are tender. My first batch I didn’t quite cook the pumpkin long enough, and some areas were a little hard. This will usually take at least an hour, depending on the size of your pumpkin. Check after an hour and keep going until a fork easily pierces all areas.

Cool. Scoop the pumpkin flesh out and a fill 1/2 cup plastic measuring cup with pumpkin. Slam (to release the pumpkin) the pumpkin on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet. This will form the “puck” shape. Continue with all the cooked pumpkin. If there is any remaining, divide the rest between all the pucks. Freeze until solid. Place the pucks in freezer bags. Store in the freezer until needed. They unthaw pretty quickly, but if you want to use 1/2 cup of pumpkin, pull it out the day before and let it thaw in the fridge. Ta-dah!

PUMPKIN SCONES

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour (we love whole wheat)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. allspice

1 heaping tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. pumpkin spice

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup cold butter

1/3 cup buttermilk (I never have this on hand, so I add about 1 T. vinegar to the milk and let it curdle)

1/2 cup pumpkin (1 PUMPKIN PUCK, thawed)

1 tsp. vanilla

Mix together flour, sugar, spices, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Use a pastry knife to cut the butter in until it is well crumbled.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, milk, and vanilla. Add to the dry mixture. Mix just until the dough comes together.

Lightly flour a surface and put the dough on it. Gently knead the dough a few times and pat it into a circle about 1 1/2 inches thick. Use a knife to cut the dough in half, then in quarters, and then in eighths (final scone count is 8). Place untouching on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet.

Bake about 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove to a cooling rack to cool.

PUMPKIN SPICE GLAZE

Ingredients: powdered sugar, pumpkin spice, water

(I apologize in advance. I do not measure this, but rather go by “it’s done when it will pour over my scones.”)

Place about 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar in a bowl. Add about 1 tsp. pumpkin spice. Add water by 1 tsp. at a time, using a whisk to mix the glaze. Stop adding water when the glaze stirs easily but is not runny. (I know!! I did apologize in advance!) If you get too much water, add small amounts of powdered sugar to get the consistency you want.

Drizzle the glaze over the scones while they are still on the cooling rack. This is messy since the glaze drips off the bottom, but you can place the cooling rack back on the cookie sheet so it drips onto the cookie sheet instead of your surface.

Enjoy!

Hooray for homegrown sugar pie pumpkins!


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From Pumpkin to Puck to Treat

Our garden produced a bumper crop of pumpkins this year. Maybe because I replanted them over and over due to the mysterious disappearances of seeds, sprouts, and evidence of any plant life! You can read our final pumpkin counts here.

Decorating around the RV, Huckleberry Hutch, and sending home numerous glorious orbs with the grands and their parents helped disperse the wealth. But also, I baked two. Only two so far, as there are three more that remain unfrozen I can bake.

Just in case you are wondering, once the outside pumpkins freeze, I do not cook them. But after the season, we give our outdoor fall decor to the turkeys, chickens, geese, and goats who live next door. They LOVE harvest as much as we do.

From the baked pumpkin, I made 1/2 cup pucks. That’s what I’m calling them. Pumpkin pucks. Most recipes seem to call for 1/2 cup pumpkin. So there you have it. The pucks remain nicely frozen in the freezer, and I pull one out whenever I want to use one. They don’t even take that long to unthaw.

Et voila, pumpkin scones! We love these spicy treats. Any pumpkin scone recipe will work. Just double the spices. I’m serious. We love that burst of flavor. I double all the spices. We use whole wheat flour and my husband prefers his without the pumpkin spice glaze.

From pumpkin, to puck, to treat. Delish!

What is your favorite pumpkin treat? I have plenty of 1/2 cup pucks to try it!


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Cooking Day: Fall Flavors Give RV Oven a Workout

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Yesterday, while I was watching the Seahawks shoot themselves in the feet, I mean LOSE but with style, I gave in to my urge to bake. The day went like this.

Home from church. Make tuna salad for lunch. Clean up.

Tuna Salad: two cans tuna, drained; 1 celery stick, chopped; 1/2 red onion, diced; about 1/4 c. dill relish; 1/4 c. chopped walnuts; fresh ground black pepper; cayenne; cumin; and enough mayo to make it mix well. I ate mine over cherry tomatoes. My honey ate his on his favorite whole grain bread. No pictures of this, but it was tasty!

Bake Gingerbread Muffins. Clean up.

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I found this recipe at the What’s for Dinner Moms? blog.   I’ve found quite a few tasty treats on this blog. As usual, I adjusted the recipe to our tastes, using whole wheat and almond flour, and added allspice and cloves, and swapped out white sugar and added brown. I also doubled the icing. These are so yummy!

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Bake Oatmeal Cups. Clean up.

Okay. So the recipe calls them Granola Cups with Yogurt and Berries. I was taste testing them for a Jello Molders weekend. They came out pretty good. I found this recipe in an old 2017 issue of Cooking Light.

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Bake Mexican Chocolate Cookies. Clean up.

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These spicy little treats are awesome. The cayenne livens things up a bit. And chocolate? Of course they are delicious. This recipe is from a May issue of Martha Stewart, but I’ve accidentally torn off the year…

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Put a pot of chicken soup on to simmer. Clean up.

There are no pictures of this first soup of the season. But know I used up the rest of our Costco rotisserie chicken, celery, onions, a potato, kale from the garden, a bag of mixed frozen veggies, stewed tomatoes, chicken broth, Mrs. Dash, crushed red pepper, black pepper, and poultry seasoning. It was excellent served with a dollop of sour cream. My honey added corn chips to the top.

Eat dinner. Clean up.

I’d say for a Sunday, I spent a lot of time cleaning up! A friend and I consider washing dishes a workout. Including breakfast dishes, I worked out 6 times! You should see my buff arm and shoulder muscles. 🙂 In the RV, one must clean up EVERY time a new dish is prepared. Space and tiny sink and all.

The successes were ALL of the above. It was a tasty day. Other than the Seahawks losing.

How about you? What do you like to bake or simmer in the fall? Happy first day of autumn!

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via Tuesday Debut – Presenting Laura Renauld!

Porcupine’s Pie

By Laura Renauld

Illustrated by Jennie Poh

Beaming Books, October 2018

 

Happy book birthday, Laura and Jennie! What an adorable picture book! I know I can’t wait to get my hands on it and read about Porcupine and friends. And I hear there is a great pie recipe at the end, so let me at it!

Congratulations!

Note to writers: This interview is chock full of information about the Laura’s publishing journey. I loved learning more about the process.


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Monday Mouthfuls: Spiced Walnuts

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I know walnuts are one of the healthiest nuts. And we should eat them every day. But I just can’t. It’s not that I don’t like them. I just like them in stuff. So I sneak them in my healthy dark chocolate cookies and muesli (which we eat nearly every day for breakfast), and put them on top of stuff. Mostly, my honey eats them as toppings (on yogurt, toast, crackers, nut mix). I’ve always been a hot fudge sundae without the nuts/cherry/whipped topping kind of girl. Just give me good old vanilla ice cream with plenty of hot fudge.

This recipe really helps me eat a daily snack of heart-healthy walnuts. Maybe they are not as good for you due to the small amount of sweetener, but they are not healthy for me if I DON’T eat them at all. Wink, wink.

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Spiced Walnuts

Heat oven to 300 degrees. Put parchment paper on cookie sheet.

In bowl, whip:

1 egg

1 T. cinnamon (we love cinnamon, another good-for-you spice, so I tend to go heavy-handed on how much I put in)

1/2 tsp. cayenne (more if you want some bite)

1 T. maple syrup (the real stuff)

2 T. (or so) brown sugar

Add and stir well to coat:

5 cups walnut halves

Spread on parchment paper and bake 20 minutes. Stir. Bake an additional 5-10 minutes until dry. Cool. Break apart and store in covered container.

Eat every day.

 

What’s your favorite healthy snack?

You can read more about healthy walnuts here.


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Whole Wheat Multi-Grain Bread Recipe

Yummy Whole Wheat Multi-Grain Bread

By Angie Quantrell @AngieQuantrell

Last week our cupboards resembled Old Mother Hubbard’s.

Yet I adamantly resisted going grocery shopping. Because it is not my favorite thing to do. You can read the post here.

Bread was in zero supply, so I looked in the cupboard and we had yeast packets! I decided to make bread. I know, lots of work. But anything to avoid hitting the supermarket aisles.

Enjoy!

Whole Wheat Multi-Grain Bread

Ingredients:

2 pkgs. active dry yeast

3/4 cup warm water

2 cups lukewarm milk (scalded and cooled)

1/4 cup honey

3 T. shortening

1 tsp. salt

4-5 cups whole wheat flour

2 cups white flour

3/4 cup chopped sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, and almond flour (mixed together)

1/2 cup oatmeal (lightly ground in coffee grinder)

softened butter

Directions:

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add milk, honey, shortening, salt, white flour, and 2 cups whole wheat flour. Mix together.

Add oatmeal and grains plus enough whole wheat flour to make dough easy to handle.

Turn dough out onto floured counter. Knead about 10 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic. Roll into a ball. Put in a shortening greased bowl, turning once to cover all sides with shortening. Cover. Set bowl in warm spot and let rise until double (about 1 hour).

Punch down dough. Divide in half. Roll each half out into a rectangle. Tightly (but gently) roll the dough into a loaf and place seam-side down in a greased loaf pan. Repeat with second loaf. Lightly brush tops with butter. Cover and let rise for another hour, or until doubled.

Heat oven to 425 and put oven racks on a lower setting so the bread tops rest in the center of the oven. Bake until loaves are toasty brown and sound hollow when thumped, about 30 minutes.

Remove loaves from pans, place on cooling racks, and spread butter on top. Cool and enjoy!

My well-loved and much used pre-marriage cookbook

The original recipe came from my Betty Crocker’s Cookbook (Golden, New and Revised Edition) that I’ve had since before I was married (pre-1985). The name inscribed on the inside front cover is Angie Hill.

In fact, there is no title page, as it has fallen out during some previous cooking escapade. We now start things off on page 7 and discuss how to care for and prepare meat.

***My recipe for Whole Wheat Multi-Grain Bread has been adjusted and adapted to our tastes – less salt, more grains, and a mix of whole wheat and white flour.