Fall Foliage

Last weekend was one heck of a whirl-wind. It was homecoming here in CoMo and College Game Day even came to the party along with some old college friends. LP and I had a packed house. Then Mizzou brought home a win in a big, BIG way. Epic - as in the proper noun. But it was also a long day. 5:30-2:30. AM to AM. Phew!

Then Sunday morning (after a bit of a rally) it was off to Kansas City to meet up with my fellow foodie friend Emily. There was a little talk about the upcoming Italy/Switzerland trip and a lot of talk about restaurant plans. It was exciting to get to do some brainstorming on how this vision would come to fruition! And then on Sunday we tromped around the city to get some fall shots. Overall it's been a dry fall around here so the colors haven't popped as much this season as I'd hoped, but I still think both of us managed to get some great shots. Especially Emily.

Fall Festival Festivities with Freddie

Did I ever tell you how I love alliteration?

Other things I love: fall festivals. Especially those revolving around food. Here are a few of my favorite shots from this year's Roots N' Blues N' BBQ festival (which gave my my horrendous cold, btw) and the Hartsburg Pumpkin Festival. If the shots get your tummy to grumblin' I've also included a recipe for pumpkin bread. We're one and a half loaves into the three I made Friday in my house. And go for the from-an-actual-pumpkin version. You'll be surprised how ridiculously easy it is!

Civil Liberties

I'll take two bags, please.

Momma Whitney

Corndog Candid

Smokin' Suds

Chips N' Kids

Three-for-one

His name is Gourdon

Anti-Establishment Pumpkin Bread

(named in honor of Larry)

Ingredients

1 pie pumpkin (they're small, only about 8" or so in diameter)

3 1/2 cups unbleached white flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 1/2 cups sugar

4 eggs, beaten

1 cup canola oil

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp nutmeg

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 cup water

1 cup chopped pecans

Directions

Wash pumpkin in warm water thoroughly. Cut pumpkin in half and remove seeds and stringy pulp. An ice cream scoop works great for this. Cut pumpkin down into wedges roughly 3" x 3" (or small enough to fit in microwave safe casserole dish). Add pumpkin wedges into casserole dish along with 1 to 1 1/2 inches of water, cover and microwave for 15-20 minutes or until pumpkin is spoon-tender all the way through. Let pumpkin cool a bit, then remove rinds. If pumpkin is cooked all the way, rinds should peel off easily by hand or with the help of a butter knife. Toss pumpkin meat into food processor (or blender) and alternate running processor and stirring contents until pumpkin's consistency is a smooth puree.

Preheat oven to 350 and grease two 9x5" loaf pans. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and spices. In a separate bowl, mix together 2 cups of the pumpkin puree*, eggs, water and oil. Slowly incorporate wet mixture into dry mixture. Add in pecans. Divide batter evenly between two loaf pans. Bake for 60 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Let loaves cool for 15 minutes, then remove from pans and let cool completely on racks. Wrap tightly in saran wrap to store. Loaves can be frozen if you can imagine not finishing them both in the near future.

*I got three cups of pumpkin puree out of my one pumpkin. You can either save the extra puree for another recipe or adjust the recipe to utilize all 3 cups and yield an extra loaf of bread.

Pumpkin Pie Brownies, What?!

I have too many hobbies. Sometimes it feels like I have so many that I don't actually have time to do any of them. As if they all cancel each other out.

Take for example this blog. This blog focuses a bit on photography, which focuses on food (haha...pun!), which focuses on my explorations in the kitchen, which focuses on my love of the awesomeness that is food and nutrition. So in order to have time to blog I must also have time to buy food, prep food, cook food/bake food, photograph food, eat food, clean up after mess of making food, upload pictures of food, then waaaaaaay down that yellow brick road blog about the whole shebang. And since I'm the kind of person who's always thinking about the end game I'm exhausted before I even make my shopping list.

I think I've set too many expectations on what I have to accomplish in any one day/week/month for me to be considered "good" at something. Guilt sets in if I don't post for over a week, and that seems silly since (in theory) I blog for the enjoyment of it, not the stress. This is not a requirement in my life.

But I love do doing it, so this is me publicly announcing that I'm lowering my expectations of myself. Huzzah! Cheers to the imperfect blog!

Ironically, todays culinary entries actually came out perfectly. And I'm glad, too; my psyche needed it. Fall is my faaaaaavorite season of the year, but also the busiest. Strike one against my cooking efforts. Then right smack in the middle of it all I got some sort of something that had me living off rice noodles and popsicles for a week (when I was awake enough to eat anything). Strike two. Strike three? There was no strike three, baby. Once I rallied enough energy to get back into my kitchen I hit it out of the park. And the crowd goes wild!!!

They're the same dishes I had alluded to a few posts back.

My old stand-by, vegetarian chili, and a recipe I've had bookmarked for months, pumpkin pie brownies. Oh baby. If you enjoy a fudgy, fall-spiked treat, this brownie is for you. But if you love a flavor-packed, sweet on the front, spicy on the finish chili, well then you'll just have to come over to my place because this recipe is not up for grabs. Assuming that I have a recipe. Chili is so gracious to my experimental tweaks that I have yet to make the same batch twice. That's why this is the dish I love to make over and over again. And I'm not wanting to argue I make the best chili out there, but for me this is my best pot to date. Though I'm staying mum on my extra special add-ins I did include a snap shot of my spice blend. I wouldn't be surprised if there are folks out there who could identify some or all of them! But here's a freebie in case it passed your notice, a touch of garlic is involved.

But I encourage you to make the brownies.

PUMPKIN PIE BROWNIES
Adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (yes, they're vegan)

Ingredients

For the brownie layer

4 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted

1 cup pureed pumpkin

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup canola oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup dutch processed cocoa powder

1 Tbsp tapioca flour -or- arrowroot -or- cornstarch

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

For the pumpkin layer

1 cup pureed pumpkin

2 Tbsp tapioca flour -or- arrowroot -or- cornstarch

1/2 cup soy milk (or cow's milk)

1/3 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

pinch ground nutmeg

pinch ground allspice

Handful of chocolate chips to decorate

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 and grease 9 inch square pan.

To make the brownie layer:

Melt the chocolate (10 second intervals in the microwave works for me, stir between each). In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin, sugar, oil and vanilla. In small bowl combine flour, cocoa powder, tapioca, baking soda and salt, then slowly incorporate into wet mix. Last, mix in the melted chocolate.

To make the pumpkin layer:

Add all ingredients into a large mixing bowl and stir to combine.

To assemble:

Use a spatulate to spread the brownie mixture into your prepared pan. Make sure the batter goes all the way to the edges. Once the batter settles, use your spatula to indent a shallow pit for the pumpkin pie layer to settle into, leaving a 1/2 inch un-sunken border all around. Slowly pour in your pumpkin layer, trying to keep it from overflowing your border. It will seem like to much mix to fit, but if you pour slowly the pumpkin puree is thick enough to build up on itself instead of out. Place in oven and bake for 30 minutes or until the center of the pumpkin layer looks fairly firm and the edges of the pumpkin layer begin to turn a burnt orange color.

Let cool on the counter for 20 minutes, then transfer to the fridge for another 1 and 1/2 hours to chill and set completely. Then decorate with chocolate chips and enjoy!

Inanimate Animations

Dear blog,

I miss you. Not only that, I miss reading everyone else's blogs, too. I think Google Reader is getting aggravated with me right now. He's become bloated - ready to bust at the seams over this past week. Just aching to tell me lots of interesting things. If only I had the time.

I have interesting things to share, too. But not tonight. Not tomorrow night either. Thursday's a maybe, but I'm not holding my breath. Friday? Maybe Friday. I should probably cook something on Friday though. I forgot to mention that the kitchen feels snubbed as well. Though as I write this I'm starting to feel like my life is spent pleasing inanimate objects. Freddie did get some lovin' this weekend, but again, that's for another day.

Until that other day...hope all is well.

Lots of love,

Kristy

On the town with Freddie

I know. The last one. You're thinking, "A ceiling fan?"

I took Freddie out for an inaugural spin this weekend. Nothing fancy. I was too scared to take him anywhere until I got a camera bag, and once I walked out of the store with him nestled in the carrier I figured now was as good a time as any to get some shots. Mostly just testing the waters. I learn how to use things best by doing vs. reading so I just wandered around for an hour or so snapping shots of whatever caught my eye. Stretching my camera's legs if you will.

But I know, the ceiling fan. I don't know what it is about that shot. It was so off the cuff I don't even remember framing the shot. It was more: point, focus, shoot. But I'm obsessed! I think I just like how the whole shot has a golden hue and the camera caught the motion of the blades without it being completely blurry. Maybe this is my next calling in life? Fan photography? Somewhere out there an interior designer is crying...in agony.

Any who-dinger...for those parties interested (is anyone out there interested?) cooking is also back on my itinerary. A fall chill is finally in the air and this calls for a welcome shift in my recipe selection. So as long as work doesn't consume my life - as it threatens to this week - I should have some food posts on the horizon. Two dishes in particular. One is and old favorite of mine, which I consider to be the genesis of my passion for cooking. The second is a recipe I've had tucked away in one of my cookbooks since APRIL! I've been dying to bake this one up and, God willing, I'll have the chance to this week.

Until then..

Freeze Frame

My oh my oh my I love this camera.

This sweetie, who henceforth will be named Freddie, won my heart over faster than you can say "shutter speed". Any sense of buyers remorse I felt in the wee hours of Sunday night have washed away. Me and this camera will be makin' a lot of sweet shots together.
A week ago I would have blogged about the who, what, where, when and why of how I came to get a camera such as this, but not tonight. No, tonight is like falling in love. You could recap everything that got you to that point of falling in love with your significant other, but frankly, who the hell cares. You're only thinking about the future. Better macro shots with food photography; deeply saturated and crisp fall foliage shoots; sweeping Italian vistas...oh the list can go on! Must go now, though. I feel the urge to do pirouettes around my room.

Edamame and Mango Salad

I got the morning off today. First on the itinerary was sleeping in as much as possible considering my bedroom window overlooks a major street (I just can't NOT have the windows open in the fall) and morning traffic is one thing I can't sleep through. I realized that this doesn't mean you actually have to get out of bed, and since I still can't run on my bum ankle I enjoyed the rainy, fall weather with a book until my stomach lured me down to the kitchen. Now, post-breakfast, I figured this would be a good opportunity to catch up on some blogging. Last time I referred to a bunch of cooking I had done over the labor day weekend, which included this asian-infused salad.

I love making salads like this because of their adaptability to whatever you have in your vegetable bin or whatever flavors you're craving at the moment. This salad, in all honesty, came to fruition because of bit of leftover jalapeño pepper I had in the fridge, which made me crave a spicy-sweet combo, which caused a special 1-ingredient stop at the grocery store for mangos which went well with the edamame I've had lying in wait in my freezer for just such an opportunity as this. About 40 minutes later I had dinner. And lunch for almost a week.

If this combo sounds good to you, I've typed up the recipe below. Take into consideration how you're going to use it, though. I'm a big fan of getting in some green and leafy veggies whenever I can, so I liked this over some spinach or dark romaine leaves and because of this I went heavy on both the flavor and volume of dressing I made. If you're planning on eating it on it's own, or as a topper to toasted slices of chewy french bread then I would dial it back. All in the quantities I listed below are a starting point. Taste, add and mix as you go. The grain you use is also equally variable. I came across a mix of grains that Kashi puts out in the grocery store the week prior so I gave that a spin. Quinoa, barley or simply some brown rice is equally interchangeable.

Also, this salad tastes great warm, but the leftovers are just as tasty served cold. If you want to prepare it ahead of time to eat later I would add a bit of lime juice into the mix, otherwise the mango juices begin to brown the whole salad - and who wants to eat a brown salad?
Edamame and Mango Salad
Ingredients
2 Tbsp white wine vinegar

1 Tbsp canola oil

1 Tbsp sesame oil

2 tsp soy sauce

1 large clove garlic, minced

2 cups cooked grains

10 oz shelled edamame

1 mango, diced

2 small bell peppers, diced

1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and diced very small

1 cup shredded carrots

1 cup shredded cabbage

1 bunch green onion, chopped

salt to taste

cilantro

Directions

Cook grains in a large pot per their individual cooking times. Usually though, this gives you 30-50 minutes to chop everything else.

While grains are cooking away, thaw frozen edamame in some hot (but not boiling water). I do this by putting the edamame in a small colander, then putting the colander in a large bowl of hot water and letting them soak. You'll want to change out the water once in the beginning because it will cool down quickly with the frozen beans.

Next, add dressing ingredients into a small, airtight container and shake until well mixed.

Finally, combine grains, edamame, mango and veggies (except cilantro) into a large bowl. Pour dressing over salad and toss until everything is thoroughly coated. Taste and add a little of this or a lot of that until it's just right.

Serve over a bed of greens, toasted bread or solo, garnished with some fresh cilantro.

As you can see, I also added some orange zest as an after thought. If I had any on hand, I think freshly grated ginger would have been a good addition, too.