Tis the season for pumpkin, pumpkin pancakes

Is everything pumpkin this time of year? Seems so. Last month's Trader Joe's flyer was pages of pumpkin. Why not jump on the bandwagon?

This is a tasty way to use up part of a can of pumpkin puree, something that I find shows up in my fridge this time of year. Again, my pancakes are not very sweet. You can serve them with maple syrup or honey to sweeten them up.

You can also use pumpkin pie spice instead of the separate spices in the recipe, if you have that in your pantry. Use 1 Tablespoon to replace the cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and cloves.

You don't need to add the granola (see photo below), but it adds some nice crunch. I like using Nature's Path Pumpkin-Flax Granola but you can use whatever granola you have, including my recipe made with some pumpkin seeds. :-)

Don't crowd these pancakes because that makes them harder to flip

Pumpkin Pancakes

(serves 5-6)

Dry Ingredients

2 cups flour (can use 1 cup all purpose and 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour)

1 teaspoon baking powder*

¾ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon allspice

¼ teaspoon cloves

Wet Ingredients

2 eggs

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil or melted butter

2 Tablespoons packed brown sugar

½ cup pumpkin puree

2 cups low fat buttermilk

oil for greasing griddle

about 1 cup pumpkin seed granola (optional)

Combine all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, fat, and brown sugar until smooth. Mix in the pumpkin puree and buttermilk. Stir in the dry ingredients until the flour is incorporated with the wet ingredients. Some small lumps are OK.

Heat a well-seasoned or non-stick griddle over medium heat. Brush lightly with vegetable oil. Use a scant ¼ cup for each pancake, spreading out the batter to a 4" circle. It's fairly thick so it doesn't spread much on its own. Sprinkle on about 1 Tablespoon of granola, if desired. Don't crowd them in the pan. They can be tricky to flip. Flip when the bottom is nicely browned and the edges have set. Repeat greasing and pancake-making until batter is gone. Serve hot with maple syrup or honey. They are best hot from the griddle, like all pancakes. But if you find you have extra, they can be refrigerated and reheated, either in the oven at 300°F or in the microwave.

* This is the proper amount for Boulder elevation, about a mile high. If you live at sea level, use 1½ teaspoons baking powder. The amount of baking soda does not need to be adjusted.

Leftover Turkey Curry

The platter of turkey before the eatin' began. There will be plenty of leftovers for curry. And soup, and...

Post-Thanksgiving calls for leftover turkey recipes. Here's one that turns any leftover turkey into something a little more exotic. I love the addition of fruit to the curry. It adds just the right amount of sweetness.

Leftover Turkey Curry
(4 servings)

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil or butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 Granny Smith apple, cored and chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons curry powder
2 Tablespoons flour
1 ½ cups Turkey Stock or Chicken Stock
3 cups turkey, chopped into bite-sized pieces (about 1 pound)
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup plain low fat yogurt
¾ cup frozen mango, thawed  and chopped
½ cup toasted sliced almonds (see Note)

In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion, apple, and garlic and cook until the onion is softened and just golden.

Sprinkle onions with curry powder and stir for 15 seconds.

Sprinkle onions with flour and cook for another minute.

Stir in broth, bring to a simmer and then cook on medium-low for 5 minutes.

Stir in turkey and salt. Cook for 5 minutes to reheat turkey.

Add yogurt and mango. Stir to combine and remove from heat. If you cook the yogurt too long, it will separate and you'll see little flecks of white. Your sauce won't be as smooth either but it's still perfectly fine to eat.

Sprinkle with toasted almonds and serve over rice.

Note: to toast nuts put them on a cookie sheet and place in a preheated 300°F oven for 5 minutes. Don't forget them - they burn quickly!

Cranberry Walnut Upside Down Cake

I pulled this recipe out of a Gourmet from November 2005. It's a delicious butter cake made seasonal with cranberries and walnuts. As cakes go, it's quite easy. I brought it to a party and it was a huge hit.

You can get the recipe on-line from Epicurious:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/cranberry-walnut-upside-down-cake-233012

Some notes on the recipe:

Recipe says it serves 8. I'd say 10. It's sweet and rich, though if you want to cut it into 1/8th's, I would eat the whole piece. :-)

The cake is baked in a 10" cast-iron skillet, not a cake pan. You'll also need an electric mixer for creaming the butter and sugar. Unless you have very strong arms. :-)

The only altitude adjustment I made (I live at 5300 ft.), was to reduce the baking powder to 1 teaspoon, from 1 ½ teaspoons. There is also baking soda in the recipe, but I left that as-is. The baking soda interacts with the buttermilk for leavening while the baking powder gives some extra lift. It didn't over-rise, so I think my adjusted leavening measures are good for Denver altitude.

Thanksgiving is Coming!

My most beautiful turkey ever. OK, it looks like this every year. Tastes even better than it looks.

Yep, right around the corner now. Starting to think about that big holiday menu? Not me! I'm going to visit family so I'm not responsible for the bird, etc. this year. That's not to say I don't have recipes for you. Here are links to Thanksgiving posts from years past to give you some ideas:

Thanksgiving 2010: a mix of recipes pulled from various places.
Turkey Brining: how I've done it though I don't always bring mine because the drippings become too salty for gravy.
Turkey Cooking: how to roast that bird.
Icebox Cake: a rather non-tradtional Thanksgiving dessert originally from Fine Cooking.
Masa Cornbread Stuffing: Delicious Southwest-inspired stuffing. Really dressing since you don't stuff the bird with it.
Buttermilk Rolls: impress your guests with homemade rolls.
Apple Sausage Stuffing: two Thanksgiving classics, apples and turkey.

Leftovers
The Turkey Carcass:  Stop! Do not throw out that carcass. Make stock.
Turkey and Corn Chowder: place to use both stock and turkey meat
Turkey and Wild Rice Soup: turkey and wild rice, two American natives.
Turkey Curry: from my other blog, School of Eating Good.

Hope your Thanksgiving meal is filled with many delicious dishes and good company!

Buttermilk Rolls

A sure-fire way to impress your guests is to bake fresh rolls. When friends walk in the house, they smell this yeasty deliciousness and they just can't wait to tear into those soft little pillows of dough.

Yeast doughs are intimidating to many home bakers. But, they need not be. Yeast isn't as temperamental as people believe. Maybe the mystery is that yeast works on its own schedule and is sensitive to temperature, so your dough may rise faster or slower depending on the temperature in your kitchen. The great thing is, it doesn't actually matter that much. Your dough will rise eventually, given the temperature in your average kitchen. If it's warm today, it will rise a bit faster. If it's chilly, like it is in my house all winter, it will rise more slowly. Sometimes you need a little more patience, but ultimately, your patience will be rewarded.

I made these rolls for my Thanksgiving dinner. They are very cute and quite tasty. They get great flavor from buttermilk and a bit of whole wheat. They are soft and fluffy because they are largely white flour. And, they are just so cute!

The recipe is adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites. The original has instructions for making them by hand, but I'm all for letting my KitchenAid mixer handle the heavy work of kneading.

Besides the heavy-duty mixer, a scale is useful for getting rolls that are all the same size, but you can eyeball the size and they will turn out fine.

Buttermilk Dinner Rolls
(makes about 21)

Turkey and Corn Chowder

It's that time of year again - time to figure out what to do with all that leftover turkey. Every year, I try a new soup. Here's this year's entry. It's adapted from a recipe in Rick Rodger's The Turkey Cookbook. His recipe didn't use any bacon, but as far as I'm concerned, it ain't chowda unless it has bacon.

Turkey and Corn Chowder
(serves 8)