Green Beans & Cake

Battling Pumpkins to Make Dried Apricot and Pumpkin Jam

You have to really love all-things-pumpkin if you want to battle a fresh pumpkin in the kitchen. 

That's right--battle. While this unassuming fruit may leave your mind with nostalgic memories of grandma baking pumpkin pie in the kitchen for Thanksgiving, make no mistake--pumpkins are not to be trifled with. (and grandma was one tough lady) 

So how do you tame this wild beast fruit? 

The first challenge is cutting the pumpkin in half. If you can't do that, then you have no hope of making homemade pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread or homemade dried apricot and pumpkin jam (a-hem, my Sunday afternoon "project").  

Basically, you have to turn the pumpkin on its side and grab a small knife (don't bother using a chef's knife...too large for this job). Next, channel your inner Norman Bates--it is Halloween after all--and start stabbing the pumpkin. I initally cut the pumpkin in half with a chef's knife in a sawing motion---and, 15 sweaty minutes later I made little progress. You might want to saw here and there, but the small puncture "wounds" around the circumference of the pumpkin seemed to loosen it up for me the most successfully.

 

A portrait of evil...BOO!

Are you ready to give up yet? Just hold on--cutting the pumpkin in half is the hardest part. Once you cut the pumpkin in half and clean out the "guts," place the pumpkin in a roasting pan filled halfway with water in oven at 450 degrees F. Roast for about 45 minutes. The heat will loosen up the pumpkin's skin so that you can easily scoop out the flesh. For excellent, step-by-step instructions that offer more details on how to do this, click here.

I'm not sure if the recipe I used called for the pumpkin roasting, but I don't know how else I would have ever gotten the pumpkin "loose" enough to cut into cubes.

Now for the fun part, and today's Sunday project, dried apricot and pumpkin jam. You can't go wrong with recipes from Ginnette Mathoit--and this recipe was no exception. You can modify the amount of pumpkin and apricot used in the recipe--which is what I did. Regardless if you choose to use the proportions that Mathoit uses in the recipe or something of your own, you have to first slice the dried apricots and soak them in a generous amount of water overnight. The next day you'll drain the apricots and save the water for the jam.

Start the jam recipe by first adding the water reserved from the apricots to a heavy sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Add the pumpkin and let simmer for around 30 minutes (less time if you're using a smaller proportion of pumpkin). Next, add sugar to the pumpkin mixture. (I also added a dash of pumpkin spice. And remember--use equal parts sugar and pumpkin if you modify the proportions of the recipe.) Let simmer for 30 minutes. Last, add the apricots to the pumpkin mixture and let it simmer for another 30 minutes.

After all of that work you'll get an apricot and pumpkin jam with a golden hue. Trust me, it's well worth the trouble.

 

 
 

Dried Apricot and Pumpkin Jam

Recipe by Ginnette Mathiot in I Know How to Cook, p. 853

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 pounds dried apricots
• 6 1/2 pounds pumpkin, peeled and chopped
• 6  1/2 pounds superfine sugar

Directions

Prepare the day before. Wash the apricots and cut into strips. Soak in 8 1/2 cups water for 24 hours. Drain, reserving the water. Place the reserved soaking water in a large pan and bring to a boil. Boil the pumpkin in the soaking water for 30 minutes. Strain to make a smooth paste, then return to the pan with the sugar and cook the pumpkin puree over low heat, stirring, for 30 minutes. Add the soaked apricots and cook for an additional 30 minutes. Pour into sterilized jars.

Tomatoes, markets, and daydreams

Is it weird to daydream about tomatoes and French food markets?

Maybe.

But how can I not when I got to see tomatoes that looked like this when the Mr. and I were in Lyon.

 

Or what about these heirloom tomatoes...

 

Who wouldn't have daydreams about such perfect tomatoes?

Oh, what, that guy? He prefers the onions. I don't speak French, but I'd like to think that's what he said to me here.

 

On second thought, he's probably more of a zucchini blossom kind of fellow.

 

If tomatoes aren't for you, how about some flowers?

 

Spices?

A truck?

Eggplant?

 

Chicken?

I think I'll take it all...along with more daydreaming.

 

 

 

Y is for "You call that Yaourt?"

 Hmmm.

Apparently, I'm on a role these days. First the Tarte Tatin that almost was, and now it's the Yaourt (yogurt--nice translation work, huh?). What was the problem this time? Here's my hypothesis. It was all in the temperature. My "yaourt" never became creamy. It was more like a runny, goopy mess.

The bright side?

I made homemade apricot jam that was delightful.

 

 P.S. I know that these are apricots...not jam. Husband has the camera at the moment. Work with me here, k?

P.S.S. Yes, the apricots look a little skanky. But once they were cooked in the sugar water mixture, you'd never notice the slight imperfections.

V is for Vin

This is a post that I would love to come back to and update.

Here's a question for all of you out there in the blogosphere.

What's your favorite French wine?

 

FYI: That's my arm and shirt on the left-hand side of the picture.

FYI-I?: By the way...I made that while in Lyon. More later.

FYI-II??: And, I think the wine is E. Guigal Cotes du Rhone...not sure of the vintage.

U is for Un bon jeune homme

Well, well, well. Look at who knows how to cook.

Let me tell you, the Un bon jeune homme ("a fine young man") recipe, just might be one of my favorite desserts to make. Ok, that's a pretty strong statement, but you get the picture. All the recipe entails is melting chopped chocolate (I use Scharffen Berger 70%) with milk...and lots of stirring...and then? A creamy, intense dark chocolate dessert. I served my "un bon jeune homme" with a sprig of mint, a sliced strawberry, and a shortcut creme anglaise sauce. Add a flute of champagne and strawberries, and oh laa laa, the perfect dessert.

 

 

Un bon jeune homme

Recipe from Ginette Mathiot in I Know How to Cook, p. 726

Ingredients

• 3 cups milk
• 6 ounces chocolate, chopped
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 quantity creme anglaise

Directions

Bring the milk to a simmer in a pan. Mix the chocolate and sugar into the milk. Simmer gently for 45 minutes, stirring frequently, to make a very thick paste. After about 30 minutes the chocolate will have the consistency of yogurt, and should be stirred constantly. Pour into a bowl, and allow to cool. Coat with the creme anglaise and serve very cold.

Shortcut Creme Anglaise

Idea from Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa

I adore Ina Garten's show, The Barefoot Contessa. On one episode, she made a shortcut creme anglaise sauce to complement chocolate cake and strawberries. Simply buy a pint of high quality vanilla ice cream (I used Häagen-Dazs), let it sit at room temperature, and then add the melted ice cream to a dessert plate. Creme anglaise doesn't get any easier than that. Trust me.

T is for "Thanks for trying"

Sigh.

Here's the thing about learning how to make desserts like Tarte Tatin (ah hem...the dessert I was supposed to blog about today). You don't always get it right the first time. Unfortunately, and maybe it's a character flaw that I should work on, I get very frustrated with baking when *I swear* to have followed the directions, but seem to be greeted with a Tarte Tatin that falls apart when "flipped." Granted, I only tried the recipe once. Once! I'm not through with you, Tarte Tatin. Just you wait.

 

Is there a pattern here?

Hmmmm....methinks me haveth a pattern here. What am I talking about, you ask? Why the archaic words?

Two answers.

First, my absences from blogging tend to happen when I get really busy with school (or for the first few weeks of August, I seemed to develop a perpetual case of "The Mondays." I blame it on the weather. I cannot handle the Oklahoma summer heat). And, the fall semester started this week and I'm ALREADY running on about 3 hours of sleep.

Second, what's up with the archaic word choice? No reason. It was just the first thing that came to me in my sleep deprived state.

So, what's next?

Well, I do have plenty to share about my trip to Lyon, France. I promise to post something soon!

And then?

Who knows...something delicious, I hope.

Write to you soon.

Bon voyage

Hmmm.

So my "French A-B-C" series didn't exactly go as planned. I managed to get to "souffle", but I couldn't go beyond that because of the power outage episode. How great was it to be without power in 114 degree weather? Awesome.

I'm hopeful that our luck will turn around for us once we arrive in Lyon tomorrow.

See you next week! (If not sooner...we'll see if I can find an internet connection once I get there.)

Au revoir!

S is for soufflé au chocolat

Le sigh.

Here's to the soufflé au chocolat that almost was. (This seems to be a theme in my cooking...haha)

Maybe I'll find a proper souffle in Lyon...

 

God save the quiche!

Saturday started off as a great day. I made a successful (well, almost) chocolate souffle, got a little exercise, and had a chance to clean up the house. Life was good. I even ate my vegetables.

And then?

A 40-50 foot tall tree landed on the side of our house. Somehow, we didn't notice this until about 8.30 last night. Matt called the city and before we knew it there was a crew of city workers in our yard standing around the tree. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal. 

I was wrong.

The weight of the tree pulled the power cord down and it was exposed at our house's meter. The exposed hot wires posed a major fire hazard. The utility company needed to shut the power off immediately because there was a strong possibility that our house would burn down at any moment. 

So, at about 9.30 pm the city workers turned off our power. The temperature outside? A very humid 87 degrees.

What happened next?

We shipped the dogs off to my MIL's house (sorry about Gravy, MIL...), and then we went back into a steamy house and grabbed our things.

Our "things" included:

• Gravy's kennel (which is large enough for a German Shepard...he's only 38 pounds). Moving his kennel took some major elbow grease. I wasn't a fan of that.
• Biscuit's stinky pillow (arrggg...I was about to wash the thing too...)
• Clothes (but forgot my toothbrush and toothpaste...ewww)

Last but not least we stuffed half of the contents of our refrigerator in ice-packed suitcases (for some reason we don't own a cooler). What went into these ice cold suitcases?

• The chocolate souffle I had made that afternoon
• Frozen steaks (probably 100s of dollars worth of steaks...Matt won a bunch of steaks for a work promo not too long ago)
• Butter
• A bunch of other stuff
• My chocolate transfer sheets (which are really expensive and have to be refrigerated or they will melt.)
• My chocolate (and I'm not a normal person when it comes to chocolate. I have POUNDS and POUNDS of very expensive chocolate in my pantry. I use it to make chocolates in the fall and winter to sell at a local coffee shop)
• A bunch of other stuff (but not the ratatouille)
• And, of course, the quiche

Then the real fun began. I had to figure out a way to tame my crazy puppy. He howled. He wined. He cried. He howled some more. He was muzzled. He finally fell asleep. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit here, but you get my point.

I had planned to make an apple tart today. Those plans are on hold. Is it kind of insane to be worrying about apple tarts when exiled from my house? (And exiled with my naughty dog?)

Maybe.

What a life.

God save the quiche!