Pumpkin Puree

Unlike most children, when I was growing up my Mother did not make Banana Bread for me (unlike all the other kids whose mothers made it for them). Instead my Mom made me something even better, she made Pumpkin Bread. Her recipe, resulted in a very strong flavour, partly, ok entirely because she had doubled the amount of spices the original recipe had called for. For my peers it was way to strong of a taste, but for me, I loved it, I reveled in its flavour. The taste of a single bite always brings warm happy memories.

Like my Mother, I started making the recipe with double the spices called for, I have gotten some people addicted to its strong flavour, some but not all. I've always used canned Pumpkin Puree though, just like my Mom. However, in the spirit of things (its fall and Pumpkins are readily available) I have decided to make this ingredient as well. In addition to Pumpkin Bread, the puree can also be used in pies, muffins, waffles, ice cream and whatever whacky creation I can come up with.

In the spirit of making too much, I can't actually turn a whole Pumpkin into loaves of bread and pies and whatever else suits my fancy all at once. I needed to preserve some of it for later use. I originally decided I was going to can the puree for future use, a relatively simple process now that I've done it a few times. I checked the Ball Blue Book (an excellent guide to home canning) for the specifics of how to deal with canning the pumpkin. To my amazement, it recommended against canning, but instead suggested either dehydration or freezing. Dehydration didn't sound appealing, so I have chosen to freeze my puree.

 It all began with a pumpkin, there was nothing terribly special about this one, but its mine so I value it more than other pumpkins. I had plans to carve it for Halloween and then turn it into a puree. However I ran out of time and was unable to carve it, that didn't stop me from pureeing it though.

 I started by cutting the pumpkin in half, collecting the seeds and chucking the fibrous strands inside. I set the bowl of seeds off to the side in salt water. The seeds will sit over night and be toasted tomorrow. I hadn't planned on making salted toasted pumpkin seeds, that is until I realized just how many seeds were in a pumpkin (way more than I thought).

 After cooking the shell for almost an hour and a half, I was able to remove the pulp from the skin and puree it with some sugar. It was a messy job, but as I worked I came up with techniques to help the work go faster.

If I had been planning on canning the puree I would have put more effort into sterilizing the jars. But since I'm freezing them, I just washed them out with warm water. Each jar had the contents and date indelibly etched into the lid for future reference.








I am going to speculate as to why I was recommended against canning, but rather suggested that I freeze the puree. I did a little Googling and found many people detailing how to can a pumpkin puree. However, in each case, they started with a nice light coloured puree and ended up with a much darker coloured one. This makes sense as to properly can something you need to heat it up, to heat it up you enter the realm of "Heat + Food = Cooking". I can only assume that canned purees are cooked purees and frozen ones are uncooked (At least to the extent that it is). I can not speak to the flavour of either, so I am planning on making Pumpkin bread loaves, one from a frozen jar, another I will cook and then make another loaf. I hypothesize that the flavours will be different, but to what extent, well I'll leave that up to the panel of food critics (who ever I can sucker into taste testing) to decide .

Croutons

First, I must apologize for my lack of postings lately, I don't have a good excuse, so I won't try and make one up. I've been playing this game NetHack and it has consumed a lot of my time, its really addictive. Anyway, I will attempt to set aside the game to post my creations and culinary adventures. I have kept documenting everything, I just haven't been posting.

As always, I have scorned the store bought when I can make a home made version, and in the fashion I do so often, I also avoided store bought ingredients, preferring to make them myself (sadly from store bought base ingredients). So this is actually two stories in one, the story of the French Bread and the story of the Crouton.

This story begins in a land far far away, in a time long forgotten, or rather my kitchen (3 meteres) and two weeks ago. I had made glorious loaves of French Bread, destined to be cubed and made into dry flavored bread known as Croutons.

In times gone by (when I was a child) I didn't like croutons, they were crunchy oddities amongst a bunch of readily chewy salad that was drenched in a salad dressing that I didn't care for to begin with. So as all good stories go, I didn't eat much salad or croutons throughout my teenage years, unless I had to... I was never a fan of adding 50 billion different items to a salad to make it appetizing and then drenching it with salad dressing, I liked simple salads, maybe some iceberg lettuce and some salad dressing; that was it!

About a year ago, I discovered that spinach goes great in a salad, a little bit of iceberg lettuce to give it some diversity and the barest amount of salad dressing I could get away with, and some croutons for some reason. Unlike the soggy ultra-colourful salads of my youth that I didn't much care for, I had a salad that I really enjoyed. The croutons brought new flavour packed cubes that could change the flavour from homogeneous to heterogeneous. Meaning that the salad never got boring, it kept changing between two delicious flavours, ensuring that each time I alternated it was like tasting it for the first time again. I was in salad heaven! I started making lunches out of salads, for awhile people thought I was a vegetarian because I was bringing so many salads for lunch... It wasn't until then that I realized I hadn't disliked the humble crouton, but rather the soggy diverse salads it had been put into.

All of this brings me to the present, when I went to make a salad and I reached into the cupboard where I store the croutons, only to find I had run out and hadn't bothered to tell myself to buy more. I was disheartened, the salad would be able to stand on its own with or without the croutons, but it wouldn't hold the same attraction to me that it had earlier. It was shortly after this that I realized, I was paying money for dry flavoured bread cubes, something that can easily be made in my kitchen. This was a beloved ingredient in my salads that I could make, I would never run out as long as I had the time to make more! A new era had been born!

 I started with a fresh loaf of French Bread, I ended up eating the ones I had made in a previous posting, so I made more and made the loaves with the knowledge I had gained about forming...

 The loaf was cubed and put into a bowl that was much larger than it. This wasn't done to make it look insignificant or because I had misjudged how much a loaf would make, this was to make tossing it easier with the oil and seasonings that I would soon add.

 I sprinkled garlic powder and dill over the bread cubes and then used a pump sprayer filled with Olive Oil as I tossed to evenly coat the cubes with oil. Not too much and not too little. Most importantly, the sprayer ensured that none would be drenched in an excess of oil.

 Once the cubes were coated to what I considered just right, I spread them out onto  a baking sheet and stuck it into an oven. I took it out every 5-10 minutes to toss everything so it would brown evenly.

The end result is delicious dry flavoured bread cubes that I can put into the salads that I love so much. I store them in an air tight ziplock bag in the freezer until I need to call upon there humble powers to elevate a salad to a new level of deliciousness. Also, since having made them, I have found they are a favorite snack of my roommates brother...

Marshmallows

I must confess, if a recipe calls for an ingredient that I can make myself, I will go to great lengths to do it myself; I really enjoy making things from scratch. I made the Chicken Broth for the Chicken Korma, the ice cream for the Ice Cream Cake. Now I am making the marshmallows in anticipation of making Rice Krispie Squares.

The last time I made Marshmallows, I kept forgetting to bring them along when I went to back yard bon fires. The whole reason I had made them, was to roast over a fire so that I could compare them to the Jet Puffed ones you get in the stores.

Anyway, the Marshmallows won't actually be finished until tomorrow at the earliest, and I will be busy at least until Sunday. So I will see about posting the finished Marshmallow this weekend, and hopefully get the Rice Krispie squares done as well.

I started by lightly oiling, then dusting a 9x13 cake pan with a dust mixture that was one part cornstarch and one part  confectionery sugar. The final marshmallow is very sticky, or what I'm saying is this is a very important step if you want the marshmallows to be easy to work with.







I let the gelatin bloom in a 1/2 cup of water for a few minutes, before putting the bowl over simmering water and making it all dissolve together.










I mixed all the sugars and water together. I misjudged how much corn syrup I had and ended up using honey for the bulk of what was needed. The too are very similar and in most recipes they are interchangeable, however, in this case, it is a main ingredient, not a sweetener (ok, well its both). So its flavour may change the final product. I am waiting for the final product to see how it was changed.

I stirred the ingredients together and then brushed down the sides of the pot. In candy making, if sugar crystals form on the side of the pot and they are not washed away, they may act as a seed and cause everything to crystalize, ruining the candy. Of course, the solution is to just reheat it and do it over again. But that takes effort that could be easily avoided. I also stuck the candy thermometer in at this point.





The mixture at 215 degrees Fahrenheit.

And again at 225 degrees Fahrenheit.

The firm ball stage (one of many stages sugar goes through while cooking) is between 244 and 246 Fahrenheit, however, it can shift up depending on the local environment. Humidity plays a big role here. It is always a good idea to do a cold water test as well as use a thermometer. In my case, I actually had to go to almost 250 before I was in the firm ball stage. At this point I quickly took it off the element and set the bottom of the pan in cool water to stop the cooking process before it moved into another stage.



I started beating the gelatin and slowly added the sugar mixture in a slow and steady stream. There is no picture because I only have two hand and no tripod. However, this is a picture taken immediately after I finished adding the mixture. The colour is a combination of the cane sugar I used (I prefer the taste of cane vs refined white) and the cooking of the sugars (more so the cooking than the ingredients).

However, as more air is added to the marshmallow mixture, the whiter it becomes. As it cools, the gelatin sets, this causes the whole thing to become harder to beat and it also becomes notoriously sticky and hard to work with. I added two table spoons of Vanilla at this point and mixed it until blended together.







All of the mixture is then poured into the 9x13 cake pan.











With a little coaxing, it sits level across the entire pan













When the mixture is cooled, I will dust the top with more of the cornstarch/sugar mixture and cover it with foil. It will then be left until tomorrow morning, when I will cut it into squares using kitchen shears dusted with the same cornstarch/sugar mixture. As I mentioned above, I'll post pictures as soon as I can.

Chicken Broth

There are a lot of recipes that call for a broth, or rather I can think of one or two off the top of my head and I'm trying to make it sound like this is an ingredient that is in high demand. Either way, a broth is really easy to make, but it always tends to produce a lot, more than what you can use in a single or even multiple recipes. Unless your feeding large groups of people that is.

The solution to that is to freeze the excess and thaw what you need for when you need it. However, freezing it as a whole block makes it hard to use in the future. Try thawing a brick and getting exactly what you want without thawing too much and you'll see what I mean. So to fix this, I freeze the broth in ice cup trays. Each cube is roughly two tablespoons or 30 mL, which is a convenient serving size. More importantly, all you need to do is pull out the number of cubes you need and leave the rest undisturbed in the freezer.

I honestly tried to find chicken parts or a stewing chicken which would have made this cheaper and easier, but the store was out of almost all chicken related meats. Alas this means that I got a roasting chicken, which, quite frankly would have been much better as a roasted chicken.












Anyway, I carved up the bird into its constituent parts and dropped them into the pot with water to cover. Then set it to simmer for 30 minutes.

While the chicken was simmering, I was chopping up some vegetables to toss in with the chicken. The nutrients and flavours get leeched off into the broth. The original recipe said to finely chop the vegetables in a food processor or blender. I could say that I like large chunks of vegetables but the truth of the matter is that I over looked that part and just chopped them up...

After the chicken has been cooking for 30 minutes, I tossed in the vegetables and continued simmering for another 40 minutes.

Once everything was done simmering, I strained the chicken and vegetables from the broth. I kept the chicken for eating and chucked the vegetables. I found the vegetables had grown bland and that the chicken was a bit dry, which is kind of ironic because it was cooked in water... Let the broth sit until cooled to room temperature.







Chill the broth in either the fridge or the freezer. I chose the freezer as I don't have any space in my fridge right now. The reason for this is that the fat will have floated to the top and will solidify when chilled. This makes it really easy to scoop the fat off.








Once the fat is skimmed off, I placed the broth into my ice cube trays and started freezing them. After two hours they were frozen enough to remove without any problems. If the broth was chilled more before being placed into the trays, you might be able to cut that time in half. Each cube is roughly 30 mL or 2 tablespoons. A half cup of broth is four cubes, and a cup of broth is eight, etc.











As the broth was frozen and removed from the tray I placed it into an airtight bag and sucked as much air out as possible. When ever I need the broth for something, I can thaw as many cubes as I need and use them without worrying about making more or going to the store and buying some.







 The end result was 2.16 liters of chicken broth. Oh and some cooked chicken which we're slowly eating.

And now for the recipe as it is actually written in the Joy of Cooking


Chicken Broth
About 12 cups
Combine in a stockpot over medium heat:
One 3 1/2 to 4 pound chicken, cut into parts
Cold water to cover
Bring almost to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer gently for 30 minutes, skimming often. Pulse in a food processor until finely chopped:
1 medium unpeeled onion, cut into eighths
1 carrot, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 celery rib, cut into 2-inch pieces
Add vegetables to the pot. Simmer, uncovered, until the chicken is cooked, about 40 minutes longer. Remove the chicken and reserve. Strain and let cool uncovered, then refrigerate covered. Remove the fat when ready to use.

I had originally pegged the cost of the broth at just under $0.20 per cube. The bulk of the cost came from the chicken, which was still usable afterwards, so I removed it from the equation and came up with $0.03 per cube.

Roasted Tomatoe Sauce

This is a basic tomatoe sauce that I have grown quite fond of in Lasagnas. The only drawback is that it takes a long time to actually make the sauce. This means that if I have limited time, I can't make a Lasagna. Which is why I am making it beforehand. I can start thawing the sauce the day before or morning of and I will have sauce that is ready to go.

Before I began, I weighed all the vegetable ingredients and recorded it. This was to create a baseline of how much I start out with, compared with what I will get out. The number I got allows me to know the total weight of the ingredients that I will need to use to make a given volume of sauce for future reference. I prefer using weights to saying "use a medium onion", its more accurate and leads to repeatable results.

Tomatoe - 4408 grams (9 lbs 11 oz)
Onion - 271 grams (9.6 oz)
Red Pepper - 167 grams (5.8 oz)
Garlic - 50 grams (1.7 oz)

This is equivalent to 12 large tomatoes, 1 Onion, 1 Red Pepper and 1 bulb of Garlic. I ended up with a sauce that I had to thicken, so I would recommend reducing the weight of the tomatoes by choosing medium sized tomatoes instead.

This was the first time I used Beefsteak tomatoes and I ended up with way more sauce than I was expecting. So much in fact that I would actually double the weight of the Onion, Red Pepper and Garlic or half the Tomatoes. I must mention that this is the first time I have weighed the ingredients when I make this sauce. So I didn't see the excessive volume coming until the final measurement.

The first step is to wash off waxes, pesticides and anything else that may have made its way onto the tomatoes.











In the name of science I measure you! Depending on how thorough you want to be you can either use 12 medium sized tomatoes (I used large ones to make this recipe, much to my dismay). A single medium Red Pepper, a single medium Red Onion and a single bulb of Garlic (note: I mean bulb not clove).













Cut the tomatoes in half and arrange with the insides facing up onto a pair of flat sheets. I tried this once in a cake pan and it still turned out. The moral of this story is, the heat is coming from a broiler which is heat coming from one direction only; up. So use whatever is convenient. Brush the insides of the tomatoes with Olive Oil and then sprinkle with Kosher Salt.

If I had to guess at how much Olive Oil I used, I might say 30 mL (1/8 cup or 2 tbls). Kosher salt has big flakes, which make it ideal to stick to a surface when used for seasoning. In this case it does double duty and helps pull moisture out of the tomatoe. I also enjoy the taste of Kosher salt compared to regular table salt.








 Place the rack in your oven as high as it goes, you want the tomatoes to be directly under the broiler. The goal is to char the surfaces.










I turned the broiler on Hi (some oven models only have one setting for the broiler, others, like mine have two settings. Still others have the ability to set a temperature) and left the oven door slightly ajar (some oven models allow you to properly broil with the door closed, mine requires it to be open). I left the tomatoes alone for half of an hour, at which point I checked to make sure they were cooking evenly and rearranged as was nessecary (either by turning the trays by 180 degrees or by moving tomatoes. I put it back into the oven for another 15 minutes to let them finish cooking.


Using a pair of tongs, flip the tomatoes over. Then repeat the brushing of oil and sprinkling of salt. You will notice a brownish liquid in the pans, don't spill this or remove it. There is a lot of flavour stored in this and it will increase as the cooking goes on.

Just like with the other side, check after a half hour, turning trays or moving tomatoes to make the tomatoes char more evenly. Then put back in for another 15 minutes to cook the rest of the way. I was distracted by something shiny and the tomatoes in this photograph charred a bit too much, but not so much that it would ruin the sauce.






While the tomatoes were roasting, I was preheating a heavy iron skillet (mine is cast iron, so it doesn't get much heavier) on high heat. I sliced up a Red Pepper and gave it a thin coating of Olive oil, then I proceeded to sear them in the skillet. I then repeated the same for the Red Onion and then again for the bulb of Garlic. I recommend constantly moving the slices around so that they won't burn. However if you have to go off and do something else or like me get distracted by shiny things, as long as you can hear a sizzle coming from the pan, your food is safe. The sizzle is water being drawn out and boiled away, this limits the temperature to 100 Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) which won't allow it to burn. However when the sizzle stops it will burn. I let each vegetable sizzle while I sliced the next one to go into the pan. I periodically flipped the slices with a pair of tongs.

Toss everything into a blender, if its too much to fit into the jar then put only what will fit into it. I pureed all of the vegetables into a sauce. I also made sure to add the liquid that was pooling in the trays to the blender. Once the sauce is blended, I poured the sauce back into the trays and let it sit for a few minutes before using a flat edged wooden spatula to scrape up whatever residue were left behind on the trays. If the sauce is thick enough you can either use it or store it.

However, if the sauce is too watery, you can reduce it on the stove by setting it to a simmer and slowly reducing it down to the consistency you want.

Total initial ingredients - 4896 grams (10 lbs 12 oz)
Sauce (Prereduction) - 2562 grams (5 lbs 10 oz)
Sauce (Postreduction) - 2188 grams (4 lbs 13 oz)
2 Liters final product

 Here is the sauce in the Joy of Cooking recipe format.

Roasted Tomatoe Sauce
1 liter


Cut in half:
12 medium tomatoes
Brush the inside with:
2 tablespoons olive oil
Spinkle with: 
Salt
Place the tomatoes under the broiler. Turn with tongs as the skin chars, repeating the brushing with oil and sprinkling with salt. When charred all over, remove and let cool.
In a heavy skillet sear:
1 medium red pepper (sliced into strips)
1 medium red onion (sliced into eights)
1 bulb of garlic
Add the tomatoes and then puree in a food processor or blender.


The total cost is $15.55, which works out to $0.97 per serving.