Kitchen sink pasta, an impromptu yet typical Sunday meal in our house is an informal medley and mixing of the week’s leftovers.  Vegetable odds and ends get haphazardly tucked amidst fusilli, campanelle, gigli and the like, then dotted with chèvre and blanketed in Parm.  This is an off-the-cuff, cleaning-fridge kind of meal that often bodes the biggest smiles and satisfied stomachs of the week. 

            I decided to extend the kitchen sink notion to soup this autumn.  Any fall root veggie seems to have a magical yet inherent ability to flawlessly pair with the others.  Carrots and parsnips, mmmm.  Parsnips and sweet potato, mmmmm mm.  Sweet potato and carrot…Ok, you get the idea.   The recipe below calls for these three, but any root veggie or squash variety you have hanging around will do; the idea is to use up any of those hiding vegetables tiptoeing on the edge of rotting. Add a blend of Middle Eastern spices to bring out the rich colors and flavors, and you’ve got a bold and nourishing soup to last the week.

Spiced Parsnip and Carrot Soup

1 Medium onion, diced

2 Carrots, peeled and roughly chopped

4 Parsnips, peeled and roughly chopped

4 Tomatoes, roughly chopped

2 Cloves garlic, minced

2 Tablespoons olive oil

½ Teaspoon of each of the following spices: cumin, coriander, turmeric

Salt & pepper

2 Cups vegetable stock

1. Heat olive oil in a soup pot over medium-high heat.  Brown carrots and parsnips.  Add onion, sauté until translucent.  Add garlic, tomato, and spices and stir to combine.  Add vegetable stock (if vegetables aren’t fully submerged, add water).  Bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer, cover to cook for 25-30 minutes. 
2. Using an immersion blender, food processor, or blender, blend the entire soup mixture until smooth.  Check for seasoning.  Stir in a couple shakes of cayenne for heat J  Serve with crusty bread

            Pumpkins are not merely a favorite fall canvas for carving funny faces and frightful scenes, first and foremost these blazing orange bulbs are food (!). If you can look past their use as spooky porch decorations, and (bien sûr) their excellent smashing abilities they are certainly among the tastiest of autumn squashes. 

            The recipe below calls for white pumpkin, but any shade on the white to deep orange color spectrum will produce similar deliciousness.  The ingredients are simple and minimal, but this concoction nearly brought pumpkiny tears to my eyes—the garlic flavor, so subtle and light, floats around the sweet, earthy pumpkin like a pillowy dream.  If forced to live and cook in fall forever, this would be my meal du choix.

White Pumpkin and Roasted Garlic Soup

6 Cloves garlic, left whole and in their skins

1 Medium white pumpkin (the orange variety works well too)

3 Tablespoons olive oil

2 Cups vegetable stock

Salt & pepper 

1. Preheat oven to 350˚.  Cut pumpkin in half, remove the seeds (see recipe below for a good way to use the seeds), then cut into even sized wedges and place onto a sheet pan.  Drizzle pumpkin wedges with olive oil and sprinkle with salt & pepper. Bake in oven for 50 minutes to an hour, or until the “meat” of the pumpkin easily peels away when scraped with a fork.  Halfway through cooking time, coat garlic cloves with olive oil and add to sheet pan with the pumpkin.
2. Remove pumpkin and garlic from the oven, set aside until cool enough to handle.  Remove skin from garlic and place in a large bowl.  Remove all of the pumpkin meat from skin and add to the bowl with garlic. Add warmed vegetable stock.  Using an immersion blender, food processor, or blender, blend until very smooth.  Check for seasoning and serve with crispy garlic chips (slices of garlic sautéed in olive until brown).  

The sugar highs have calmed down but you still have heaps of soon-to-turn-soggy pumpkin seeds lying around the kitchen in forgotten bowls.  Cut your candy cravings by baking up some crunchy homemade granola flecked with these autumnal bites.  Pumpkins seeds are rich in iron, protein, Omega 3 and 6 fats, magnesium, manganese, as well as phytosterols (which help reduce cholesterol). 

I find that the best granolas are the ad hoc type—drop in whatever you have lying around.  To accompany my jack-o-lantern innards I used rolled oats, sliced almonds, whole-grain amaranth, cinnamon, and salt.  I put everything on a sheet pan, popped it into a 350˚ oven for about 20 minutes (stirring a few times). Then, shut off the heat and let the pan sit in the cooling oven for another ten minutes. 

Coconut, sesame seeds, dried fruits, and other varieties of nuts are some other tasty homemade granola add-on ideas.  

Happy November!

Autumn in New England penetrates the air at an ideal rate. Each day the mean temperature drops by roughly one degree, so that by the time mid-October rolls around we are all well acclimated to the brisk, rosy-cheek inducing temperatures.  As a person and eater moved by the seasons I call this phase-into-fall period the “hunker down and beef up” time of year. This is a time when I know my bathing suit has un-reluctantly migrated to the bottom of the drawer and with that so dissipates the upkeep to actually look good in it.

I begin to feel less satisfied by a light salad and summer fruits and veggies during this transition into fall, and conversely begin craving meatier, heartier meals by instinct. The cold of winter calls for more insulation and thus I won’t deny the temptation to fatten up for a long winters nap (or rather for the coming months of skiing the brutally frigid Northeast mountains). I find that the two best-suited ingredients to achieve such an essential goal are butter and chocolate!

(Dark) Chocolate & Pear Mini Pies with Thyme Mascarpone

Ingredients

For the Pie Crust:

2 Sticks of butter, very cold or frozen

2 2/3 Cup flour

1 Tablespoon sugar

½ Cup ice water

For the Filling:

4 Seckle pears or 2 Bosch pears

1/8 Teaspoon nutmeg

1 Tablespoon flour

2-3 oz quality dark chocolate (I used 70% cacao), broken into small pieces

For the Thyme Mascarpone:

½ cup Mascarpone

2 springs of thyme, removed from stem and minced

To make the Crust:  In a food processor combine butter, flour, and sugar.  Pulse until butter is about the size of peas.  Slowly and gradually pour ice water into the mixture while continuing to pulse.  Continue to pulse until the mixture comes together into a ball, or becomes a dough consistency.  Empty dough onto a lightly flour surface.  Handling the dough as little as possible, form two equal-sized disks, cover tightly with plastic wrap and set in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.  Dough can also be saved in the fridge for up to two weeks.

While the dough is cooling, slice the pears into ¾ inch slices, removing core. (I cut the seckle pears into eighths).  Toss in a bowl with nutmeg, flour, and sugar. 

Preheat oven to 425˚

Once dough is chilled, place one disk on a lightly floured surface.  Using a rolling pin, roll out dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Using your ramekin as a guide, cut out a circle of dough that is 1 inch larger on all sides than the ramekin’s width.  (I used a 4-inch ramekin, so my circle was 6 inches in width).  Make a slice in the dough from the center to the edge of the circle (this will help you line the ramekin with your dough).  Line the inside of the ramekin with the dough; there should be about 1 inch of dough folding over the lip. 

Alternating layers of chocolate and the pear mixture, fill the ramekin until you have used half of the pear mixture.  Cut another circle from the dough large enough to cover the top of your pie.  Place this circle on top of your pear mixture, and seal the edges of the dough by pinching both layers together all the way around the circumference of the pie’s edge.  Make slits on the top of the crust to allow steam to escape.   Repeat this process for your second pie.

Place both pies in the oven and set the timer for 45 minutes.  After 15 minutes, loosely cover the tops of pies with a piece of aluminum foil.  Cook for 5 minutes.  Reduce oven to 375˚.  Bake for the remaining time.  Remove, cool, and serve with thyme mascarpone.

For the Thyme Mascarpone: In a small bowlstir the minced thyme into the mascarpone until combined.  Refrigerate until use.