Give thanks to the pumpkin

Once again I find myself catching up on the blog after a hectic period at work and then a couple of weeks away, so I didn't have time back at the end of November to write up my Thanksgiving exploits.

Not that I was actually celebrating the occasion in any real way - being British born and bred, Thanksgiving obviously doesn't really feature on my radar at all, and I have only ever experienced the traditional dinner once, in Austria of all places, where I was working on a teaching programme which also had lots of American participants, who very kindly invited me to join in with their celebrations.

There does however seem to have been an increased interest here in Britain in the kind of dishes served up on the other side of the pond for Thanksgiving - not least the ubiquitous pumpkin pie. So much so in fact, it's now quite easy to find the ready-prepared, canned version of the dessert's most important ingredient - pumpkin puree - in supermarkets over here.

It's still not cheap though, with a tin of Libby's 100% Pumpkin generally setting you back around £2. I was delighted therefore to have spotted a heavily-dented can a few months back, reduced to a truly bargainous 20p. I couldn't say no.


So, pumpkin pie for dessert? Not on this occasion. I've nothing against it - it's just that I made  one some years back - long before this blog started - after one of my teaching pals from the US sent me a tin of Libby's AND a jar of Pumpkin Pie Spice, which I occasionally use in baking and is still going strong. So I was keen to give some other ideas a try with this tin.

Although most of their sales must be to those making pumpkin pies, the Libbys website in fact contains a wealth of recipes using its product. Many of them are somewhat sweet-sounding (but no doubt delicious) baking recipes, but a newer section of the site titled "Pumpkin Can" suggests some of the other things that pumpkin can be used for (see what they did there?). So there are hints and recipes for adding it to mashed potato, soups and chillis, using it as a substitute for eggs or butter in baking, and bringing some of its health benefits (low fat and lots of Vitamin A, apparently) to milkshakes, mac and cheese and so on.


One recipe that caught my eye as being quite unusual was the pumpkin hummus - a mish-mash of culinary heritages if ever there was one - so I thought I'd give it a go. Essentially it's just a can of chickpeas (double points for a second tin in the recipe) whizzed up with lemon juice, garlic, salt and a "three-fourths cup"of pumpkin puree. Significantly, the usual tahini and olive oil are not included in the ingredients list at all; I wondered if the absence of the latter might make for a disappointingly un-creamy hummus, but in fact the pumpkin proved its worth here as a substitute ingredient, making for a surprisingly rich-tasting dip while providing just a subtle hint of pumpkin flavour, which might even go unnoticed if you didn't know it was there.

I did miss that slight nutty bitterness that tahini usually brings to the mix however, but with the leftover hummus I instead tried stirring in a good teaspoonful of peanut butter, with a little more lemon juice to loosen it all, which seemed to work very well.

Also from the Libby's website, I felt the need to try the Pumpkin Spice Latte recipe, mainly as I'd tried a free sample of one outside a Starbucks recently, which was really good, but I couldn't quite bring myself to go inside and pay £3 or more to the tax-avoiders for a whole one. So instead I combined a cup of strong coffee, milk (I just used normal, but Libby's suggests evaporated milk), a dollop of pumpkin puree, a little sugar, some of my Pumpkin Pie Spice and some vanilla extract in a saucepan, and served it up in a nice glass mug, rather than a paper cup with my name spelled incorrectly on it. The recipe suggested topping it with whipped cream if desired. I did desire, and so I did. I also desired a little trickle of brandy in it too, which you certainly wouldn't get in Starbucks. With a little sprinkle more of the spice on top, and a cinnamon stick as a stirrer, it was the perfect antidote to a chilly somewhere-between-autumn-and-winter evening.



Next up, something for dessert (the latte was a drink, so it doesn't count). Those with a passing interest in food programmes on television can't help but have noticed recently the return of the great Nigella to our screens, with an accompanying book, Simply Nigella. I've been ogling the pages of the book since it first hit the shelves back in the autumn, and there are a wealth of recipes I already want to try. One that immediately jumped out though - and is available for free on Nigella's website too - is the No-Churn Brandied Pumpkin Ice Cream.

Nigella seems to have mastered the art of ice cream that does not require a machine or constant whisking and re-freezing to make it, as there have been a number of recipes for different versions in her recent books. Each uses a mixture of double cream and condensed milk, some form of alcohol and then the flavour ingredients - in this case, pumpkin puree and some grated nutmeg. Seeing as I had my jar of Pumpkin Pie Spice though, which contains nutmeg alongside cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and cloves, I decided to use that instead. All you need to do is whisk all the ingredients together, pour into a suitable container, freeze overnight, and you're ready to go.

I found that the suggestion of removing the ice cream from the freezer 10 minutes before serving wasn't even necessary - it seemed to scoop out quite easily straight away. That may possibly be down to the fact that I had scaled down the recipe due to the amount of pumpkin I had to hand, but may have forgotten to reduce the amount of brandy accordingly...whoops.

Certainly the booze was the most prominent flavour, followed by the lovely warm pumpkin pie spices, perhaps both overpowering the pumpkin itself. But like the hummus, knowing it was there, it was just noticeable in the background. Nigella suggests serving this with her Cider and Five Spice Bundt Cake, which I didn't have time for but sounds AMAZING. Instead I had a scoop with a slice of warmed McVitie's Sticky Toffee Apple 'Bonfire Bake' Cake, which my local supermarket had been flogging off cheaply now that November 5th had been and gone - and very nice the combination was too.

On another of my frequent perusals of the cookery sections of bookshops (one of my favourite ways to while away an afternoon), I came across a book entirely devoted to recipes using Pumpkin Pie Spice. Now there are some quite niche cookery books out there, but this really takes the (presumably pumpkin pie spiced) biscuit. I was dubious as to the scope of its recipes, but in fact it provided a wealth of ideas for how to use your spice mix - and, significantly for me, a good number that included canned pumpkin puree too.

Returning to savoury options, the Pumpkin Sloppy Joe recipe jumped out at me as one to try. I had of course heard of the Sloppy Joe before - essentially minced beef in a thick tomatoey sauce, served in a hamburger bun - but never actually tried one. Beef, onion and garlic are cooked off in a pan, seasoned with mustard, chilli powder, salt and a little sugar before a tomato sauce is added - and in this version, pumpkin puree and dash of pumpkin pie spice too. I was keen for the flavour of the pumpkin to be a little more prominent in this recipe, so used a smaller quantity of fresh chopped tomatoes in place of the tomato sauce, which also made the orange colour of the pumpkin more noticeable too. The name of the dish is entirely appropriate, as it is nigh on impossible to eat this without some of the filling oozing out over the plate, but it makes for a very tasty alternative to a burger, with the slight sweetness of the pumpkin here making a nice contrast to the deeply savoury beef.

I was equally intrigued by the recipe entitled Gelatin Shot Tartlets, and on reading on and discovering it was in fact alcoholic jelly shots set within mini tart cases, it was clear that it had to be tried. It was another very straightforward recipe, dissolving gelatin in water and then heating it with pumpkin puree, sugar and pumpkin pie spice - though I feel the recipe was a little overgenerous with its quantities of the latter, as it made the mixture a rather muddy brown colour, completely masking the pumpkin's lovely orange glow. After a little time to cool, the alcohol is mixed in - the recipe calls for vodka, but I went for whisky - plus a tiny bit of cream, and then poured into the mini tart cases.

Except I hadn't been able to find any of those, but had earlier that day been to a cafe and had a small lemon tart - so I just ate the filling, scooping it out with a teaspoon, and smuggled the crust home, probably looking like a complete weirdo to anyone who might have been watching.  It wasn't nearly big enough for all the mixture though, so the rest had to go into my trusty empty Fray Bentos Steak and Kidney Pudding tin, to make an individual jelly without a piecrust. Although given the brown colour of the liquid, this did make it look a little bit like a tin full of gravy.

Both were chilled overnight before being sampled the next day - with some more of Nigella's ice cream, plus some extra whipped cream, for an adult take on the traditional children's party combination.

Like the ice cream, the jelly shots packed quite a punch - I had followed the recipe correctly this time, and these were clearly intended to be very alcoholic. And yet were just so moreish with their tasty pastry base... Along with the somewhat excessive amount of pumpkin pie spice, the booze did obliterate any perceptible flavour from the pumpkin puree, but needless to say, I was perfectly happy with the jelly as it was, and felt I'd probably had enough pumpkin by that time anyway.

Fortunately I held back from eating too much of the individual jelly in one go, otherwise I might have ended up on the floor, or become rather emotional and started listing all the things in my life that I ought to be thankful for, like our forefathers before us did - before remembering of course that I am not American and don't celebrate Thanksgiving. But it had been an interesting series of experiments with the tin of puree, proving just what a versatile ingredient it is - "Pumpkin Can" indeed be used for a great deal in the kitchen - it is much more than just a pie filling.