Just after Halloween, Tamara had the good fortune to inherit about a dozen heirloom pumpkins. This of course left us with the tasks of cutting, scooping, roasting, freezing, and lastly devising enough recipes to use all that pumpkin flesh. Slowly, we packed all the pumpkins away in the basement freezer and began some creative efforts. In the ensuing weeks we've made cookies, a cream cheese tart, and a loaf of bread, all with varying success. More recently however, chipotle pumpkin soup and a pumpkin and venison sausage lasagna have stolen the show.
The soup was pretty straight forward and a few different recipes can be found with a simple google search. Just don't make the one supposedly created - minimally endorsed by - Rachel Ray, she's a talentless hack, a tumor on culinary creativity, and annoying to boot. I almost decided against making this soup altogether when I discovered her recipe, but opted to take it upon myself to right the injustice suffered by pumpkins, chipotle peppers, and diary everywhere at the hands of Ms. Ray and her numb, senseless followers who complacently insist on following her down the rabbit-hole of disrespecting the culinary arts and eating in general (sorry, for that ad hominem diatribe).
Alas, when the time came to eat the soup, I was glad to have pushed my pride aside and forged ahead making a soup, similar in name alone, to one advocated by Rachel Ray? At least it wasn't a Sandra Lee recipe, right?
So, for our soup, I pureed two medium sized dry chilies with two or three cloves of roasted garlic, making a smoky, red paste. Meanwhile I sauteed a good sized storage onion with olive oil and a sizable pinch of dried sage leaves in a heavy caste-iron pot. The chipotle-garlic paste went in next with half a stick of butter, some fresh ground pepper and a good pinch of salt.
For the pumpkin we used a Jarrahdale - a slate-gray skinned, cantaloupe-orange fleshed, ancient Native American variety, great for soups and baking alike. I combined the entire flesh of our roasted pumpkin to the pot and mixed it in adding about a cup of water - just until it looked like it wouldn't stick to the pot.
A bit of brown sugar, a decent amount of cumin, a dash of coriander and cinnamon, and nice sprinkle of our accidentally combined garlic and ginger powders - easy mistake - and I turned the range down and let the flavors cook together for a half-hour or so, stirring occasionally to avoid any sticking.
When everything had cooked together nicely I added a couple cups of heavy cream and simmered another 10 minutes, finishing it up with some salt and pepper to taste. The pumpkin cooked down well enough for our tastes, but an immersion blender or trip to the food processor might be called for if you want a more homogeneous texture - which, had I been cooking for others, or a paying customer, I certainly would have gone for.
We topped our soup with some Wake Robin yogurt and a swirl of balsamic reduction. We usually have a loaf of bread in the oven or freshly out, so some impromptu croutons made an appearance as well.
 |
| tasted better than it looks ... |
The lasagna was - as it should be - pretty simple as well. We made the lasagna noodles with the pasta roller, but that was by far the most labor intensive aspect of the preparation. Everything was done in stages. First the ricotta. Ricotta is extremely simple to make, easier to buy obviously, but let's allow that scratch cooking has some certain intrinsic value that trumps ease.
Simply heat a gallon milk - or an appropriate fraction - slowly to a very gentle boil, stirring constantly to avoid scalding. When it reaches a boil curdle the milk with 1/3 cup of white vinegar (I've used our accidental hard cider turned apple cider vinegar and that worked great too) and let drip through some cheesecloth or a muslin bag. A few healthy pinches of salt will help draw out the whey, but use more or less depending on what you are going to use it for. It is best to give it a night to drip, but a half hour will do in a pinch. This is perhaps better called farmer's cheese but for our intents and purposes it makes little difference. I've also seen it done with a cup of yogurt in the milk, which makes for a great texture. You can even put everything right in the pot in the beginning and bring it to a boil together - either way you get the idea, lot's of alternatives. Again, if you are going to make your own, and you should, just google up some recipes.
While the cheese drained, I cooked up 1 and 1/2 pounds of hot venison sausage with a small onion. I set it aside in a bowl and moved on to the pumpkin which I pureed in the food processor with a little butter and brown sugar - that's all.
For the sauce I got a little wonky. In a small pot I warmed two cups of milk slowly. Meanwhile, in another pan, I melted a half stick of butter, plus a little extra and tossed in a hand-full of coarsely chopped dates and a 3-4 tablespoons of flour and whisked it together into a date-butter paste. Still whisking I added the milk a little at a time, creating a thick bechamel-date sauce. I hit it with salt and a few very liberal grinds of pepper, tossed in a half cup of assorted Italian cheeses - asiago, parmesan, provolone, romano, you know the blend - and took it off the heat.
The final pre-assembly step was to mix the ricotta in with the sausage, leaving me with four dishes to work out of: one with the sausage and ricotta, another with pumpkin, one with a bunch of shredded mozzarella, and the pan with my delicious white sauce.
I rolled out about a pound worth of pasta (2 and 1/2 cups of flour, 3 eggs, dash of salt, tablespoon or two of olive oil, kneaded and allowed to rest for 10 minutes) and began assembling the lasagna.
I won't bore you with this part, you know the drill - pasta, pumpkin, sausage, sauce, little cheese, pasta, again ... until the top layer where I finished with the remaining sauce and good amount of cheese. Bake hot until it browns up.
Oh yeah, I sporadically threw in some greens from the garden - kale, arugula, mizuna, etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment