Pumpkin--get in everything I eat from October 1st til Thanksgiving!!!

This time of year, pumpkin seems to be everywhere...lattes, pies, soups, breads...you name it, there's a version with pumpkin.  We decided to take our little sugar pumpkin, and turn him into some delicious ice cream sundaes!

You'll want to start by making your pumpkin puree.  Cut your pumpkin in half and clean out all the guts.  I like to save the seeds so I can toast them up for a snack.  So if you want to do that, put the seeds in a bowl, and toss all the stringy guts.

Once the insides are nice and clean, place the halves on a baking sheet, cut side down.  You'll also want to put some water in your pan so it can steam the pumpkin.  Make sure water gets underneath your pumpkin as well.  Pop 'em in a 400 degree oven, and let them roast for about 20 minutes.  When you pull them out, they should be nice and soft.

Once they're cool enough to handle, scrape out the insides into a bowl.  The meat should easily pull away from the skin.  Then we just used the immersion blender to make a silky smooth puree.

For the ice cream base, we used the same recipe for the base that we used in our 100th post.  We made about half of the recipe, and added in a cinnamon stick and a few cloves, and used a vanilla bean, rather than vanilla extract.

While the cream was simmering, and the spices steeping, you'll want to whip up your egg yolks and sugar.

Once the cream mixture came to a simmer, we removed the cinnamon stick and cloves, and tempered it into the egg yolks and sugar mixture.  Then we added about 1 cup of the pumpkin puree.

That's it!  Your base is ready.  You can just follow the directions on your ice cream maker, and you'll have pumpkin ice cream in no time!

Once our ice cream was churned to our liking, we removed it from the ice cream maker, and stored it in the freezer while we made our sundae toppings.

We toasted up some pepitas to top our sundaes, in place of nuts.

And Justin got to work making some caramel.  Start by melting some sugar in a pan.  We used a combination of raw sugar and brown sugar.

Once your sugar has melted, add in some butter.

Then add in some cream.  Be sure you continue to stir it so your caramel doesn't burn.

Once it's thickened, you're ready to go!  You may want to let it cool a little bit before topping your sundae.

Now, just build your sundae.  We had some leftover maple whipped cream, so we put a dollop on top of our ice cream.  Then sprinkled on the toasted pepitas and caramel.

It was the perfect Fall dessert!  Look for more posts that pumpkin up the volume coming soon.

Strawberry Shortcake

When it comes to desserts, I'm much more apt to choose a fruit-based dessert over some decadent chocolate delight.  For one, chocolate, especially rich, dark chocolate, makes me sneeze.  And I just prefer a lighter, less sweet dessert.  So what better way to use our quart of strawberries, than to make a strawberry shortcake?

It was perfect timing because Justin received an email from Food & Wine with their 20 top strawberry recipes, which included a shortcake recipe.  It came together pretty quickly, and in no time, we were chowing down on dessert.

Justin took care of the strawberries, slicing them in half, and macerating them with some sugar, orange zest, and grated ginger.  The orange and ginger were our added twists, and added some brightness to our strawberries.

As for the shortcakes, mix the cake flour, baking powder, and salt together.  Using your fingers (or a pastry blender if you have one), mix in the cold butter.  Once the butter is incorporated, add in your cream, and mix with a knife until the dough clumps together.

At this point, the recipe has you pat the dough into a round cake pan, but we decided to make individual little shortcakes.  Once you form them to your desired size, place them on a baking sheet, brush on a bit of cream, and sprinkle a little sugar on top.  Then just pop 'em in the oven at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, or until they're golden brown on top.

While your shortcakes are cooking, you can make your whipped cream.  In a bowl you'll need your cream, some vanilla, and some sugar.  If you want a good arm workout, you can whip it by hand, but we opted for the hand mixer.  In less than 5 minutes, we had some delicious, homemade whipped cream.

Once the shortcakes have cooled a bit, slice them in half horizontally, spoon on some strawberries and whipped cream, and top with your shortcake cap.  We also added a bit or orange zest to garnish.

It was so easy, and so delicious.  It's the perfect summer dessert!  The hardest part was waiting for the shortcakes to cool!

Insert Clever Title Here

I know, I know...the title is a little disappointing...but you can't win 'em all.

When it comes to ground meat, I think you're a little limited in what you can do...burgers...pasta with meat sauce...meatballs...but we didn't want to do any of that.  So we turned to the interwebs to find an alternative, and we came across a recipe for fennel stuffed with sausage and parmesan.  It sounded the like the perfect way to use the pork sausage we'd picked up in the share, and it came together quite easily.

We started with a couple fennel bulbs, chopped off the stalks (though we reserved the fronds), and threw them in a pot to steam and soften.

While those were steaming, we got to work on the sausage.  We browned it with a little garlic, shallot, red pepper flake, and some oregano.  Or maybe there was a lot of oregano...Justin unscrewed the top of the spice jar, not realizing there wasn't a shaker top, and dumped about half the jar in the pan.  We were able to scoop out a good portion of it without sacrificing any sausage.  Luckily the other flavors helped to subdue the oregano.

Once the sausage was browned and cooked through, we started to add the parmesan and pecorino cheeses.  We also threw in some panko.  As everything cooked in the pan, the sausage developed a really crispy texture, as if it had been fried.

Once the fennel was soft, we cut them in half and cut out the core, so we could fill in the layers with the sausage and cheese mixture.  We made sure to get between all the layers of the fennel.  These went into a baking dish with a bit of stock, covered the dish with foil, and slid it into the oven for about 15 minutes.

Then we uncovered them, and let them cook a bit longer.  We finished them off with some of the fennel fronds and a little more cheese.  They were delicious, and well balanced.  The salty, savory sausage and fresh fennel fronds really rounded out the dish.

We know what you're thinking, these plates looks a little sparse.  Well, that's because we had a super rich, sweet, and creamy, dessert that we made for the evening.  We had some egg yolks left over from an omelette, so we decided to make some creme brulee.  Creme brulee may sound intimidating but it's really easy.  First scrape out a vanilla bean add it to a boiling sauce pan of cream.  Then just mix together eggs and sugar and slowly temper in the mixture vanilla and cream.

Once the cream, eggs and sugar were combined, we poured them into little ramekins, and the ramekins went into a hot water bath to cook.  This helps prevent them from drying out.

Once they were cooked, we let them set in the fridge overnight.  To get the nice, crunchy top, we added a bit of sugar to the top.  I was a little skeptical about Justin with a blowtorch so we just finished them off in the broiler.

We were a little distracted eating our sausage stuffed fennel, and the sugar got a tad bit burned, but they were tasty nonetheless.