Aubergine Chips

Aubergine Chips

Ingredients

1 Large Aubergine

1 Teaspoon Sea Salt

½ Teaspoon Coriander

¼ Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper (optional)

You can choose any spice you like really

Instructions

Preheat oven to 100 degrees C.

Slice the Aubergine in thin slices and as uniformly as possible. Use a very sharp knife to get these uniformly thin.  

Lay out in a single layer on a baking sheet and then sprinkle with salt and spices. Put them in the oven at 100 degrees with the stem of a spoon at the door so there is a tiny gap. Then just wait until they have the perfect texture.

Remove once crisp and golden brown.

  

Store in a jar or airtight container.

Sweet Potatoe Chips

Sweet Potatoe Chips

Ingredients

1 Large Sweet Potato

1 Tablespoon Grapeseed Oil

1 Teaspoon Sea Salt

½ Teaspoon Coriander

¼ Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper (optional)

You can choose any spice you like really

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F (121 C) and position oven rack in the center of the oven.

Rinse and dry your sweet potatoes thoroughly and slice them as uniformly thin as possible. If you have a mandolin, use it. Otherwise, use a very sharp knife to get these uniformly thin. I used a cheese slicer.

Know that chips that are too thick in parts won't crisp up all the way. Still delicious, just not "chip" crispiness. Toss slices in a touch of olive oil to lightly coat, then sprinkle with salt and spices. Lay out in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for about 2 hours, flipping chips once at halfway point to ensure even cooking. I also rotated mine for more even cooking.

Remove once crisp and golden brown. Let them rest for 10 minutes or so to cool and crisp up even more.

Serve or store in a jar or airtight container.

Roasted pumpkin seeds

Roasted pumpkin seeds

Ingredients:

Pumpkin seeds

Directions:

Preheat oven to 250°F.

Remove and wash seeds from pumpkin. Dry in a towel. Spread seed on cookie sheet and bake for about 1 hour stirring occasionally. Watch to not burn the seeds. They should be golden.

If you want to spice up your seeds. Mix 2 tablespoons of olive oil per 1 1/2 cup seeds or use 2 tablespoons melted butter. Mix in your favorite spice or spices and turn the seeds in the blend before roasting.

Roast and let cool.

Store in a jar or airtight container.

Delicious with Pumpkin

Pumpkin

Growing up on a farm in Norway on the roughest coastal line, I had never grown or eaten or seen pumpkins, except from when Cinderella´s fairy God mother turned one into a magical chariot for Cinderella to go to the ball at the Castle. I was first introduced to pumpkin after 20 years old when I lived and studied in the USA. And it was only associated with Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving.However, Pumpkin can be used for so much more. And it is not American. It is used all over the world, and has been since ancient times.

China

Pumpkin — to Bring Good Health

The tradition of eating pumpkin during the moonfestival is followed by people living south of the Yangtze River.

Poor families chose to eat pumpkin during the Mid-Autumn Festival in ancient times, as they couldn't afford mooncakes. The tradition has been passed down, and eating pumpkin on the Mid-Autumn Festival night is believed to bring people good health.

An interesting legend goes that a very poor family, a couple with their daughter, lived at the foot of South Mountain. The old couples were seriously sick for lack of food and clothes. The daughter found an oval-shaped melon one day when she was working in the fields on the South Mountain. She brought the melon home and cooked to serve to her dying parents. Surprisingly, her sick parents recovered after eating the melon. Because the melon was picked from the South Mountain, so it was named 'south melon' (the Chinese name for pumpkin).

Haiti

Pumpkin soup, The Symbol of Freedom.

Pumpkin soup is served in Haiti on January 1, the anniversary of Haiti's liberation from France. It is said that the soup was once a delicacy reserved for white masters but forbidden to the slaves who cooked it. January 1st, 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti a free republic. After Independence, Haitians took to eating it to celebrate the world's first and only successful slave revolution resulting in an independent nation.

What does that have to do with pumpkin soup? Everything!!! All throughout their reign of terror, the French forbade all Haitians from drinking pumpkin soup. It was considered a delicacy far too sophisticated for the palate of slaves. Therefore as a symbol of freedom, all Haitians, no matter where, drink pumpkin soup (Soup Joumou) every January first since 1804.

USA and Ireland

In the United States, pumpkins go hand in hand with the fall holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving. An orange fruit harvested in October, this nutritious and versatile plant features flowers, seeds and flesh that are edible and rich in vitamins. Pumpkin is used to make soups, desserts and breads, and many Americans include pumpkin pie in their Thanksgiving meals. Carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns is a popular Halloween tradition that originated hundreds of years ago in Ireland. Back then, however, jack-o’-lanterns were made out of turnips or potatoes; it wasn’t until Irish immigrants arrived in America and discovered the pumpkin that a new Halloween ritual was born.

Pumpkin carving being associated with Halloween comes from a method used by the Celts to ward off evil spirits during Samuin (a festival where many of the traditions of Halloween come from).  The Celts would hollow out turnips, then carve faces in them and place candles inside.  The turnips were then either placed in the windows, to keep evil spirits from entering a home, or carried around as lanterns.  This tradition eventually melded with the North American tradition of carving pumpkins.  At this point, the carving of pumpkins, which had been around in North America before Halloween was popularly introduced, became associated almost exclusively with Halloween (around the 19th century).

Prepare the pumpkin for baking or soups

 

To prepare the pumpkin to be used in baking or soup. Cut the pumpkin in wedges and remove the seeds. Bake the pumpkin in the oven for 1 hour on 180 Celsius degrees. The pumpkin is ready when it is soft when you press it. Take out from the oven and let it cool off. Spoon out the pumpkin meat and make into a pure with a mixer. 


Check out my various recipes by clicking the links below

American Pumpkin Pie

http://ohemmabjorg.blogspot.se/2013/11/american-pumpkin-pie.html

Haitian Pumpkin Soup

http://ohemmabjorg.blogspot.se/2015/02/haitian-pumpkin-soup.html

Thai Pumpkin Custard Sankaya

http://ohemmabjorg.blogspot.se/2016/09/thai-pumpkin-custard-sankaya.html

Roasted pumpkin soup recipe

http://ohemmabjorg.blogspot.se/2016/09/roasted-pumpkin-soup-recipe.html

Pumpkin Pancakes

http://ohemmabjorg.blogspot.se/2016/09/pumpkin-pancakes.html

Pumpkin biscuits

http://ohemmabjorg.blogspot.se/2016/09/pumpkin-biscuits.html

Roasted pumpkin seeds

http://ohemmabjorg.blogspot.se/2016/09/roasted-pumpkin-seeds.html

Indian Curry Caserole with Pumpkin

https://ohemmabjorg.blogspot.com/2018/11/indian-curry-caserole-with-pumpkin.html

Thai Pumpkin Custard, Sankaya

 Thai Pumpkin Custard, Sankaya

Ingredients:

One small pumpkin 400 – 600 g

4 eggs

2 dl coconut milk

300 g palm sugar

2 tbs rice flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

A few pandan leaves

Instructions:

Wash your pumpkin thoroughly. Cut a square opening in the top. Use a very sharp knife to cut it out.  Pull the square out and cut off the strings.
Scoop out all of the pumpkin seeds inside and rinse to ensure it's clean and smooth inside.

Soak the cleaned pumpkin in 1 l lime water for about 20-30 minutes. (just ordinary water with some lime in.)

Mix the eggs, palm sugar, coconut milk, rice flour, salt and vanilla extract.

Fold the pandan leaves with your hands and mix the custard mix with your hands, using the pandan leaves to squeeze the mix. Dissolve the palm sugar using your hands and the leaves to squeeze. When all is mixed and sugar dissolved, pour the mix through a sift.

Pour the custard into your hollowed out pumpkin, just to the bottom of the circular opening.  Place the filled pumpkin in a bowl or tin and if the tin is wider, add some foil around the pumpkin to give it support all around. You don´t want the pumpkin to break as you steam it.

Place in a steamer. Put the lid you cut out on the side. Don´t close the filled pumpkin. Let steam for 45 minutes untouched. Once it's done, allow to cool a bit before touching.

To serve you can now fix the top so the lid fits to put back on. It looks cool when presenting.

When cooled, slice the pumpkin as you would slice a cake, to individual pieces and enjoy!

You can eat the entire pumpkin - the skin and flesh of the pumpkin and the creamy custard inside. Refrigerate any leftovers.

If you have additional custard left over pour into a shallow dish, top with slices of pumpkin, and steam alongside the whole pumpkin custard. Once it's done, slice into pieces for a little bit of a different pumpkin custard dessert.

Pumpkin biscuits

Pumpkin biscuits

Ingredients:
2cups all purpouse flour, more if needed
1⁄4cup brown sugar
1teaspoon salt
3tablespoons baking powder
1teaspoon cinnamon
1⁄2teaspoon nutmeg
1⁄4teaspoon allspice
1⁄8teaspoon ginger
1⁄3cup butter, cold
3⁄4cup pumpkin
3⁄4cup milk

 Directions:

Stir together dry ingredients. Using your hands or a pastry blender, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add pumpkin and milk, stirring just until ingredients are moistened and a soft dough forms. If the dough seems very soft, add more flour, a few tablespoons at a time, just until the dough is easy to handle.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to a half-inch thick. Using a 2-inch biscuit or cookie cutter in a simple shape of your choice, dip the cutter into flour, shake off excess and press into biscuit dough.

Place biscuits on a lightly greased cookie sheet one-inch apart and bake at 450 degrees F for 8 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve hot with butter and honey or apple butter.

Roasted pumpkin soup

Roasted pumpkin soup 

Ingredients:

1.5kg edible pumpkin

Olive oil

1 teaspoon dried chili

1 tablespoon coriander seeds

1 large onion

3 cloves garlic

1 carrot

1 sweet potatoe

1 litre hot vegetable stock

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 170°C/340°F. Half the pumpkin and remove the seeds (you can keep these for roasting), then chop into wedges. Place the pumpkin on baking trays and drizzle over a little olive oil. In a pestle and mortar, grind the chilli and coriander seeds with a pinch of salt until finely ground. 

Sprinkle the spices over the pumpkin with some black pepper. Roast the pumpkin for 1 hour, or until soft and slightly caramalised at the edges.

Meanwhile, roughly chop the onion, garlic, carrot and sweet potatoe. Heat a lug of olive oil over a medium heat in a large saucepan then add the vegetables. Wok until a bit soft but not coloured. Add the stock and cook for 15 minutes.

When the pumpkin is ready, add to the pan with the hot stock. Blend with a stick blender, adding a little more water if you like a thinner consistency.

When serving you can mix in a click of natural yogurt and swirl it around a bit. 

Pumpkin Pancakes

Pumpkin Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1 cup milk or cream

1/3 cup canned pumpkin

2 tablespoons canola oil

Directions:

In a large bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, whisk eggs, milk, pureed pumpkin and oil until blended. Add to flour mixture; stir just until moistened.
Lightly grease a griddle or frying pan; heat over medium heat. Pour batter 1/3 cupful onto griddle. Cook until bubbles on top begin to pop and bottoms are golden brown. 

Turn; cook until second side is golden brown.

Serve with maple syrup, jam, applesauce or any topping you like.

Delicious with Apples

Apple bread

Ingredients:

2 eggs
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups apples, peeled and diced
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, or more to taste 


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a loaf pan. Beat eggs, sugar, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl; add apples.

Mix flour, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon in a separate bowl; add to apple mixture and stir just until evenly combined into a thick batter. Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes. Cover loaf pan with aluminum foil; continue baking until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 15 minutes more. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.
 

Apple Crisp

Ingredients:

about 800 g apples
1 teaspoon cinnamon2 teaspoons sugar1 pinch salt flakes125g cold butter
2 dl flour
1 dl oatmeal
1 1/2 dl sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt flakes butter mold



For serving
Whipped Creamcustard sauceice cream This recipe is made for 6 servings.

Directions: 
Preheat the oven to 225 ° C.

Crumb: Cut the butter into pieces. Pinch butter, flour and oatmeal to a crumbly mass. Mix in sugar and salt flakes.
Peel, core and cut the apples into small pieces. Mix the apples with cinnamon, sugar and salt flakes in a greased pie dish, about 28 cm in diameter.

Spread the crumbs over the apples and bake the pie in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden.

To serve: Cool slightly and serve with whipped cream, custard or ice cream. The sea salt brings out the flavors a little extra and provides a piquant, salty contrast to the sweetness. If you don´t want that, you can skip the salt flakes.

Apple Muffins 

Ingredients:

2 eggs2 dl granulated sugar1 ½ teaspoons baking powder2 teaspoon vanilla3 dl flour50 g butter, melted1 ½ dl milk 

Filling
About 100 g of applepieces 

Directions:
1Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius 2Beat eggs and sugar until fluffy in a bowl. Mix together the dry ingredients and add them together with butter and milk. Mix everything together until smooth.3Set the muffin molds on a baking tray or in a muffin pan. Fill the molds to ¾.4Add 2-3 teaspoons of applepeices in each muffin.5Bake the muffins in the oven for about 20 minutes. Let them cool.



 If you like sprinkle with icing sugar before serving or serve with vanilla custard, Delicious!

Applesauce

Ingredients:
1 kg apples1/2 cup water6 dl sugar 

Directions:
Use well-ripened but not overripe apples to puree. Peel and core the apples. It is important that any injured parties and insects are removed. Add the finished apple wedges in cold water so that they don´t darken. Boil on low heat. Stir now and then. Feel with a toothpick if the apples are soft. Stir in the sugar and bring to the boil again. Mix the apple wedges to puree with a food processor. Fill the bowl half and mix in a couple of rounds so that the applesauce doesn´t run over. If you don´t have a mixer. Pour the boiled apple wedges into a sift and press them through the sift using a ladle or something to press the apples until all has gone through the sift. Pour into freezer boxes or jars in suitable sizes. Let cool and then close the cover. This way you it can be kept for 1 year. And you can take out and let thaw in the refridgerator as you want to use it. In the fridge it can be kept 1-2 weeks. You can use less sugar or no sugar at all, depending on your preference.
  

Dried apple snacks

Peel a bunch of apples. Core properly and then slice into about 23 mm thick slices. Either you put them then on a grid, put them in the oven at 100 degrees with the stem of a spoon at the door so there is a tiny gap. Then, just wait until they have the perfect texture. Best is to put them in early in the evening and then turn off the oven when going to bed. Than in the morning they will be done.

Option two is a bit cozier but takes longer time – Cut the apples in apple-rings and hang to dry on a string, or as me I used Chinese chopsticks that I put on a cooling rack I have. Anyways whatever
you have, hang the apple-rings somewhere where they can be left alone. A good place is in front of a window so they get some sun. Just leave them until they have the right texture.

I made two different kinds of apple-snacks. Some I cut to rings and some I just cut in small pieces that can be added into a breakfast bowl with yoghurt and muesli.

The apple snacks can be stored in a glass-jar or a plastic container.

Potatoe salad with apples

Ingredients:
500 g boiled potatoes
500 g apples
1 Red onion
1 Tomatoe
½ dl Dill 

Vinaigrette
0, 75 tsp salt flakesPepper according to taste
1 dl Olive oil
4 tbs White balsamic vinegar
2, 5 tbs Honey

Directions:
Scrub the potatoes and boil. Let cool. Cut thepotatoes and apples into bite sized pieces. This time I cut the potatoes beforeboiling, just to make them boil faster. Sometimes you might have left overpotatoes to use for the salad. Chop the tomatoe and onion into small pieces. Chopthe dill. Mix it all in a bowl. Stir the ingredients for the vinaigrette and pour it over the salad, mix gently. Mix in the remaining ingredients and stir. Save some dill for garnish.

Ice-cream sandwich

Ice-cream sandwich

Ingredients for the “sandwich-cake”

115 g butter, melted and cooled

100 g of granulated sugar (about 1 dl)

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

62 g of wheat flour (about 1.2 dl)

20 g of cocoa (about 0.5 dl)

Ingredients for filling

Alternative 1: You can buy 1.5 package vanilla ice cream (regular, rectangular in cardboard box)

Alternative 2: Make your own ice-cream

Ingredients for easy, quick homemade ice-cream

5 dl whipping cream

1 can condensed milk

Instructions for making the ice-cream

Whip the cream, then add the condensed milk. Mix everything well.

Now for the fun – add taste to your ice-cream with what you like! It could be chocolate, nuts, berries, sprinkles, caramel sauce, chocolate sauce. Today I had sprinkles and blueberries for mine.

If you want different tastes divide the cream into different bowls and add the seasonings and mix.

To freeze pour the mix into a baking tray, a bread tin or any tin that will easily allow you to cut slices for your ice-cream sandwich when frozen. Freeze the ice-cream for at least six hours. When frozen cut into rectangular pieces the size you prefer for your ice-cream sandwich. Cut the cake the same size and put one cake on top and one on the bottom. Wrap in plastic and freeze again until you want to eat your ice-cream.

Instructions for making the “Sandwich-cake”

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees. Add baking paper or a baking sheet and mark out a rectangle, about 23 x 30 cm.

Beat butter and sugar fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla sugar and salt and whisk a little more.

Mix flour and cocoa powder and mix into the batter.

Spread batter on baking paper and spread it as evenly as possible until it covers the rectangle you selected.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool for one minute only. Cut out small rectangles the size you want your ice-cream while the cake is still hot.

Cut ice cream in about 1.0 - 1,5 cm - thick slices and put a cake on top and one below. Wrap individually in plastic film and store in the freezer until serving.