Pumpkin Risotto

I've been making lots of pumpkin things this fall because I've felt festive.  So for Thanksgiving yesterday, I tried making risotto for the first time and I thought it was a success, though if you have to reheat it, I would suggest undercooking it slightly, as the reheating made it a little too sticky and soft.  I combined two recipes, a vegan one that I didn't really like the spices of and one with sage and thyme but made with chicken broth, butter and cheese to get a vegetarian (but not vegan) option which I think took the best flavor but that my brother could still eat.  So here it is:

• 1 cup dry white wine
• 4 cups vegetable stock (not bouillon, this is the kind of thing where you really can taste the stock, so use the good stuff)
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 cup uncooked Arborio rice
• 1 cup LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin (I used more to finish off a can)
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves or chopped fresh sage leaves (I used dried)
• 1/2 cup BUITONI® Refrigerated Freshly Shredded Parmesan Cheese
• 1 tablespoon butter
• Ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Heat oil in large, nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, for 4 minutes or until onion is tender. Stir in rice; cook, stirring frequently, for 2 minutes. Stir in pumpkin and thyme.
2. Stir in wine. Reduce heat to medium; add broth, 1/2 cup at a time, allowing each addition to be absorbed before adding more broth. Rice should be tender but firm to the bite and mixture should be creamy. This should take 20 to 25 minutes. 
3. Stir in cheese and butter until melted. Season with pepper.

Pumpkin Brownies

So I still had a little pumpkin (and it was presweetened, oops) pumpkin leftover from the cookies I made a few weeks ago.  I also made muffins, but they were extremely ordinary, so I didn't post (though they were best about 2 days after I made them, so make note of that if you ever want to make pumpkin muffins).

But I thought pumpkin swirled brownies would be the perfect way to use up the remaining pumpkin.  The other option was apple cake with a pumpkin sauce, but I thought brownies were more shareable to bring in to the math department tomorrow.  While trying to come up with a way to make these brownies, I realized something: as much as I'm developing a kind of food sense, I am clueless when it comes to brownies.  I have no idea what proportions to use or what adding more flour will do to the texture, when a brownie should be made with butter versus oil or cocoa versus melted chocolate.  I'm great with cookies, and I'm starting to get muffins down, but brownies?  I have no idea what makes a good brownie.  This is probably why the experimental brownies (sweetened with fruit juice) I made last year had a funny texture.  I had no idea what I was doing.  I don't make brownies very often because, well I don't want to eat the whole pan in 2 days, which is certainly likely.

So there's the story of the brownies.  I searched for pumpkin marbled brownies and I didn't find exactly what I was looking for which is basically a way to use half a cup of prespiced pumpkin puree.  So I turned to my favorite blog, smittenkitchen.com to see if she had any thoughts.  And voila!  Pumpkin swirled brownies from the Martha Stewart website.  But those were not what I wanted, those actually made a separate brownie batter and pumpkin batter and swirled them.  I just wanted to mix the pumpkin in to the brownies like those marble cheesecake brownies you see everywhere.  So I looked into those.  But that wasn't quite right either.  I want a great brownie with just a little pumpkin flavor.  So finally, I settled on making Deb's (from Smitten Kitchen) favorite brownie recipe and swirling pumpkin on top.  This did not work well.  They baked unevenly and even after an hour in the oven, didn't seem completely done (well, done by my eating brownie right out of the oven standards, but I think they won't travel well because they are kind of gooey).  Also the taste had room for improvement: one should add half a teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of cayenne pepper to the brownie batter to make it meld with the pumpkin better (or even without the pumpkin, I think this is a great addition to anything chocolate, from cookies to pudding).  Anyway, here is the recipe I used, plus my recomendations:



1 1/4 cups (5 ounces) cake flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped fine
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into six 1-inch pieces
2 1/4 cups (15 3/4 ounces) sugar
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
dash cayenne pepper
1/2 cup pumpkin pie mix (spiced pumpkin puree, they sell cans of it)

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 325 degrees. Cut 18-inch length foil and fold lengthwise to 8-inch width. Fit foil into length of 13 by 9-inch baking dish, pushing it into corners and up sides of pan; allow excess to overhand pan edges. Cut 14-inch length foil and, if using extra-wide foil, fold lengthwise to 12-inch width; fit into width of baking pan in same manner, perpendicular to first sheet. Spray foil-lined pan with nonstick cooking spray.
2. If using nuts, spread nuts evenly on rimmed baking sheet and toast in oven until fragrant, 5 to 8 minutes. Set aside to cool.
3. Whisk to combine flour, salt, and baking powder in medium bowl; set aside.
4. Melt chocolate and butter in large heatproof bowl set over saucepan of almost-simmering water, stirring occasionally, until smooth. (Alternatively, in microwave, heat butter and chocolate in large microwave-safe bowl on high for 45 seconds, then stir and heat for 30 seconds more. Stir again, and, if necessary, repeat in 15-second increments; do not let chocolate burn.) When chocolate mixture is completely smooth, remove bowl from saucepan and gradually whisk in sugar. Add eggs on at a time, whisking after each addition until thoroughly combined. Whisk in vanilla, cinnamon, cayenne pepper. Add flour mixture in three additions, folding with rubber spatula until batter is completely smooth and homogeneous.
5. Transfer batter to prepared pan; using spatula, spread batter into corners of pan and smooth surface. Spread pumpkin on top and swirl it with a spatula.  Bake at 325 or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes (I think the pumpkin topping requires a longer cooking time or a warmer temperature, if I ever make these again, I'll get back to you on what that should be). Cool on wire rack to room temperature, about 2 hours, then remove brownies from pan by lifting foil overhang. Cut brownies into 2-inch squares and serve. (Store leftovers in airtight container at room temperature, for up to 3 days, or, ahem, in the freezer until your resistance gets the better of you.)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

So the news of the week: it's fall.  It's definitely fall in Atlanta.  Highs have been in the mid-50s-low 60s, but that means we don't see those highs until late afternoon.  The rest of the day is, well chilly.  Plus the sun hasn't been out much lately.  It feels like October in Wisconsin for goodness sake.  So I've been feeling fall-y.  And my old aversions to things like pumpkin and fall type spices are disappearing (as witnessed by the apple spice cake trifle I have yet to post about).  But this means I've really been craving pumpkin lately.  However, Publix has been out of pumpkin (they just restocked VERY recently) and then because of the reduced pumpkin market, Target was also out.  So I ran to Kroger and grabbed a can without much though.  I brought it home and opened it and... it was a little runnier than usual.  And it smelled like... spices.  It was pumpkin pie mix, oops.  So this works in cookies, but now I'm stuck trying to figure out other sweet things I can make with pumpkin pie mix (I was planning on using it to make pumpkin black bean soup this weekend, but I don't think I want pumpkin pie mix in that!)

In spirit of fall, I think I might attempt an apple cake with pumpkin carmel (and yes, "carmel" is a two syllable word in my world) sauce.  I just need to find someone to feed it to.

But anyway, here are the pumpkin cookies.  I brought them around in the math department and everyone really liked them.  I grabbed the AXO recipe, but it's pretty much the same as all the others you will find out there.

Description:
This one is from Maura O'Beirne-Stanko and these cookies are fabulous!! I know pumpkin and chocolate aren't an obvious combination but at my house these are a favorite year round - not just in the fall. Maura just made them for ZU Initiation last week and the sisters raved about them.

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup shortening (or butter)

1 cup pumpkin

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla
6 oz bag chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions:
Cream together the sugar, egg and shortening. Add the pumpkin. Blend well.

Stir together flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder and cinnamon. Add to pumpkin mixture.

Add vanilla, chips and nuts (if using).

Drop in rounded teaspoonsful on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Do not overbake. Cool and store in an airtight container.