I brought three pumpkins back from Ontario, and two evenings ago, I baked one of them. As the fastest way to process a pumpkin is by baking it, I just cut it in half, scooped out the seeds and pulp, and put it in the oven with a little water. But the baking takes an hour and a half, and The Most Important Rule For Cooking that I learned as a child – which it floors me that more people don’t know – is… well, the first rule is, don’t use the oven in summertime, but… When You Use The Oven, Bake More Than One Thing.

In fact, bake three: 

  • Meat loaf or chicken or quiche, scalloped potatoes, and custard
  • Squash, a casserole, and a cake
  • Pot roast, baked potatoes, and pie

With Pizza…

… well, that takes only 12-16 minutes to bake (in a hot oven!), but make a batch of cookie dough to have on hand for times like this. Cut the dough into portions you’d make at any one time and freeze the portions (i.e. if the recipe is for three dozen, cut it into sixths for six cookies each. You could also shape the cookies and freeze them on a tray, then keep them in a tupperware in the freezer ready to go). Thaw and shape the cookies and put them in with the pizza (but watch them; pizza heat is hotter than cookie heat; it’s better to undercook them and then put them in again to finish them off. Which is why they’re called biscuits: cooked twice). You could also add tarts, or store-bought rolls of any kind.

As a vegetarian, I don’t cook meat anymore, I make other stuff. This time, I baked the pumpkin, eggplant parmigiana, cranberry-apple crisp with walnuts, and the pumpkin seeds.

Cranberry-apple crisp

You can find a recipe for this anywhere, but I use the old Five Roses Cookbook version:

  • 4-5 apples
  • My addition: fresh or frozen cranberries (not dried),
  • Mixed with 1 tbsp brown sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

This mixture goes into a 8-9″ square Pyrex dish. If using a loaf pan, cut the recipe in half, or multiply it for larger pans.

Crust (the crisp!)

  • 2/3 cups flour
  • 2/3 cups oatmeal
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • dash of salt
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts or flax seeds
  • 1/2 cup mix of butter and shortening or margarine, which may be substituted in part with solid coconut oil

Cut the butter mixture into the dry ingredients, until you have a pea-grained mixture still containing loose oatmeal and flour. (I used less butter than called for, but it was organic). The crust is not a dough, it’s a crumbly topping.

Put it in the oven for about half an hour or until the juice is bubbling and the top of the crisp is nicely browned. My oven was set at 375ºF, but you have some flexibility here!

Eggplant parmigiana

This dish is too easy: two cross-wise or length-wise slices of eggplant (1/3” to ½” thick), salted to draw the water out, then rinsed, dipped in egg and flour, and fried in a cast iron skillet. Mix the rest of the egg with ricotta cheese, spoon it between the slices, cover it with tomato sauce, and put the mozzarella on top. Bake it (anywhere between 350° and 425°) for maybe half an hour, or not even — just enough for all the elements to come together. Serve with spaghetti or linguine.

Pumpkin seeds

Oh, how I love pumpkin seeds! First, I boil them in salty water, strain them, and pick off the pulp. Then I put them in an oiled skillet in the oven. They went in for about 45 minutes, forgotten, but far from burned. I can warm them up again in the smaller skillet in the toaster oven.

The next day, having left the pumpkin in the oven overnight, I had to clean up where the juice seeped out of the pumpkin and onto the floor (literally: from the floor of the oven out onto my floor. Lesson: put the pumpkins on a baking sheet.)

I mashed the pumpkin in its skin and scooped it out into a colander, collecting the extra juice in a bowl for soup stock. I froze half the pumpkin mash for later in the year. A quarter of it was transformed into a beautiful soup, and the last quarter was reduced and slightly caramelized in the cast iron skillet, in preparation for making pie.

Pumpkin Soup

  • Butter to sauté
  • ½ an onion
  • Large slice of ginger root, as is
  • Two rings of red pepper
  • *if you have it: fresh fennel.* If you don’t, add fennel seeds.

After sautéing, add:

  • 1/4 of a cooked pumpkin, mashed
  • 2 small potatoes, quartered
  • The pumpkin juice from mashing
  • Salt, pepper, and sage if you like

Clap the lid on the pot and keep it at a low boil. The pumpkin has a lot of water in it, enough to cook everything, if you keep the lid on. Add a bit more water if you’re worried it might dry out.

After 20 minutes, mash the pot contents, remove (if you want) the ginger slice, and then purée the whole with either a blender or a Braun handimixer (an immersion blender). You can further dice the ginger slice and add it back into the soup at this stage. It’s nice to have a little chunky kick. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

To cream the soup, stir in a 1/4 cup of real cream, whole milk, or coconut milk.

Enjoy!

Since I’m on the topic of food: My home-made sauerkraut was awesome.

I’ll finish off this post with some autumn scenes worth sharing from my Thanksgiving trip to Eastern Ontario: the road above, and the forest below.

Photo by me on Unsplash