Once upon a time there was... Pumpkin Penne

We made this a long time ago - last year! In fact, there are a lot of things we have made since last year and into this year that we just haven't posted. Today however, we have nothing else to do except post all of these old recipes (and make new ones!). You see, we are snowed in again!! It's Snowmageddon 2010!!!! There are 3 farm animals (roughly 21") of snow outside. So here we are, FINALLY updating our adventures.

This recipe is for Pumpkin Penne. We were intrigued by the idea of using pumpkin for a savory dish instead of a sweet one. It should be noted that we decided to make this prior to deciding to cook healthier things. (Pasta coated in pumpkin and heavy cream is not exactly healthy.) We mostly followed a Rachel Ray recipe. This is pretty quick and simple; great for a weeknight!

This serves 4

ingredients

8 oz of penne pasta

1 Tbsp olive oil

2 shallots, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 c. chicken broth

7.5 oz pumpkin puree

1/4 c heavy cream

1/2 tsp hot pepper sauce

pinch of cinnamon

pinch of nutmeg

pinch of sage

salt and pepper to taste

sage and parmesan for garnish

instructions

1. Cook pasta according to package directions.

2. Heat olive oil in a skillet. Add garlic and shallots and cook until softened (about 5 minutes).

3. Add chicken broth, pumpkin and cream. Stir. Add hot sauce, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Lower heat, simmer until thickened (about 5 minutes).

4. Add sage and pasta to sauce. Toss to coat.

5. Garnish with parmesan and sage. Serve!

And that's it! See how easy?

We weren't sure how we would feel about the idea of pumpkin for dinner, but in the end we really liked it! It was different, it was easy, and most importantly, it was yummy. It reheated well for leftovers as well.

Here is the nutritional information for the dish.

This total does not include any parmesan cheese. A little high on fat but not that bad actually!

We definitely recommend this one.

Moo!

Once upon a time there was... Pumpkin Bread

While we were making our Thanksgiving Mashed Potatoes, we had some extra time on our hands, since the potatoes like to take their time to boil. We also had some extra pumpkin on our hands after making Penelope's favorite pumpkin pie. So we decided to take all these things we had in our hands and turn them into pumpkin bread! We found a wonderful recipe for Pumpkin Gingerbread on AllRecipes.com.

ingredients

3 c. sugar

1 c. vegetable oil

4 eggs

2/3 c water

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree

2 tsp ginger

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

3 1/2 c flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

instructions

1. prep: preheat oven to 350. grease two 9x5 loaf pans.

Cal's tip: Count your eggs, sugar and pigs to make sure you have enough before starting.

2. combine sugar, oil, and eggs. beat until smooth.

Cal's tip: This will not look appetizing. Just trust us.

3. add water and beat until well blended

4. stir in pumpkin, ginger, allspice, cinnamon and cloves. The spices are the most important part of this recipe, and should be treated with respect.

5. in a seperate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture and blend until just combined. Divide batter between pans.

Cal's tip: At this point, it will be extremely difficult to resist the smell of this batter. Make sure to restrain your pigs.

7. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about an hour.

Cal's tip: Once your loaves are secured in the oven, you can release your pigs and enjoy licking the bowl together.

ta-da! its pumpkin bread!

And it tastes even yummier once its cooked!

We have been eating this loaf for our breakfast for 3 days now and it is still just as delicious as the first day. We highly recommend using your extra time and pumpkins to make this bread.

Moo!

Happy Thanksgiving! Penelope's Favorite Pumpkin Pie

Happy Thanksgiving Castle Farm Cookbook blog readers!  We have made a delicious pumpkin pie for you.  Well, technically you can't eat this one, but you could make one of your own and eat it, but if we could make this pie for you, we would - and that should count for something.  This is called Penelope's favorite pumpkin pie because it is not Cornelius' favorite pumpkin pie (that is a different recipe, which everyone other than Cornelius thought was inferior to this pie). Cornelius does think it was a close call though, and that this pie is very good too.  This recipe is originally from Martha Stewart, and can be found here.  Our version is better though because we have more pictures and expert notes! For planning purposes, you should know this pie is like a 3 hours process and it also tastes best if you allow it to refrigerate over night to let the flavors sink in.

Tools needed: 9-10 in pie pan, pie weights, parchment paper, cookie cutters, food processor, rolling pin, pigs and cows to help with the tricky parts and with the eating

pie ingredient list
3 eggs + 1 egg yolk
3/4 c + 1 Tbsp heavy cream
1/2 c packed dark brown sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp flour
1 tsp coarse salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 15 oz can pumpkin puree
1/2 c pure maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla

crust ingredients 

2 3/4 c regular flour

1 1/2 tsp coarse salt

1 Tbsp sugar

2 1/4 sticks (18 Tbsp) cold unsalted butter, cut into peices

7-10 Tbsp cold water

instructions
1. Make the pie crust dough.


a. Pulse flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor.

b. Add butter peices and pulse into coarse crumbs form, about 10 seconds.

b. Put your 10 Tbsp water in a small cup.  With the machine running, add water slowly until dough just holds together and is not wet or sticky, no longer than 30 seconds.
Cornelius' tip: it took closer to the 7 Tbsp for us.  Once we put that much in we let it run another couple seconds and the dough was then formed so that it would go around and around the machine as one chunk.  That means its done.

c. Divide dough into 2 equal parts, shape into a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate 1 hour.   (You can also refrigerate overnight, or even freeze it for a month!)

2. Take measurements.  In this recipe, you will be fitting a beautiful top crust to your pie.  You do not want this crust to be too big or small.  So before you have filled your pan with anything, invert it and trace the circle onto parchment.  Cut it out, pretend it is a lattice pie crust top you have spent lots of time on and adjust to how you would like it to fit.  If you have a lid that fits your pie pan, keep that in mind and make sure it will fit.  Save this parchment piece for later.

3. Prepare pie shell. On a lightly floured surface, roll 1 disk of dough to 1/8 inch thick.  Fit it into your pie pan.  Trim or shape edges to be flush with the rim.  Refrigerate 1 hour.

4. Preheat oven to 375.  Cut a 13-15 inch round of parchment and place on top of the chilled crust.  Fill the crust with pie weights (or dried beans).  Freeze for 10 min.
Cornelius' tip: It is very important that the parchment round be significantly bigger than the bottom of your pie pan.  We found out why:  if you cut it to be the same size it makes removing the pie weights and the parchment very difficult, especially because the pie weights become very hot.  So trust us on this one and cut a big circle.


5. Bake piecrust for 10 min.

Remove weights and parchment and bake another 5 min, until the crust is light brown.  Then, cool on a wire rack.
Cornelius' tip: the pie crust will not be fully cooked at this point.  it is going to get another 45 min + to bake.  It's going to look something like this when it comes out:

6. Meanwhile, start to prepare the lattice top.

a.  Roll out the other disk of dough to 1/8 inch on a lightly floured piece of parchment.  Now remember that carefully measured disk from step 2?  Use that to cut out a circle on the dough with a paring knife.

b. Transfer the parchment and dough circle to an inverted cookie sheet.

c. Use your cookie cutters to cut out desired shapes.  Transfer the cut-outs to another piece of parchment.
Cornelius' tip: We used pie cutters like these ones from Williams-Sonoma.  That way we didnt have to etch the shapes, it does it all at once.


Cornelius' Tip: make sure to space your cut-outs 1 inch apart, and also stay 1/2 inch away from the edge of the circle.  Otherwise the crust will be too fragile and might break.

d. make an eggwash by whisking together 1 egg yolk and 1 Tbsp cream.  Brush the lattice top with the wash.

e.  arrange your cut-out shapes around the edge of the lattice top, but do not let them hang over the edge or they will burn.  Brush these with egg wash as well.

f. refrigerate lattice top for 20 minutes.

7. Bake lattice top until golden, 20-25 minutes.  Tent with foil if the thin parts start to brown too quickly. Cool on wire rack.

8. Reduce heat to 350.

9. Make pie filling.  Combine sugar, flour, salt, and spices in a bowl.  In a different and bigger bowl, whisk together pumpkin, maple syrup, vanilla, eggs, and 3/4 c cream.  Whisk in flour mixture.

us with our maple syrup penguin friend

Cornelius' tip: It looks best to mix pumpkin pie in an orange bowl.


10.  Put the pie crust on a cookie sheet.  Fill with pumpkin mixture.  Bake 40 min (it will be jiggly still) and then remove from oven.

11.  Carefully place lattice top on the pie.  You won't be able to adjust this, so get it right the first time and hope that you measured well!  Bake until all but the center of the pie is set, about 10 minutes.

12.  Cool completely.  Refrigerate.  Wait a day.

13.  Eat with family and friends!

Once again, this is a delicious pie.  We hope you enjoy it and hope that you had a happy thanksgiving!


pig, out.

once upon a time there was... Pumpkin Tartlets

When Cornelius and I heard about the nationwide pumpkin shortage, we panicked. Would this be a fall season without Cornelius' Favorite Pumpkin Pie? Or Pumpkin Cheesecake? It was almost too much to take. Luckily when we arrived at Wegmans we discovered that they were out of Libby's brand but had plenty of Wegmans brand pumpkin. We loaded our cart, so never fear Castle Farm Cookbook blog readers, there will be plenty of pumpkin recipes to go around. And now that we were no longer facing a pumpkin shortage, we decided to try a new recipe instead of one of the usuals. We have been meaning to use our mini tartlet pans that we just had to have (but 2 years later still hadnt used) so we found a recipe for Jack o' Lantern tarts at Martha Stewarts site. So here it goes...

ingredients

- you will need 12 3-4 inch mini tart tins or 6 mini tins and one 9-10 inch tart pan

crust

3.75 c flour

1.5 tsp salt

1.5 tsp sugar

3 sticks butter, chilled, cubed

.5-1 cup cold water

pumpkin filling

15 oz can pumpkin puree

3 eggs

1/2 c honey

1/4 c packed light brown sugar

1 c heavy cream

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp salt

wash

1 egg yolk

2 Tbsp heavy cream

instructions

1. make the crust dough. combine flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor. Add butter and process until the mixture is coarse - about 10 seconds. With machine running, add water slowly until dough just holds together without being wet or sticky - no more than 30 seconds. it will still be a little crumbly.

2. chill dough. divide dough into 3 equal balls. flatten into a disc and wrap each in plastic. chill at least an hour.

3. prepare crusts. on a floured surface, roll out one disc of dough to 1/8 inch thickness. cut out 6 6-inch circles. (Cal's tip: if you dont have 6-inch cookie cutters, be creative and look around your kitchen. we used the lid to our flour canister.) Repeat with second disc to do anther 6 tartlets or one big tart.

4. fit circles to tart pans, trimming and shaping overhanging edges. Put all the prepared tins on a cookie sheet and chill for 30 min.

5. roll out third disc and cut out 12 3-inch circles (or 6 3-inch circles and a bigger one for the big tart). place circles on a parchment lined baking sheet and chill 30 min.

6. preheat oven to 375.

7. prepare the pumpkin filling. whisk together pumpkin, eggs, honey, sugar, 1 c. cream, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt.

8. prepare for the baking! in a small bowl, beat egg yolk and 2 Tbsp cream. Brush chilled tart tins with glaze. Divide pumpkin filling among the tarts.

9. bake about 30 min or until crust is golden and filling is set. (if you are cooking a large tart it may take an additional 10 min). cool on wire rack.

10. Remove pastry circles from refrigerator. Using a paring knife, carve jack o lantern faces or whatever design you would like into the circles. Brush with egg glaze. Bake until golden, about 12 min.

11. When tarts and tops are cooled, place a top on each tart. Chill before eating.

Cal's tip: the 3", 6", and 10" measurements are approximate. Make sure to measure your actual bakeware or else your pies will come out silly like ours.

Here we are with our finished product!

Here in the Castle-Farm Cookbook, we are not going to lie to you - these pumpkin tarts taste pretty much the same as pumpkin pie. Now, we really like pumpkin pie, but we have some recipes for the pumpkin filling that we like even better. So if you are looking to make something cute, or are trying to use your mini tart pans for the first time, this is the recipe for you. If you are going for maximum pumpkin deliciousness - stay tuned for our thanksgiving pumpkin pie.

Until next time,

Moo.