Comfort Food Season

Try as I might, I just can't seem to get a handle on blogging. Every time I think I'm ready to post in a somewhat consistent manner, my intentions fall by the wayside. To those who continue to read my sporadic updates, thank you. I very much miss interacting with all of you, but my attention span for internet-things has been very limited these last six months. Most days I wake up already mentally and emotionally exhausted and the thought of trying to squeeze internet time into my routine is overwhelming. I wish it wasn't. I do plan on devoting an afternoon sometime in the near future to blog reading and reestablishing contact with all of you.

In the meantime, I do have both the time and concentration for an update. I cannot decide if that sentence should be left as is with a period or if an exclamation would be more appropriate. Haha.

So, it is well known (or, used to be!) around here that I love autumn. Though, I can never fully decide if autumn or spring is my favorite time of year, so I've stopped trying. Anyway, one of the greatest things about autumn is that it heralds in comfort food season. We all have those favorite dishes and treats that somehow taste so much better when there's a chill in the air. For me, it's my mother's macaroni and cheese and any of her homemade soups, as well as my father's goulash and beef stew. This is my favorite time of year to bake both pumpkin-oatmeal and carrot-honey cookies. And, I have something new to add to my list: pumpkin black bean chili. I know what you're thinking: pumpkin chili? Trust me, it's good! The flavor is smooth and subtle. Try it!

Pumpkin Black Bean Chili
Adapted from The Ordinary Vegetarian.

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 10 to 20-ounces mushrooms*, cleaned and diced
• 4 cups cooked black beans (or 2 15-ounce cans, rinsed and drained)
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 2 cups fresh pumpkin puree (or 1 15-ounce can)
• (2) 15-ounce or (1) 28-ounce can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes, with liquid
• 1 1/2 cup vegetable broth
• 1 1/2 tbsp. smoked paprika
• 3 tsp. chili powder
• 1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. rubbed sage
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne
• 2 tsp. ground cumin

* I used baby portobellos, but small white/button mushrooms would be fine as well. Also, the mushroom quantity can easily be altered to your liking. I always say the more mushrooms the better! For this recipe, I used (2) 10-ounce packages.

Directions:

In a large soup pot, heat 1/4 cup water and add the diced onion. Saute for 3 minutes, or until translucent. Add the garlic and saute for an additional 2 - 3 minutes, until fragrant.

Add the mushrooms and saute for an additional 2 - 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the spices and stir to coat the onions and mushrooms. Saute for 1 - 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Pour in the broth  and allow to simmer for about 2 minutes.

Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Lower heat and cover. Simmer for 45 minutes stirring occasionally.

Carrot Honey Cookies

Over the weekend a good friend and I stayed in for an Anne of Green Gables movie marathon complete with scrumptious homemade cookies and endless cups of tea.

After watching Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, we decided it was still too early to call it quits and put in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. However, my visit to Middle Earth had to be cut short after an hour as I was seeing more of the backs of my eyelids than the movie. Perhaps our movie selections made for an odd pairing, but we certainly had fun with it.

And what about those cookies, you ask? My friend whipped together a delightful batch of Earl Grey shortbread (recipe found here) and I made carrot honey cookies. I found the recipe on the Prince Edward Island tourism website a few years ago (nerd alert!) and they have become a definite favorite since then.

Carrot Honey Cookies

1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup honey
1 egg slightly beaten with 1/4 cup shortening (or butter)
1 cup sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
dash of salt
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used walnuts)
1/2 cup grated raw carrot
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat over to 375F

In a medium sized bowl, stir baking soda into honey and add to the creamed shortening (or butter) and egg. Beat until creamy. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the honey mixture. Combine oatmeal, nuts and grated carrot and stir into the mixture until well blended. Add vanilla last and mix well. Drop the cookie dough by teaspoonfuls on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, flattening with the end of a fork. Bake for 12 minutes or until lightly browned.

Recipe adapted from here

Pumpkin Scones

My mother and I tend to go all out when it comes to baking with pumpkin. We love the stuff. Apart from the traditional pumpkin pie, bread and muffin, we dive further into the realm of baked-good bliss with pumpkin pancakes, waffles, cookies, and our recent favorite: scones. Maple glazed pumpkin scones, to be exact! Oh my, they are delicious! Enjoyed with a cup of coffee or tea, they make for a perfect little breakfast or dessert. Would you like to try them? Here's the recipe!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour

• 1/3 cup brown sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 cup butter (cut into very small pieces)

• 1/4 cup nuts (optional)

• 1/3 cup half & half

• 3/4 cup pumpkin

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (F).
   
   
2. In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients. Add butter to flour mixture and mix with hands. In a separate bowl, combine the pumpkin, half & half, and vanilla; mix well and then add to the flour mixture. Stir, but do not over-mix.
   
   
3. On counter or table, lay out a sheet of wax paper sprinkled with flour. Take the scone dough and form a 8'' round 1.5'' thick disc, making sure there is flour on both sides so it does not stick. Cut into 8 pie-like slices.
   
   
4. Carefully places scones on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake for 13 minutes. Rotate the pan and bake for an additional 13 minutes.
   

Maple glaze:

Mix 1 cup of confectioners (powdered) sugar with pure maple syrup until it reaches a consistency that will allow you to drizzle over the scones (best done with a spoon). Note: scones must be cooled prior to being topped with maple glaze.

Recipe adapted from several sources.

Honey cake recipe

Hello, my name is Ariella and some of you might know me from my blog Pearls In Your Hair. When Emily asked me to guest blog for her while she is on holiday I was really excited since I've never written a guest post before. At first I couldn't come up with a good idea for what to blog about, but then, as I was asked to bake a honey cake for the Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) dinner we went to last Wednesday, I thought it could be nice to share the recipe with you. I think honey cake is an excellent autumn cake that, with it's sweet taste, goes wonderfully together with a cup of warm tea, or coffee if you like.



Now, the recipe:
The ingredients you need are: 1 1/2 cup (350 ml) of honey,1 1/2 cup (300 grams) of sugar, 3 3/4 cups (470 grams) of flour, 3 teaspoons of baking powder and 3/4 teaspoon of baking soda, 3 teaspoons of cinnamon, a pinch of salt, 3/4 cup (180 ml) of raspseed oil or coconut oil, 4 eggs, an orange or a lemon and a little bit of milk.



1. You begin with mixing the dry ingredients, apart from the sugar, together: the baking powder and baking soda, the cinnamon, the salt and the flour in a bowl.






2. Then you mix the liquid ingredients - the eggs, the oil as well as the sugar in a large bowl. You should also add the honey, but as honey can be difficult to work with when it's a little stiff, warming it for a short moment in a pan will make it nice and runny.



3. Then grate either one teaspoon of lemon zest, or one table spoon of orange zest if you are using that.




4. Now you should carefully beat in the dry ingredients with the liquid until you have a batter. If the batter feels a little stiff you can add some milk if you like.




5. When the batter is ready it's time to pour it into a pan, or cupcake molds like I did. Then you bake it in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, or 175 degrees Celsius. The baking time depends on the size of pan you are using (if baking the cake as cupcakes they should take about 25 minutes, and as a cake in a pan about 45 minutes) so check on the cake with a toothpick now and then to see if it's ready.



6. Ta-dah! The honey cake is ready. However, as you can see, I put a bit too much batter in my cupcake molds, so be careful not to fill them all the way up.



7. The honey cake cupcakes after I'd sprinkled some powder sugar on them (and cut off some of the excess dough, mind you). Delicious!