Halfway to DC: Things to do with Pumpkin

Yay fall! Yay pumpkin! Really that's Yay squash! because even Libby's canned pumpkin isn't made from the big round orange pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo). It's made from a variety that's smooth and tan in the same species as butternut squash (Cucurbita moschata) called the Dickinson's Select Pumpkin.

But I know more that Libby's, or at least I'm willing to work harder, so I successfully turned my free big orange pumpkin from Safeway ("Free. All pumpkins must go.") into pumpkin puree for baking. It was just a matter of cracking it open by dropping on the floor (yes it had a really hard skin...I would not have wanted to carve this one!), scraping out the seeds (to toast) and microwaving the sections to soften the flesh. After I scraped the flesh out of the skin I had to boil it a while longer in a pot to fully soften. Then I pureed the flesh in the food processor and boiled down the remaining liquid before mixing it all back together. You have to do this with C. pepo varieties because their flesh is more watery and less strongly flavored compared to the ones we call squash. Once I did all that it made great pumpkin puree and I've been baking with it for the bake sale next week.

Then I had to mix up some pumpkin pie spice. I modified this recipe.

Update: Oh my god! Cardamom is the best thing ever in pumpkin pie spice. I used this in the pumpkin pie cobbler and wanted to eat the pumpkin batter with a spoon. This is hereby christened:

Sarah's Pumpkin Symphony Pie Spice

2 T ground cinnamon
2 t ground ginger
1 t freshly grated nutmeg (not really measured of course)
3/4 t ground cloves
1/2 t ground mace
1/2 t fresh ground cardamom (grind the seeds in a mortar and measure after grinding)

Brownies gone wild: I mashed up recipes from Smitten Kitchen and David Lebovitz and made "Pumpkin-Chocolate Brownie Cake Bars with Cheesecake Swirl topped with hazelnuts and spiked with Cinnamon and Cayenne." It was definitely over the top...good thing it's for the bake sale! I'm not posting the recipe yet because I want to tweak it to be less cake-y and more brownie-y and make a real pumpkin blondie. I think the original Martha Stewart recipe Deb used has way too much flour to be a brownie (or blondie) so I'll try cutting that way back. It would be easier to beat the eggs with a stand mixer though.