Pumpkin: lasagna and kheer

What is it? Well ... for one thing, it's sprinkled with cheese ...
pumpkin lasagna

Pumpkins are:
-A squash
-A fruit
-A gourd

Pumpkin can be:
-Boiled
-Baked
-Roasted

Pumpkin and pumpkin seeds provide:
-Potassium
-Magnesium
-Iron
-The flesh provides beta-carotene, an antioxidant that helps fight free readicals
-The seeds provide zinc and essential fatty acids

*****

I like to think that my KitchenAid mixer in the back isn't jealous of the little hand mixer I bought before the KA was gifted to me by one of my fabulous friends. The Little Mixer that Could (LMtC) also doubles as a small food processor, and also has an immersion blender attachment.
mixer: pumpkin puree

Looking into the diminutive mixer bowl, you can see it does a pretty good job of pureeing roasted pumpkin
mixer: pumpkin puree

And it came with a neat little cover--LMtC is like a Transformer--more than meets the eye. This mixer would be an Autobot. Mixer Prime.
mixer: pumpkin puree

All this for pumpkin lasagna. Say what you will about Top Chef Season 1's Tiffani Faison--she came up with intriguing recipe, none less than her introductory dish. Those leftover wonton wrappers from Farmer's Cheese Ravioli have gone a long way!
pumpkin lasagna

Bite?
pumpkin lasagna

The last bit of puree
pumpkin puree

Pumpkin keer, traditionally a rice pudding, from Ruta Kahate's 5 Spices, 50 Dishes, substituting pumpkin seeds for cashews
pumpkin kheer

With coconut cake "croutons" from Filipino Food night (Bibingka--rice and coconut cake--coming soon to a post near you)
pumpkin kheer

Enjoyed over my newest cookbooks
cookbooks

Comments

Rina said…
These look cool, thanks for visiting my blog.
Julie said…
Thanks! I made them to use up all my extra pumpkin, but now I wish I had more to play with!
Anonymous said…
Excellent use of bibinka! I'm looking forward to that post. And what do you think of "Memories of Philippine Kitchens"? I didn't like the adobo recipe in it and I wonder if it's just me.
Julie said…
Oh man, I was so glad I had some bibingka on hand! The kheer by itself was pretty good, but even with the crunch from the pumpkin seeds, I felt like I needed something extra to break up the texture. The bibingka was a taste and texture duo bonus! I'll be putting that post up in the next few days.

I haven't had time to really give a hard look at "Memories of Philippine Kitchens," but my first impression was that it was eye candy first. The recipes aren't always necessarily traditional, as some are altered to suit the authors' tastes--no harm in that. That said, they definitely aren't my memories of Mom's Philippine kitchen. Coconut in adobo might be traditional in some provinces, but it's foreign to my tongue. When I think adobo, I think salty and tangy, like this. This recipe is almost identical to my mom's, except for its substitution of white wine vinegar for regular white vinegar. Still, you get the vinegar tang and the soy sauce salt. The sweet doesn't seem right, but I'll give it a try some day and have a better idea then.
Chou said…
Does it matter what kind of pumpkin you use?
Julie said…
Chou, I like sugar pie pumpkins because they give a consistent result when I use them in cooking. The regular pumpkins you'd carve for Halloween are also edible, and I think most are, but they can be really fibrous and not puree very easily, especially when they're bigger and older.
Anonymous said…
Tiffani's pumpkin lasagna is a staple on the Olive menu of her former employer, Todd English.
Julie said…
Anon, was that before or after she was on the show? More importantly, is that her or Todd's recipe? Hmm ... either way, it looked yummy, and my version was delicious!

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