{"id":495,"date":"2009-10-24T17:03:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-24T17:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=495"},"modified":"2009-10-24T17:03:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-24T17:03:00","slug":"o-great-pumpkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=495","title":{"rendered":"O, Great Pumpkins"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Thai<\/a><\/div>\n

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“Eat food.
Not too much.
Mostly plants.”
<\/i> ~ Michael Pollan <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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We had BIG PLANS to participate in the Vegan Month of Food challenge. We planned on making coconut milk caramel to go with our harvest apples. We were going to experiment with making black-eyed pea fritters, marshmallows from a new recipe we’d found that uses xantham gum, and a tribute remake of a lovely Clementine Pie we saw this summer. We had all manner of nifty things we were going to bake and cook and post about.<\/p>\n

Instead, on the very first day of the month, I got sick with the Days of Incandescence; five horrible days of fever over 101\u00b0F\/39\u00b0C and aching joints, and spent two miserable weeks with a cough and aches and weakness that wouldn’t go away. I believe I was visited by the dreaded Bacon Lung, close cousin to the Swine ‘Flu. Seeing as I’m a vegetarian, it plagued me only briefly, then had to go away…<\/p>\n

In all seriousness, though, I was bummed to be getting sick so early in the season — and so seriously<\/i> sick. I had to sleep with ice packs at one point, because doses of echinacea, olive leaf extract, Sambuccol\/black elderberry extract, Tylenol\/Paracetemol and other non-aspirin fever reducers weren’t working. (And, as you can see, we tried everything.) Every time I get sick, I wonder if it’s something I’m doing wrong. Am I eating too much sugar? Am I not drinking enough? Is it because I don’t do yoga? Should I not color my hair? So, instead of it being a month of fun food, it’s been a month of obsessing. And driving D. crazy.<\/p>\n

Luckily for you, though, I’m almost done.<\/p>\n

\"Pumpkin<\/a><\/p>\n

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D. brought home a pumpkin the other week, much to my glee. Like most New World foods, pumpkins are sold here, but we usually see the wee-tiny decorative gourds or big massive things that are meant to be cut up for jack-o-lanterns. Though it’s really more a matter of seed variety, I suspect that the big pumpkins don’t expend all their energy on flavor, so it was nice that our grocer down the way had small ones.<\/p>\n

We halved the pumpkin and baked it face down on the tray. D. scraped the cooked flesh from the rind, and we had enough to freeze, and enough to make two loaves of pumpkin bread. Using your own pumpkin pur\u00e9e is not the same as using canned pumpkin; the canned is a.) often not solely pumpkin and b.) packed in and of consistent water content. This first pumpkin was drier than expected, so the batter turned out a little thicker than usual (this is what I get for “winging it”), making for a slightly heavier loaf. However, I only used half the pur\u00e9e for this first batch, and will do a little adjusting of liquids for the second batch, which should be prettier.<\/p>\n

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Great Pumpkin Bread<\/b><\/p>\n