WTISIM: Pumpkin and Ginger Teabread

It's been a while since I took part at the Waiter there is something in my ... blog event, organised by Andrew, Johanna and Jeanne. This month's event is hosted by Jeanne, who has chosen the Cucurbitacae family as a theme, or if you want a more poetic title, For the Love of Gourd. I've been featuring quite a few pumpkin recipes recently on my blog - pumpkin and flowering quince jam, pumpkin and ginger jam, pumpkin and nutmeg soup, to name just the last three. But I wanted something more mainstream this time, so I baked a pumpkin and ginger loaf, or a teabread.

This pumpkin loaf is somewhat different, as it uses grated raw pumpkin instead of cooked pumpkin purée. It's a slightly modifying recipe from BBC Good Food (November 2002). When I baked it few weeks ago, I had run out of those delicious Buderim ginger nibbles that you can buy at Lakeland stores in the UK. If I had had them at the time, I would have certainly thrown in a generous handful of them, for sure..

Pumpkin Loaf with Ginger
(Sügisene kõrvitsakeeks ingveriga)
Serves 10

175 g butter, melted
140 g runny honey
1 large egg
250 g raw butternut squash or pumpkin, coarsely grated
100 g light muscovado sugar
350 g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp ground ginger
2 Tbsp demerara sugar

Mix melted butter, honey, whisked egg and grated pumpkin in a blow. Fold in the flour, baking powder and ground ginger.
Spoon the batter (it's quite heavy) into a buttered and lined loaf tin, sprinkle with demerara sugar.
Bake in the middle of 180 C/350 F oven for 50-60 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and nicely risen.
Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool completely on a metal rack.

Slice and serve with butter. Mmmm...

Another pumpkin jam, this time with flowering quinces

My loyal readers may remember that photo collage of flowering quinces from last summer, when I made flowering quince extract and flowering-quince and apple jam. Well, I made several other jams using flowering quinces from my mum's backyard this autumn. One of our favourite ones was this pumpkin jam (yep, just as nice as this ginger and pumpkin jam) . It's a lovely thick jam - flowering quinces are very high in pectin, with a beautiful yellow colour (well, it's mostly pumpkin after all), with a nice acidity lended by the flowering quinces. Another excellent jam to be spread on your breakfast or afternoon toast or English muffin.

NB! Note that flowering quince (Chaenomeles Lindl) and quince (Cydonia oblonga) are related, but NOT the same fruit (quite confusingly, all quinces flower, but that's another topic altogether).

Cleaning flowering-quinces for jam-making can be quite a pain. The fruit are hard and small. The best result is to find a comfortable place to sit on, put on your favourite album or switch on your favourite TV channel. Place three bowls in front of you - one filled with washed floweringquinces, one smaller bowl for piths and seeds, and one for cleaned flowering quince slices. Take a small, sharp knife (a vegetable peeling knife works well), and work away :)

Pumpkin Jam with Flowering Quinces
(Kõrvitsa-ebaküdooniamoos)



1 kg pumpkin flesh, cut into small cubes
1 kg flowering quinces, deseeded and cut into quarters
500 ml (2 cups) of water
1 kg caster sugar

Place the pumpkin and flowering quinces into a large saucepan. Add water. Bring to the boil and simmer on a low heat for 15 minutes, skimming any froth that appears on the surface. Stir every now and then.
Add sugar and bring to the boil again. Remove from the heat and cool.
Bring everything to the boil again and simmer for 10-15 minutes, stirring every now and then, until the pumpkin is soft and the jam has thickened.
Distribute into hot sterilised jars and close. Keep in a cool place.

Recipe for Mozzarella Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed peppers are a handy supper dish, but many of the 'traditional' versions (i.e. filled with minced meat and rice) are too heavy for me. Recently I've tried couple of lighter versions, and this one was well received at a recent dinner with friends. The recipe is adapted from an old issue of British Tesco Recipe Magazine (March 2003, I believe). The dish contains very few ingredients, but had surprisingly plenty of flavour, so I'll definitely try this again.

PS Sorry for the small hiatus - I was participating at a workshop in Finland, spending most of the last week in Tampere and Helsinki. It wasn't all work, however, as my dear K. joined me for the weekend of special shopping and delicious eating in Helsinki.

Mozzarella-stuffed Peppers
(Mozzarellaga täidetud paprikad)
Serves 3 as a main course or 6 as a starter



3 bell peppers (a red, yellow and orange one, perhaps?)
1 Tbsp olive oil
150 g fresh mozzarella cheese, cubed
8-12 cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
half of a red onion, thinly sliced
a generous handful of fresh basil leaves
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Halve the peppers, remove the seeds. Brush the pepper halves with oil, both inside and out, and place snugly next to each other in an oven dish.
Divide mozzarella cubes, halved or quartered cherry tomatoes, onion slices and half of the basil leaves between the pepper halves.
Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil.
Bake in the middle of a 180 C/350 F for 30-40 minutes, until mozzarella has melted.
Sprinkle the rest of basil leaves on top, drizzle with some more olive oil and serve with a crusty bread.

Other stuffed peppers recipes @ Nami-Nami:
Red peppers with cumin-scented halloumi cubes
Pointed red peppers stuffed with spinach & mushrooms