Prime Cuts

As I mentioned before one of my favorite things about autumn is the food. More specifically, it’s a time where I can fill my plate with root vegetables. Out of all of these vegetables, one not only means fall, but it  absolutely means holiday and family – and that vegetable is pumpkin. There have been a number of recipes on Prime Cuts over the past couple weeks that feature this incredible vegetable, but I wanted to give you my take.

Every season that the glistening Libby’s pumpkin cans* appear on shelves throughout stores, I get giddy and I’m inspired by the endless possibilities. I’ve had the good fortune of having pumpkin for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and even in cocktails.

When I heard reports of this year’s pumpkin shortage, I immediately stopped by my local grocer to pick up a flat of canned pumpkin, so I’d be well stocked throughout the season.

Versatile and nutritious, it is one of the few ingredients that to me feels both like a comfort food and healthy choice.

So if you haven’t made your trek to the store to stock up, get going! You don’t want to miss your chance to make incredibly delicious (and I mean DE-lish!) recipes like this one I pulled from VegSource.com:

Gnocchi in Pumpkin Sauce

Ingredients

4 cups whole wheat gnocchi
1 1/2 cups pureed pumpkin
1 1/2 cups almond milk
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt

Basil Cream:
1/4 cup raw cashews, presoaked in water for 12 hours
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup fresh basil
1/4 teaspoon fresh pepper

Preparation

1. To make the basil cream, drain the soaked cashews. In a blender or food processor, blend cashews with 1/4 cup water, basil and pepper until the mixture has the consistency of a thick cream, meaning it should slowly drip off a spoon.
2. Boil the gnocchi until they float, then drain in a colander. Shock them with a quick spritz of cold water from your faucet.
3. To prepare the sauce, mix the pureed pumpkin with the almond milk, nutmeg and salt. Simmer for 5 minutes, then add the gnocchi. Simmer for another minute.
4. Assemble the dish by placing the gnocchi and sauce on the plates. Add dots or swirls of basil cream.

While the recipe takes awhile prepartion-wise, the resulting flavor is worth every second! Enjoy!

*Full disclosure, Libby’s Pumpkin is a Publicis Consultants | PR client, and is my agency of record.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Photo by: eekim

Mmmm … pumpkin. Is there anything that conjures stronger images of Fall-ish, childhood fun? Halloween, jack o’ lanterns, the homey smell of your mom’s pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving … these things are indelibly ingrained in our psyches. Their very thoughts can instantly transport us to cozy days spent with family and friends, sitting comfortably next to roaring fireplaces, basking in the warmth of their company.

For many people I’ve met, the only pumpkin they’ve ever eaten has been in pie. There’s nothing wrong with this, to be sure; good pumpkin pie is one of the best things in the world. But if you’ve only ever had pumpkin this way, you are really missing out. Pumpkin bread & muffins, warmed with butter, are among my favorite comfort foods. Pumpkin doughnuts (ohhh, yes) are scrumididdlyumptious. A favorite of my kids is homemade pumpkin pancakes (I promise to get to that very soon!). I’ve even had a wonderful pumpkin risotto served with toasted pecans. Incredibly versatile, pumpkin can be incorporated into a host of foods, whether they’re for breakfast, lunch or dinner. One of my favorite ways to serve it is in pasta.

My family are big-time pasta eaters, so I’m always trying out new ways of fixing it (tomato sauces start to get boring after a while). Trying to capture the flavors of Fall, I started to stir. To tweak, to spice. A little salt here, a little cinnamon there. Maybe a little cream? Sure! Why not? What I came up with was this, and it’s become a must-have staple in my house:

Rigatoni with Pumpkin & Italian Turkey Sausage

Ingredients

1 pound Rigatoni
2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 pound sweet Italian turkey sausage
1 medium-sized yellow onion, chopped fine (Vidalia or Maui onions are great for this!)
3 cloves chopped garlic
1 bay leaf
1/2 tablespoon sage
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup pumpkin puree (you know you have at least three cans in your pantry)
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground nutmeg
Kosher salt
Freshly-ground black pepper
Freshly-grated/shaved Romano or Parmesan cheese

Preparation

Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil. Once boiling**, add a healthy dose of salt to the water and cook rigatoni until just before “al dente” (the pasta will cook a bit more once it’s added to the sauce), about 6 minutes.

**Did you know that adding salt to your pot before the water boils can damage your cookware? It can.

In a separate, deep saucepan, heat olive oil over a medium-high flame. Add chopped onion and saute until it’s translucent & a little bit caramelized. Add chopped garlic & saute until golden, being careful not to let it burn (burned garlic does not taste good … not even a little). Remove sausages from their casings and add meat to the onion & garlic mixture. Brown thoroughly. Add bay leaf, sage and wine and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the wine is reduced by about half. Add chicken broth, pumpkin puree, cinnamon, and nutmeg; stir until mixed well. Add heavy cream, Kosher salt & freshly-ground pepper (to taste) and stir to combine.

Add cooked pasta to the sauce, then toss to coat evenly. Serve piping hot with lots of freshly-grated Romano (just my preference — Parmesan is certainly a fine choice!) cheese and a glass of nice, dry white wine (this is complemented nicely by Riesling, but you choose your favorite!) and ENJOY!

Explore the wonderfully wide culinary world of pumpkin. It’s big, it’s bright, it’s orange … but most importantly, it’s DELICIOUS.

When she’s not minding her pumpkin patch (which is among the most sincere out there), Melissa DelGaudio is the principal at Honeybee Consulting, a full-service copywriting, marketing & public relations firm based in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. She can often be found Twitter, where she tries to carve out illuminating conversations. Be sure to pay her a visit!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Today my friend Jessica Randazza comes by to hang out and share a recipe that her grandparents brought over with them from Sicily.  Jessica currently serves as an account executive and social media manager for a food public relations agency in Seattle. Because she grew up as the daughter of an executive chef and in an Italian family, she uses food as a way to bring friends and family together. When she’s not hanging out in the kitchen, she can be found tweeting or sharing her thoughts on the communications on her blog.

For years it has been a tradition to return home to Birmingham, Ala. each Labor Day weekend and while the trek home is primarily to see my friends and family, the time that I spend with them is always centered around food.
The list of out-of-this-world cuisine that my hometown could easily consist of 100 items, but unless I’m feeling overly ambitious, I never have a chance to savor them all.

That said, there are two things that I ALWAYS make time for — southern food and my family’s favorite, “basta with the gusta”.

Southern food can mean a lot of things, and it actually doesn’t matter what it is. I’m satisfied with cornbread, sweet tea, mashed potatoes, fried pickles, mac and cheese…really anything. And since I didn’t go home this year, I threw a birthday (which also happens to fall around Labor Day) celebration for myself centered around all southern cuisine. But the basta was still missing.

Now I’ll be honest, I have no idea what “gusta” means or if I’m even pronouncing it properly. But its based on a Sicilian peasant dish my grandparents brought over from Italy, and it’s a Randazza classic.

My friend, Carson, has heard me rant and rave about the dish for years.  Being the incredible friend she is, she knew I’d want it for my birthday and called up my mom and asked for the recipe — surprisingly something I never thought to do. As it turns out, it’s REALLY easy.

Jessica’s “Basta with the Gusta” Recipe

Ingredients

Chopped medium yellow onion
2-3 zucchini cut into 1/4” circles
3 1/2 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
Parmesan cheese to taste
8 oz spaghetti or a noodle pasta cooked al dente
Olive oil

Preparation

In a large-ish frying pan, cook your onion with a splash of olive oil over medium heat until it starts to caramelize. Throw in 2/3 of the chopped zucchini with the onions. Cook until warm. Pour in the chicken stock, heat until warm.

In a separate pan, pour in olive oil to cook the remaining 1/3 chopped zucchini. When it begins to brown, sprinkle breadcrumbs and coat both sides (there should be enough oil in the pan to help the breadcrumbs stick). Pull off the heat and plate.

Pour chicken stock mixture over pasta and stir thoroughly and plate. Add breaded zucchini and Parmesan on top and mangiare!

A simple dish with an surprisingly exquisite flavor profile…and now I know I don’t have to wait to have a taste of home.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.