Milnot Pumpkin Pie

 What do you do if you have 5 cans of Milnot in your cupboard? First you make a Milnot cheesecake. Then, to spice things up, you should try this under-the-label recipe for "Classic Pumpkin Pie with Maple Whipped Cream and Walnuts."

This is pie is not dense or too sweet, and the Milnot and eggs help the pie set up like a custard. The mixture is liquid at first, but just be patient. In my oven, it took 10-15 minutes longer than the recipe called for, but it came together nicely.

The recipe calls for a whipped cream layer on top of the pie, but we just added the whip in dallops. Next time I'll try it layered on.

My mom liked it better than any other pumpkin pie she's had!

Milnot Pumpkin Pie with Maple Whipped Cream

~Print Recipe~

• 1 unbaked deep-dish pie crust shell (Trader Joe's brand was really good.)
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 16 oz. can pumpkin
• 1 12 oz can Milnot (evaporated filled milk)
• 1/2 pint whipped cream
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

1. Combine sugar, spices, and salt in a medium bowl. 
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs lightly and blend in pumpkin, spice mixture and Milnot.
3. Pour into pie shell and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees and bake 25-35 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool.
4. Beat cream and syrup in a chilled bowl until soft peaks form. Spread cream over pie and sprinkle with nuts.

GF Fudge Chip Cookies

In exchange for picking me up from the airport, I offered to bake a friend some cookies. Any cookies, take your pick. Chocolate chip? Peanut butter? Really, anything you like.

"Great," he said, "Doesn't matter, as long as they're gluten free."

Me, on the outside: "Oh, cool! I've never made anything gluten free before. It will be a challenge!" (On the inside: "Oh shit. I don't have any of the crazy ingredients you need to for gluten free baking. This is going to be a much more difficult and expensive project than I anticipated.)

Next step: Message Libby, my undisputed queen of gluten free baking. What should I do?! I don't know anything about baking without gluten. Help!

Libby immediately sends me a well-researched reply with some easy alternatives. Yes! I knew Libby would come through. Super easy and quick cookies--perfect!

These cookies are wonderful because instead of having to purchase wheat flour substitutes and other ingredients that I am not likely to use often, they just omit the flour entirely. They are quick, easy, sweet, crispy-chewy, and extraordinarily chocolatey. Next time I'll mix in walnuts, too, so that the bitter nuttiness can balance the sweetness for an even more complex gluten free cookie experience.

GF Fudge Chip Cookies
~Print Recipe~

• 2 1/4 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon espresso powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup cocoa powder, Dutch-process preferred
• 3 large egg whites
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• Chopped walnuts, to taste 

1.  Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease two baking sheets, or line with parchment/Silpats.
2. 
   Stir together ingredients through the vanilla, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl, until smooth. Add chocolate chips and walnuts, if using, and stir until incorporated. The mixture will look quite runny.
3. Drop batter onto the prepared baking sheets in 1 1/2" circles--use a cookie scoop if you have one.


4. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes; they should spread, become shiny, and develop crackly tops. 
5. Remove the cookies from the oven and cool on the pans set on cooling racks.

Banana Oat Muffins

Overripe bananas: they're a little scary looking, and honestly quite disgusting when you open them, but they are the perfect motivation for making a baked treat. I love banana bread, and make it often, when I have three or more overripe bananas. This week I only had two, so I figured I'd have to mix it up a bit.

I found a recipe for banana oat muffins on allrecipes.com, the website I usually start with when looking for a good base recipe I can adapt for my pantry. I found a simple recipe with good reviews, and it looked super easy to make. I am sure you can substitute as you like with the recipe posted here as well. A good rule of thumb - if you're not down with sugar or oil, just use applesauce instead, and a little brown sugar. You can also incorporate yogurt or sour cream in lieu of milk or oil. Get creative, have fun, banana muffins are very forgiving. (Also check out our other banana recipes: Nana's Banana Bread, Banana, Pecan, Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, and Best Oatmeal )

Banana Oat Muffins

~Print Recipe~

What's in it

1 1/2 C flour (you can do half whole wheat, half unbleached)

1 C oats

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C sugar (you can mix and match brown and white)

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

cinnamon

1 egg, lightly beaten

3/4 C milk (I used almond breeze)

1/3 C oil (or applesauce - I grated an overripe apple into it)

1 C mashed ripe banana

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

optional: chopped walnuts, chocolate chips

How it's made

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line cupcake/muffin pan with paper liners or spray with oil. (Recipe makes a baker's dozen.)

In a large mixing bowl, combine the first 7 (dry) ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining ingredients until combined. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and mix until just combined. Using the 1/4 C measuring cup, scoop batter into muffin pan, almost full. Bake 18-20 min until done.

Roasted Pear Salad with Blue Cheese and Walnuts

Ever have a recipe that you know you want to make, but it takes you a little while to actually get around to making it? Ever have one that took you two years to finally make? Well, this is mine.

I first saw this recipe while I was at the gym. I've mentioned before that watching the Food Network was basically my main reason for going to the gym. (I don't have cable, OK?!) If my timing was wrong, I'd get stuck with Paula Deen or Sandra Lee. But if the stars aligned in my favor, I'd get to watch Ina Garten's show, The Barefoot Contessa.

Ina's recipes always look delicious and she seems like she'd be a sweet person to have as a next door neighbor. So there I was one day, all sweaty and whatnot, and Ina comes on and makes this wonderful looking pear salad. It's got blue cheese and walnuts and dried cranberries, and all manor of delicious ingredients. And it doesn't look hard to make. I put it on my mental list of recipes I really want to try.

Subsequently, I went so far as to bookmark the recipe on my laptop. It languished there for two whole years. I never forgot about this recipe, but somehow I never went out of my way to get the ingredients, either. Then last week, somehow after all this time, it happened.

Pears were on sale at my normal supermarket, so I bought two. Later, on a whim, I stopped at a Grocery Outlet--which by the way has an excellent cheese selection if you didn't already know. I got a big hunk of blue cheese for next to nothing. I knew I had nuts and cranberries on hand. This was finally coming together! I picked up some spinach and lemons and I was ready to go.

Or so I thought. As I started making this salad, I realized that I used up my dried cranberries making some cookies recently. I dug around and found some dried blueberries--sometimes you have just have to substitute. Then I got to the part about apple cider, which I never have on hand and forgot to buy. "Oh man, I really blew it now," I thought. Just when I thought I had it! I was trying to come up with something I could use in place of apple cider...

when Mark reminded me that I randomly happened to have some on hand, probably for the first time ever. I am working in a fifth grade class and after their Christmas party we had extra Martinelli's left over. The teacher gave me a bottle. I had completely forgotten about it. But there it was in my refrigerator--a veritable Christmas miracle, if you ask me!

Long story not-so short, this recipe finally came together (in adapted form) two years after it initially piqued my interest. It was oh so worth the wait.

Roasted Pear Salad with Blue Cheese and Walnuts

~Print Recipe~

• 2 pears, ripe but still firm
• 1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (from about 1 lemon)
• 3 oz. blue cheese, crumbled (plus more for sprinkling)
• 1/4 cup dried blueberries or cranberries
• 1/4 cup walnuts or pecans (plus more for sprinkling)
• 1/2 cup apple cider
• 2 tablespoons red wine or port
• 1/3 cup lightly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 lb. baby spinach or arugula

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Peel the pears and slice them in half lengthwise. Chop off a little of the rounded sides so that they will be sit steadily in the baking dish. Scoop out the seeds with a spoon or melon baller, leaving a well for the filling. Toss the pears in the lemon juice, to help them from browning. Arrange the pears, core-side up in a small baking dish and set aside.
2. In a small bowl, mix together the blue cheese, berries and nuts. Divide the mixture among the wells in the pears, compacting it into the wells and mounding it up a bit. (If you have extra, sprinkle it on the salad.)
3. In the same bowl, mix the apple cider, wine and brown sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Pour over and around the pears in the baking dish. Bake pears, basting occasionally with the liquid, until tender--about 30 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, just before the pears are done, whisk together the olive oil and lemon juice. After you take the pears out of the oven, add 1/4 cup of the basting liquid to finish the dressing. In a large bowl, toss the greens with the desired amount of dressing. Pour rest of dressing into a serving vessel.
5. Separate the greens onto 2 large plates. Place 2 warm roasted pear halves on each bed of greens and sprinkle with desired about of blue cheese and nuts. Serve immediately, with extra dressing on the side.

Serves 2 as a main course or 4 as an appetizer

Lentil-Walnut Burger with Creamy Cilantro Lemon Sauce

Lentil burgers remind me of the Sierra Nevada Brewery pub in Chico, CA. They offer enticing dishes of all types, but whenever I am there I have to get the lentil burger. It's just too delicious to pass up.

I saw this lentil-walnut burger recipe in my Everyday Food: Great Fast Food cookbook, from the people who do the Martha Stewart Living magazine. So far, what I've made from this book has been tasty, and what I really appreciate (just like in my Martha Stewart's Cookies cookbook) are the fantastic photos. It certainly helps motivate me to make new dishes when I'm staring at a mouth-watering picture.

I'm going through a cook-what-I-already-have-in-my-cupboards phase. I happened to have some dried lentils on hand--in fact I'd had them for quite some time. And I always keep a Costco-sized bag of walnuts (so much cheaper!) for baking and the like. So, the stars aligned and I decided to make these burgers for dinner. It was a bit of a process (maybe because I have the smallest food processor known to man), but not a complicated or terribly elaborate one. And the results were definitely worth the effort!

Lentil-Walnut Burgers
~PRINT RECIPE~

• 3/4 cup lentils, picked over and rinsed
• 3/4 cup walnuts
• 1/3 cup plain dried breadcrumbs
• 3 garlic cloves (or more to taste) coarsely chopped or pressed
  
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1/4- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• Course salt and fresh ground pepper
  
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large egg
• Creamy cilantro sauce (optional)

Creamy Cilantro Sauce

• 3/4 cup low-fat or non-fat sour cream
  
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• Course salt and fresh ground pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the lentils in a small saucepan and cover with 1 inch of water. Bring to a boil; reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook until the lentils are tender but still holding their shape--about 15-20 minutes. (The older the lentil, the longer the cooking time. I actually soaked my old lentils for about 2 hours before I started cooking so they wouldn't take as long to cook.) Drain well and cool.
2. Meanwhile, spread the walnuts on a baking sheet and toast in the oven until fragrant and darkened, about 10 minutes. Let cool.
3. While waiting for lentils and walnuts to cook, whisk together all ingredients for creamy cilantro sauce, season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
4. In a food processor, combine the walnuts, breadcrumbs, garlic, cumin, coriander, red pepper flakes, 1 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Process until finely ground.
   Add the lentils and 1 tablespoon of oil. Pulse until coarsely chopped. (Some lentils should remain whole).
5. In a large bowl, whisk the egg. Add the lentil mixture and mix well. Divide into 4 equal-sized parts. Roll into balls and flatten with your palms into 3/4-inch-thick patties.

6. Heat the remaining 3 tablespoons oil in a large nonstick skillet. Add the burgers and cook over medium-low heat until crisp and browned, gently flip the burgers---8 to 10 minutes each side. Transfer to a paper-towel-lined plate to drain. Serve with creamy cilantro sauce and other burger fixin's.