mix, mix…stir, stir

These spicy pumpkin seeds are my favorite snack to counter all the sugar of the day. They are salty, crispy and you can make them as spicy as you care to by boosting the cayenne pepper.

 My tip for good pumpkin seeds is to cook them long enough so they take on some color, which makes them really crispy with a nice toasty flavor.

Wondering where thoes pumpkin seeds came from? My TableFare themed pumpkin of course.

I’m celebrating my inner Julia Child this Halloween. I hope you are having a fun day!

Spicy Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

2 cups cleaned and dried pumpkin seeds
 Tbsp. olive oil, melted butter, or vegetable oil
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. chili powder
½ tsp. cumin, ground
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
pinch of garlic powder
pinch of ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

After hollowing out a pumpkin, separate the seeds from the stringy membrane and rinse the seeds in a large bowl of water. Swish and rub them around to loosen any bits of pumpkin meat. Lift the seeds out of the water into a strainer and repeat the rinse as many times as is necessary until they are satisfactorily clean, usually 2 to 3 rinses. Drain the seeds and dry them on a clean dishtowel. They can be left to dry overnight, or baked right away.

In a small bowl combine the spices and mix well. Spread the pumpkin seeds out on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with oil or butter, and mix well to combine. Sprinkle on the spice mixture and continue to mix until the spices are evenly distributed over the pumpkin seeds.

Bake for 35-50 minutes. If the seeds dried overnight they will bake on the shorter end of the range. Stir the seeds every ten minutes and spread out evenly over the pan to continue baking until they are a deep golden brown. Many of the seeds will puff up and they will make a crackling noise. Let cool and store in an airtight container.

I have kitchen organization progress to report ! This is all driven by my participation in Apartment Therapy’s Kitchen Cure; a four week plan to cure kitchens of clutter and disorganization. I started out last week with the goal of organizing the pantry, hot beverage cupboard, and condiment cupboard and the assignments to date have been:

• Take before photos
• Clean out old food
• De-clutter equipment, tools, gadgets, dishes

The big reward for my efforts in cleaning out the hot beverage cupboard was discovering all the great teas I had squirreled away in there. I was in a routine of drinking the two teas that were in front and easy to grab, boy have I been missing out. Now it’s a different tea every day.  Out went the few teas that I just really didn’t like, random empty containers, and a couple of mugs that I didn’t enjoy drinking from. The biggest improvement is having all the tea in visible, accessible containers. Yes, SpiceCare can be used for more than just spices!  Bring on the cold weather; I have my hot beverages at the ready.

 I thought the solution for the condiment cupboard was going to be in readjusting the shelves, but it turned out the problem was all the non-food related stuff being stored in there. I can’t believe how much stuff I pulled out of this cupboard. I found a few food surprises, like I was working out of two different bottles of rose water and discovered two large unopened bottles of orange flower water. Extra containers of salt, baking soda and baking powder were all condensed. The clutter came from numerous early SpiceCare prototypes which are now properly archived in a box in the basement. Apparently any open shelf is fair game for whatever I happen to have in my hand that needs a home.

I knew there was an issue with storing empty glass jars in the pantry. I didn’t realize how out of control it had become. This is what I found in there during the de-clutter phase!

Most of these are jars that should be stored in the basement with my canning supplies. I have a nice box they fit in, but once emptied and cleaned, it’s just so easy to toss it on a shelf in the pantry.  Unused gadgets and dishes were purged, and a few old food items tossed. I am giddy over the order and open space. After all the clearing out and reorganizing, I will be much more conscience about what lands on those nice open shelves.

The refrigerator and freezer generally stay relatively orderly because I have set zones for specific foods. Not needing two vegetable drawers, the bottom one is used to store flour and grains. The freezer drawers are all designated for specific categories as well with the bottom drawer storing what we call “freezer food”; individually portioned leftovers that are instant meals.

The best organizational tool for the kitchen? Painter’s tape and a fine point Sharpie! Just about everything gets a blue tape label.

I encourage you to join the Kitchen Cure, or at least take an hour some evening and clean out one messy drawer or cupboard. You will be thrilled with the result and might even unearth some great stuff! Please share any great discoveries.

One last thing, I was asked how I store sugar and flour by a commenter in my last Kitchen Cure post. I like the large plastic containers sold at restaurant supply stores as well as large GaldWare containers. In addition to the label of what’s in the bin, I list weights for common measurements, so I can use a scale rather than measuring cups when baking. It’s faster and more accurate to weigh ingredients, plus there aren’t any measuring cups to wash.

Cherries hidden like precious gems throughout this rich dense chocolate torte lend a chewy texture and bright tart flavor that perfectly disrupts the solidness of the chocolate. A touch of black pepper leaves each bite to linger with a hint of heat and exoticism. Yes, it’s another great Tuesdays with Dorie creation.

This chocolate torte has it’s roots in brownie land; though the flavor is rich and exotic, there is nothing fussy about the mixing or baking process. The cherries get reconstituted, soaked in kirsch, and then grandly flambéed. The torte needs to be made ahead so the only person you will likely thrill with the flambé is yourself, but don’t let the lack of an audience diminish the thrill. I turned out the kitchen light to enjoy the flames in all their glory.

I used a very dark chocolate and think anything sweeter would have bordered on too sweet with the 1 1/2 cups of sugar that get added to the batter. The black pepper is such a nice twist to the classic flavor pairing of cherry and chocolate. The recipe gives a generous leeway on the amount of pepper suggesting  -2 teaspoons; I went with one and will bump it up to 1 1/2 tsp. next time. The heat and peppery flavor were there, but deserved a bigger presence. The velvety smooth creamy topping is a combination of cream cheese, mascarpone cheese, and whipping cream. It’s really elegant and lovely. I’m inspired to play around with this combination as a less-sweet cream cheese frosting that would be outstanding with carrot cake. It’s quite soft from the high proportion of whipping cream, so the ingredient ratios would probably need to be pushed around to make it applicable for a more traditional cake frosting.

The tort is chilled after assembly to set, but needs to come to room temperature before serving. When it’s cold it’s rather difficult to cut through. I was having a very difficult time getting the first slice free and then realized the parchment paper was still stuck to the bottom. The upside to it being such a sturdy cake, is I was able to lift the whole thing up while David peeled the paper off. Even though it’s dense, it’s really delicious and will surely impress anyone you served it to. It’s also a very transportable dessert because it is assembled in a spring form pan to be chilled and could then be easily plated once at the destination.

April of  Short + Rose  has the recipe posted on her site if you would like to give it a try. One little mistake I made that I forgot to mention. Of the 11 ounces of chocolate in the recipe only 7 ounces were supposed to be melted with the balance being chopped and stirred into the batter with the cherries. Not reading very carefully, I melted all the chocolate, and it seems to have turned out just fine.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 97 recipes completed 124 to go!

The best way to describe these is gnocchi meets biscuit. They have a less flaky texture than a buttermilk biscuit, but the deep rich flavor of sweet potato makes them satisfying in the way that the best comfort foods are. The potato flavor works well with the slightly dense moist texture; providing an explaination of the texture as a logical potato element rather than a poorly made biscuit.

The flavor of sweet potato is deeply comforting to me. As a young child I lived in Japan and have memories of going on a school field trip to dig sweet potatoes. It seems like an odd activity thinking about it now, but it was quite thrilling as a first grader. I also recall buying baked sweet potatoes from street vendors that peddled around on bicycles pulling  insulated carts filled with piping hot sweet potatoes. A steaming hot potato eaten out of hand was the perfect snack on a cold day. The smooth creamy texture and sweet earthy flavor is soul satisfying to this day. These biscuits took me right back to this memory.

The texture of the biscuits is very dumpling-like and really called out for a little sweet or spicy morsel of meat to be tucked in the center. I plan to experiment with this idea and try making some filled dumplings with this dough. Steamed verses baked would be another interesting experiment. I think this is one of the most interesting recipes the Tuesdays with Dorie group has made.

Dorie calls for canned sweet potatoes, but I had fresh that I simply microwaved until they were soft enough to mash. Like all biscuits I make, I used a food processor rather than mixing by hand as the recipe instructs. The most interesting thing about this recipe is the lack of cream, milk, or any other type of liquid. The potatoes act as the agent to bring all the ingredients together, though I must say my dough was extremely dry. This is possibly due to using fresh potatoes rather than canned, so I ended up adding a little buttermilk to get the dough to form a ball. I also added an egg wash to the tops before baking to give them a nice golden brown finish

Thank you to Erin of Prudence Pennywise for selecting the recipe this week. She has the recipe posted on her blog if you would like to give them a try. Be prepared for music on her site; if you are surfing while people are sleeping nearby, be sure to turn your speakers down before clicking over to her blog.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 96 recipes completed 125 to go!

This week begins my participation in Apartment Therapy’s Kitchen Cure. Over the next four weeks over 2,000 people will be cleaning, sorting and organizing their kitchens together, so I jumped on the bandwagon to get some motivation to take care of a few neglected areas in my kitchen. You can join in too, just visit Kitchen Cure and sign up.

I’m hyper-organized in certain cupboards and drawers as well as in the refrigerator and freezer. Everything stored in a tidy container with an easy to read label. I have zones defined in the refrigerator and freezer so certain shelves and drawers are dedicated to specific types of food. It’s all very regimented and effective. In the cupboards without rules, however, things aren’t going so well, and that’s what I plant to tackle during Kitchen Cure.

This week kicked off  with before pictures. First of all, it’s really difficult to take pictures of small spaces, and secondly it’s difficult to take pictures of messy cupboards to post online without first tidying up, but I didn’t cheat. I didn’t bare all either, because as I said a lot of things are working in my kitchen, so I focused on the three areas that need help; pantry, hot beverage cupboard, and condiment cupboard. But before I get to the messy stuff, I will give you a little TableFare history. This is a photo of what launched the company.

Behold the uber-mess that frustrated me for years. The mess that drove me to quit my job and spend two years working on a solution. I have to say the result has been worth it! It’s easy to see why I could never find what I needed in my spice collection, and because I couldn’t find containers I liked I just used the plastic bags that I purchased my spices in, which didn’t keep the spices fresh or contained. Usually when I would pull a bag out half of the contents would get dumped into the bottom of the drawer.  

Now I have SpiceCare and a new career. The proof that my concept is sound is that the drawer is just as orderly as it was the day I first set it up. What good is organization if it’s not a durable solution? I feel happy every time I open this drawer. I can see what I have, grab what I need, and put it right back where it came from.

Now onto my challenges; the pantry. It’s an easy dumping ground, because there is always room to put whatever I don’t know what to do with in the pantry. The biggest issue I have been wrestling with lately is my collection of empty jars that I use for storing dry-goods. I have jars and lids piled up all over the shelves, ready and waiting to store something, and now they have become a storage problem. The other big task in the pantry is just getting things put back where they belong rather than scattered all over. I need some rules and more rigidly defined zones.

The hot beverage cupboard ( upper left) has been in a just-randomly-jam-stuff-in-there mode for some time. Part of what annoys me about this cupboard is that it’s three shelves just devoted to hot beverages, which seems ridiculous. My love for hot beverages seems to be preventing me from pairing it down. This calls for tough love.

My third area of focus is the condiment cupboard. Vinegars, sauces, oils, honey, bread…Much must be tossed from this cupboard and I need to reevaluate the shelf heights I have selected. I think there is some opportunity for increased efficiency by adjusting some shelves.

There you have it, the starting ground. Over the next four weeks I will share tips and ideas as I progress to a state of  sustanable organization. If you feel motivated to tackle a messy drawer,  or cupboard, or take on your entire kitchen,  I hope you will share your tips and successes with me.