Pumpkin, Sage, and Gorgonzola Spaghetti

Happy Halloween!

As previously established, I love pumpkin during the Fall. I'm incredibly original too. Just a few days after my post welcoming the autumn season with pumpkin cake balls, Bon Appetit posted an article called 10 Rules for Cooking with Pumpkin This Fall. While I agree on many counts, I must disagree on Pumpkin Spice Lattes. They are the one exception to my rule on never drinking coffee.

If you haven't heard, my parents went vegan! Yeah, my dad, the Italian carnivore, is vegan. Most of the time. Vegan is tough for dining out and since he is vegan for the purpose of saving his own life and not the lives of animals, he cuts himself some slack occasionally. They watched Forks Over Knives AND the extended interviews which I've had sitting in my Netflix queue for a few months. Lucky for them, I had purchased the cookbook inspired by it so after being horrified by what they learned in the documentary, they had something with which to start cooking Fat-Free Vegan meals. I'm not ready to give up dairy entirely yet even though I really shouldn't have it so while this recipe isn't vegan, it is vegetarian. It's also still in the works since I threw this one serving meal together for myself using leftovers. That's really the only kind of cooking I have time for these days between work and grad school.

Creamy, tangy, and woodsy. Those are the best words to describe this dish apart from delicious. It's savory Fall at its best. And it comes together in a flash with leftover ingredients! We had made a vegan pumpkin bread that didn't call for the entire can of pumpkin puree so I needed to find a recipe to use up what was left. Cue my at home version of Chopped.

Pumpkin, Sage, and Gorgonzola Sauce with Spaghetti

The Taming of the Roux Original Recipe

Serves 1

Ingredients

• 1 - 1 1/2 cup(s) cooked spaghetti
• 2 teaspoons olive oil or canola
• 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 2 teaspoons dried sage
• 1 teaspoon garlic, minced 
• 2 tablespoons vegetable stock, low-sodium
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• 1-2 tablespoons gorgonzola, crumbled 
• salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions  

1. Heat oil in a small-medium non-stick skillet over medium heat and add garlic and sage stirring constantly for about a minute. Careful, do not burn the garlic or the sage.
2. Add pumpkin puree and vegetable stock. Stir constantly until extra liquid cooks off and the puree is bubbling but still loose. Add salt and pepper.
3. Add heavy cream, stir constantly until well mixed, cook for a minute.
4. If your spaghetti is leftover and cold, heat in microwave for  30-60 seconds, (if not skip the microwave).
5. Add the gorgonzola crumbles. Don't add too much since you don't want to overpower the pumpkin and sage. Mix until just melted into sauce. Remove from heat.
6. Add spaghetti to the pan and give it a toss to coat.
7. Serve and enjoy the savory pumpkin goodness. :)

 Some Notes:

*I did not have fresh sage unfortunately. This would be even better with fresh herbs instead of dried. I would have garnished it with some pan-fried sage leaf crumbles. Yum!
**If you're not vegetarian and are looking for some meat in this dish, try pancetta for an Italian flare or applewood smoked bacon. Skip the oil step in the beginning and cook your pancetta or bacon first and then add ingredients to the pan. You may want to drain off a bit of the fat prior though to keep the cholesterol down if you do so.
***The ratios are guesstimates for the recipe. When I cook for myself, I'm usually making recipes up off the top of my head and do very little measuring. Use your best judgement - it's what makes cooking an adventure!

Pumpkin Cakeballs with White Chocolate Coating and Pumpkin Pie Spice

Happy Autumn Equinox!!!

BTW, this post is dedicated to Matthew Goguen.

This all started with a Facebook chat during my Cataloguing class. I should have been paying closer attention to our discussion but I was on my computer and Pinterest was so inviting. Matt informed me that if you whisper "pumpkin spice latte" in the mirror three times, a white suburban woman will appear and tell you all the things she loves about fall. I couldn’t believe that my spirit could be called upon in this manner. Then he added that she would be wearing yoga pants. Alas, it cannot be me. I own no such things.

I did get a good laugh out of it and decided that I would have to find some time to do a post in honor of the first day of my favorite season – Autumn.

That’s when I had the accident. In my defense, I was exhausted. I haven’t had a day off for two weeks and I had been working all day. No, really! I’d been up since 6:00am and been at work until 6:00pm and then got home and decided that I had to make something to properly usher in the Fall season.

I had finished baking this cake, a Better Than Anything Pumpkin Poke Cake with caramel and bits of toffee on top of the Cool Whip cream layer over the sweetened condensed milk soaked cake. I didn’t get too far because in my effort to get the cake to cool a little faster so I could just go to bed, I removed the cake from the pan too soon. And. It. Broke.

Staring dismally at that pathetically dismantled yet delicious cake, I decided to save it all by doing something far more work intensive than I had intended. Cake pops. Only, without the pops. I have yet to find a truly fail proof method of keeping the cake ball on the pop stick.

I crumbled the cake up and put it in all different sized flat containers and stuck them all in the freezer to get the cake crumbs to cool completely.

Luckily, I had picked out the Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice cream cheese at the store last time I was there even though the likelihood of my putting it on a bagel was slim to none. After tasting it, I knew there was no need to add any sugar to it because it essentially tastes like concentrated pumpkin pie filling in cream cheese form. So you know it’s good.

I got to bed after mixing the cake crumbs and the pumpkin spice cream cheese together and rolling out about 45 cakeballs and sticking them in the freezer overnight. I would simply have to coat them in chocolate before work today.

Of course, since I didn’t plan on making these, there was not enough white candy melts left to coat all them. I have a bag sitting in the freezer to do on my first day off this Tuesday. (YEAH!)

Despite my sister’s snide reply of “How’s Fall working out for ya?” after I exclaimed over her disappointment with the end of Summer, I am still going to tell you all the reasons I love Fall.

Pumpkins

Apples

Leaves of Red and Gold

My Hair No Longer Acting Like A Barometer

Fall Outfits

Warm Days and Cold Nights

Pumpkin Beer

Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin Cake

Pumpkin EVERYTHING

The list goes on but I won’t.

Here’s how to make these pumpkin cakeballs with white chocolate candy coating and a dusting of pumpkin pie spice. Mmm!

Ingredients:

·         1 box yellow cake mix

·         15oz can of pumpkin puree [not pumpkin pie filling]

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·         8oz Pumpkin Spice cream cheese [I’m really not sure how you could substitute this since I didn't intend to create this recipe.]

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·         White chocolate candy melts (at least 2 bags, though you may need more)

·         Pumpkin pie spice

 Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Mix 15oz of pumpkin puree with the yellow cake mix. There is no need for the egg, water, and oil that the box directions will call for. You only need to mix the dry cake mix with the pumpkin puree.
   This is slow work by hand so just keep mixing until well incorporated. The batter will be thick and more like a bread dough consistency.
3. Transfer batter to a greased 9X9 baking pan. Bake for 35-45 minutes.
4. ALLOW CAKE TO COOL COMPLETELY. Unless you’re like me.
5. Remove corners and eat them because they’re delicious.
6. Crumble the cooled cake and mix with the Pumpkin Spice cream cheese until smooth and sticky.
7. Using a cookie scoop or a rounded teaspoon, scoop the mixture and then roll to create mini cake balls and place on a parchment paper lined baking tray.
8. Freeze cakeballs for at least 6 hours.
9. Follow the candy melt instructions for melting. I used the microwave because I had a small amount but the double boiler method will keep your chocolate hot and liquid longer than the microwave method will.
10. Roll frozen cake balls, one at a time, in the melted chocolate then place back on the parchment paper lined tray. Immediately dust with pumpkin pie spice or the chocolate will harden.
11. Allow them to come to room temp before you eat them because they are frozen solid and not as much fun to eat.
12. Celebrate Fall in Pumpkin style!

My bet is that these would be fantastic with orange colored candy melts and a dash of green on the top to make them look like mini pumpkins. I just didn't have the time for that. :)

I'll have to do the rest of these later because they're sooooo yummy.