For Halloween this year, I decided to decorate with pumpkins and then use them afterward in a
"nose-to-tail" sort of way. I only allowed the boys to carve one pumpkin so the rest would be usable and drew faces on the others with black markers. Once November rolled around, I brought my porch decor inside and washed, scraped, roasted and pureed. I painstakingly cleaned and roasted the seeds (thumbs down) and trimmed and dried the stems to use next year to make velvet pumpkins (moldy thumbs down). I do have a dozen bright orange squares of pumpkin in the freezer just begging to be used (thumbs up). (Note: I hope you always lay flat the things you freeze in zipper bags--they freeze, store and thaw so much easier.)
I have my favorite pumpkin recipes (bread, cookies, cupcakes) and how could I not? There are about five million pumpkin recipes out there, which is good, as pumpkin is a vegetable. Much to the chagrin of some family members, I have been known to feed the boys pumpkin pie as a meal because it is a vegetable. Here's my dirty little secret, I don't even like pumpkin. That's right, I think pumpkin is disgusting. Oh, I like a slice of chocolate-chip pumpkin bread just like the next girl, but that's pretty much where it ends. And the boys feel the same way. So why did I spend all that time processing pumpkin? Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
When I think of autumn and delicious baked goods, my first thought is "mmmm, cranberries." Cranberries are everything the pumpkin is (hollow, richly colored, harvested in the cold, crunchy when raw, smushy when cooked) only tasty. Give me the sweet tart zing of a cranberry any day. Yum.
Add some yummy zing to your coffee break (or pre-breakfast break or post-workout break) with this crispy cranberry biscotti. It is practically fat-free and cranberries and almonds are both super good for you, so you are really doing yourself a favor by baking and eating this. If you are not familiar with making biscotti, this is a sweet biscuit that is baked twice to give it a drier, crunchier texture. It takes a few extra steps to make, but the techniques are basic.
The making of the dough is pretty simple: mix the dry ingredients, mix the wet ingredients, add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and combine. Add the extras, here cranberries and almonds. Try some other extras that would be delicious like dried cherries, chocolate chunks, hazelnuts, or orange zest. Put the dough on parchment and shape into two logs. Bake, then remove, slice and bake again.
For detailed ingredients and instructions, click the image to download the recipe cards.
My question to you: pumpkin or cranberries?
