It must be fall

I tried to keep up with this blog over the summer, but somehow I just never found time to update it.

I was still cooking, and maybe at some point I'll find the time to post some of those recipes. But rather than trying to play catchup, I'll just start where I am now.

Fall is my favorite time of year. I love the changing colors, the crisp air and I especially love fall food.

Today I baked three pie pumpkins for my first attempt at making my own pumpkin puree. I have big plans for my pumpkin puree, including curry, soup and perhaps a breakfast dish. In fact I'm planning to write a food page article for the Tribune about my pumpkin experiments.

Roasted pumpkin seeds

I started playing with pumpkin early. I needed to bring dessert to a dinner party and I hadn't yet made my puree, so I bought some and tried a pumpkin dump cake. Dump cake is my all time favorite camping dutch oven dish. Dump cake really can only be made in a dutch oven (by dumping a can of pie filling, a bag of cake mix and soda or butter over the top and baking it in the fire). So I'm calling this recipe pumpkin cobbler. (See below).

The recipe calls for a small can of pumpkin, but I could only find large ones, so I saved half and used it today to make pumpkin pie filling. (I make it without the crust and cut back on sugar, so it's almost a vegetable dish that way, right?)

That put me in the mood for cranberries, which I happened to have in the freezer, saved from last winter in case I was desperate for cranberries at some point over the summer. (I just followed the recipe on the bag).

Pumpkin Cobbler

(Found on Pinterest and adapted from The Picky Apple)

Ingredients:

1 box yellow cake mix (I used gluten free)
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree
1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk
3 large eggs
1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom of 9-by-13-inch pan.

Mix pumpkin, milk, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Pour mixture into greased pan.

Sprinkle dry cake mix over pumpkin mixture.  Slice butter over cake mix. Bake 50-55 minutes.