Suzie's Sweets

After I made the pumpkin muffins the other week I had a lot of leftover pumpkin that I wanted to use. I found an interesting recipe for pumpkin maple baked bean cornbread casserole (oh my!) and decided to try it. The recipe warns that the cornbread topping is great for the casserole but not really great as a stand-alone cornbread recipe. The cornbread didn’t rise at all, and even though I halved the recipe next time I wouldn’t halve the topping part.

Beans, pumpkin, onion and craisins cooking down

Casserole before being baked

The casserole turned out well. It’s an interesting mix of hearty and sweet. I’m not a huge fan of onions, at least obvious onions (like getting a big moutful of onion), so next time I would use less onion and chop them smaller than the recipe called for (I wouldn’t leave them out entirely because the onion flavour complimented the pumpkin and cornbread well and added a nice balance to the sweetness of the craisins and maple syrup). Overall I would make this recipe again. I love cornbread, I love beans, and I love casseroles. Win!

Susan

Pumpkin

Fall! Decorative gourd season! Cheap pumpkins! I let the excitement get to me and bought a beautiful pie pumpkin, only to get it home and realise that I don’t have any knives sharp enough to cut it up to cook with. The pumpkin is now festively sitting on my diningroom table with two other mini plumkings and my adorable saltshakers (c/o  the LRMC media lead).

Pumpkin et s’amis, les cochons du sel et du poivre, et les petite citrouilles, aka plumkings

Since I was still feeling the Fall baking-bug, sans knife, I bought a can of pumpkin to bake with. I used this pumpkin muffin recipe, but added about a cup of raisins and craisins.

Baking materials

Batter

Muffins all cooked!

The muffins were delish, but made 24 instead of the 12 in the instructions. I guess my idea of a muffin isn’t a head-sized portion of cakiness. I froze half of them so that I can enjoy a taste of fall all winter. Or at least for a week or so after the fresh ones are gone.

Susan

PS I still had pumpkin left from the can, so I made a casserole out of it. Post/pictures to come.