That’s what I’ ve been doing this weekend….
Canning roasted pepper and tomato sauce
tomato sauce
Canning fruit jam, roasted eggplants with tomato meze, spicy pepper pickles, green tomato pickles, eggplant sauce, roasted pepper sauce, mushrooms, pickled veggies…
cannning things...
I also visited the local farmers market and I was surprised to see apples being sold for only 40 cents per kg (20 cents per pound)…
apples 
I also visited my mom’s pumpkin field and stole a couple of pumpkins.
mama's pumpkin field
more pumpkins
Almond loves his big pumpkin!
Almond and his pumpkin
And of course Peanut is back home! My sweet pumpkin head 
Peanut Love
What did you do this weekend?
Happy Valentine’s Day to all! I hope you get much love today! Peanut is sharing his love with one of you. The winner of a copy of the wonderful cookbook Appetite for Reduction is Robyn! Congratulations!!! The winner was chosen through the random number generator and Robyn was the lucky 22!
For tonight’s dinner I am sharing with you my favorite recipe of pasta with creamy and spicy pumpkin sauce! This dish is ideal for Valentine’s dinner as it’s sweet – the way your valentine is – and spicy… the way love is!
Ingredients
1 small pumpkin
2 TS olive oil
1 can light coconut milk
1 cup of water (reserved from the pasta)
1 small red onion finely chopped
1 ts salt
1 TS nutritional yeast
freshly ground pepper
2 cloves garlic minced
- pasta with pumpkin sauce
Cook pasta according to the package directions and reserve one cup of water for the pumpkin sauce. Preheat the oven at 180C/350F. Cut the pumpkin in two and place it in a baking sheet. Add 2 cups of water and place it in the oven for 30 minutes. Let it cook for 30 minutes until it softens. Remove from the oven, let it cool, scoop the pumpkin out and blend until smooth. In a pot heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and saute until brown. Add the pumpkin puree, the light coconut milk and half cup of the reserved water. Stir until heated through 3-5 minutes, add the nutritional yeast and salt, lower the heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes. If the sauce is too thick add another the other half cup of the reserved water. Add pasta in the pumpkin sauce and mix well. Serve with freshly ground pepper.
My mom brought me a really huge pumpkin from her garden and I had it sitting at the balcony for a while. As it’s officially November I had every excuse to do something with it. The truth is that I was avoiding it cause it’s still hot in Greece and my idea of pumpkin soup didn’t sound right. Then I started craving Greek style pumpkin pie. So I decided to do something with that pumpkin. I shredded about the half of it and I made a pie for my mom and a pie for us. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get a photo of my pie as Sean ate all of it in less than 24 hours but more or less it looked like this .
I cut the rest of the pumpkin in big pieces and baked it in the oven in 3 bunches until I had it all cooked. Then I blended it and tataaaaaaaa I had pumpkin puree! It might sound weird to you but I’ve never seen canned pumpkin puree in Greece. I googled it once and I found a company that had it on their list but I didn’t manage to find it, not even at the big super markets like Carefour. Anyway, I made pumpkin puree. 3 big pots of pumpkin puree. And then the pumpkin puree took over my fridge. I didn’t know what to do but then a friend of mine told me that I can freeze it! Still I couldn’t give all my freezer space to the pumpkin. Who does she think she is? So I thought to try to make an American style pumpkin pie. But the truth is that I never had an American style pumpkin pie. And trying to make an American style pumpkin pie “Vegan” was quite interesting. I googled for vegan pumpkin pies but most of them called for vegan cream cheese. Which again cannot be found where I live. So I decided to go different and use soft tofu. And vanilla pudding. What can possible go wrong with vanilla? and pumpkin???
That’s my recipe for the pumpkin pie for this year’s Thanksgiving. From what Sean said, it doesn’t taste like a classic pumpkin pie but it’s tasty, flavorful, mouthwatering and definitely healthier than most of the pies out there.
vanilla pumpkin pie
For the crust
200 gr whole wheat all purposes flour
80 gr vegan margarine
2 TS light soft brown sugar
1/2 ts salt
about 1/3 cup water
For the filling
1 box soft silken tofu
2 packs instant vegan vanilla pudding
1/2 cup agave nectar
2 cups pumpkin puree
1tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg powder
1/2 tsp clove powder
To make the crust stir the flour, sugar and the salt in a bowl. With a knife cut the margarine in small pieces and add to the mixture until mixture coarse crumbs. Add slowly the water, mixing lightly with a fork, until the dough just holds together. Shape the dough in a ball and refrigerate for about an hour. To make the filling blend the tofu with the vanilla puddings for a couple of minutes. Add the agave nectar, spices and pumpkin puree and blend for 2 more minutes. On a lightly floured surface roll the dough into a thick circle a 5 cms larger from your pie pan. Place it in your pie pan and add the filling. Bake for 30-45 minutes.
I also made 4 dozens of the “sell your soul pumpkin cookies” from Vegan cookies invade your cookie jar which can be seen below. You can find the recipe online here. For the sugar I used only brown sugar (light brown soft sugar) and instead of shortening I used 1/3 cup of olive oil.
sell your soul pumpkin cookies
I kept some of the pumpkin puree in order to make pumpkin soup tomorrow and the rest of it went to the freezer where will have to stay for the next two weeks.
