Futari-- pumpkin and yam stew for baby led weaning

In our final installment of Pumpkin Week, we've got another East African dish: futari. It's a wonderful stew of coconut milk, pumpkin, and yams. The pumpkin begins to fall apart and thickens the liquid a bit, while the yam retains its integrity a little better and prevents it from being entirely porridge-like. Serious comfort food! Not photogenic, however. No glamour shots this time. No photos at all, in fact: Mae took a late nap and the good light vanished before I could take a photo of her eating this. (There are leftovers; perhaps tomorrow).

There seem to be only one or two recipes for this out there on the web, and I used one of them. It does taste a lot like what I had when I visited Tanzania, so it works for me. The only change I made was to add peanut butter. The recipe I found suggests that if you don't have coconut milk, you can thin down some peanut butter with water and use that as the liquid. But seeing as I do have both, and I feel strongly that they would be yummy together, I added it in addition to the coconut milk. I was right: they are good together.  (Feel free to omit it if you want, though. I won't get mad.)

Futari

1 large onion
2 Tbs oil
2 lb peeled, chopped pumpkin
2 lb peeled, chopped yams/ sweet potatoes
2 cans coconut milk
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp. cinnamon
uninhibited spoonful of natural peanut butter
juice of 1 lemon
salt to taste

Heat oil in a large, deep pot. Throw your onions in and let 'em go till they're brown.  Add the cloves and cinnamon, fry briefly. Add remaining ingredients; cover and let simmer until vegetables are tender.

I think this would lend itself well to crock pot preparation, but I haven't tried it yet.

Beets, at last

What have I got against beets, you ask? Well, I'll tell you: I am another victim of the canned beet. My mother used to buy them and eat them straight out of the jar. I don't think she even rinsed them off. I shudder at the very memory of the smell.  (She used to do that with asparagus, too, and I was well into adulthood before I discovered that I actually do like asparagus when it isn't pulled straight out of a can). (No offense, Mom.)

I gave the beets I bought plenty of time to go bad in the fridge, but they never did (root vegetables, go figure-- perhaps I should have left them out on the counter), so I had time to research the best way to prepare them. I read this thread in its entirety, and learned that you can eat them raw, you can eat them pickled, you can steam them, you can roast them. If you roast them, you should roast them at a high temperature. Either that or a low temperature. And you should put olive oil on them. Or not. And you should peel them. Or not.

So I peeled one, and washed the rest and stuck them in the crock pot for a few hours on high, just to see what would happen.  What happened is they became very soft, and the outside was a bit caramelized. Very promising! I took a small bite of one and liked it. Then I took a larger bite and did not. I probably should have gotten smaller beets.

Anyway, since they were soft and sweet, I thought I'd let Mae have a go at them. This was her verdict:

This is the first time she has made this face.  The funny thing is, she went on to eat most of what was there anyway, which just goes to demonstrate how much she likes putting stuff in her mouth.  I have 4 1/2 beets left, so I'm going to offer them to her again tomorrow and the next day. Who knows, maybe they'll grow on her. And as for me, I'm going to try some of the other preparations I've seen: tossed with balsamic vinegar. With salt, maybe. Perhaps with goat cheese. I'm going to put these beets through their paces. I may even buy some more, smaller ones and have a go at them before I conclude once and for all that I just don't like beets.  No one will be able to say I didn't give beets a chance.

Spiced Roasted Eggplant recipe

I suppose we're reaching the end of the season for these lovely little eggplants. I couldn't resist buying them and roasting them up again, this time with spices.  I must admit that Mae hasn't had a taste yet; she got sleepy and went to bed before she could try them. Lunch tomorrow, then. 

Spiced Roasted Eggplant

8 Fairytale eggplant, or 1 small italian eggplant
2 Tbs butter
1 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cardamom
1-2 Tbs balsamic vinegar

Preheat your oven to 400. Compile the ground spices into one small bowl, and prepare your eggplant by trimming and cutting them in half lengthwise (or into batons if you're using a larger eggplant). Put them in a bowl and toss them with the olive oil. In an oven-safe skillet (perhaps your trusty cast iron skillet!), melt the butter. Add the spices and stir quickly for a few seconds until the spices become fragrant, then pour the mixture over the eggplant. Stir it up, and return the eggplant to the skillet. Put it in the oven and roast for about a half hour, stirring them up partway through.  Just before taking them out, sprinkle the balsamic vinegar over the vegetables and return them to the oven for 2-3 minutes to reduce the vinegar a bit.

Update: At lunch. These are definitely a 3 on the messiness scale. Well-cooked eggplant is very smeary!

Carrot Souffle recipe for baby-led weaning

Here's a good one for the younger set-- nice and soft (perhaps a bit messy), but still pick-uppable and yummy. Don't be put off by the fact that it's called a souffle-- it isn't really, since it gets some of its puff from baking powder rather than egg whites. This recipe is a long-time favorite of my in-laws-- Mae's Grammy makes it whenever the family gets together. It's easy enough for a weeknight dinner, but fancy enough for special occasions, too.  She uses canned carrots, gives it all a whirl in the food processor, and pops it in the oven. It'd be good with other veggies, too-- parsnips, winter squash, and sweet potatoes come to mind (I have tried it with winter squash-- see the variation discussed below).  The original calls for a few tablespoons of brown sugar, but I didn't miss it in the little one she baked for Mae when we visited them last week. She baked it in a 1/2 (or possibly 3/4?) cup ramekin, and Mae polished it all off (along with some kugel, roast pork, and stewed plums and apples).

Carrot Souffle

1 lb carrots, cooked and mashed (or canned)
3-4 eggs
4 Tbs flour
4 Tbs melted butter
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla

If you're using canned carrots, drain them. Then pour everything into a food processor and give it a whirl until it's nice and smooth. Pour it into a greased baking dish-- give it some room to grow, it'll puff up marvelously-- and bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes.

Variation: Use pureed winter squash or pumpkin (I don't think canned pumpkin would be very good, but then, I'm obsessed with winter squash and a bit biased. More on that come October), and add 1/4 tsp nutmeg and 1/2 tsp cinnamon.  The souffle in the picture is winter squash (Hubbard, to be precise).

Messiness rating: 3 (3+ wipe clean-up)