Yes We Pump-Can!

Since the snow didn't make it, we whipped up a veritable flurry of cooking this weekend. We started out the weekend with some impressive inspiration with dinner at South Gate on Friday. We came, we ate, we surrendered. From the mouth-amusing cheese puffs, eager bread roll distributors, weighty wine-list lap top, and delightful cocktails to the richness of bread pudding, cilantro-flecked steak, lemon-ginger seafood pasta, and an avalanche of chocolately and fruity desserts (tarts, pots au creme, sorbets, a pistachio mousse!), we were extremely joyful.

So on Saturday, we got down to business. Biz-NASS. With help from Ted, Shenging, and Matt, we turned out a smorgasboard of chocolate-ricotta cookies. Lessons learned (for me at least): 1. ricotta tastes like nothing, and 2. styling desserts after other foods is cute. While the taste was lackluster, our ravioli shapes were oddly adorable, like a dog dressed up in a kitten costume. Or, perhaps, a clock with a cozy flannel shirt.

After that warm-up round (and some dinner with actual vegetables to veer from our cookie-laden path to sugar-induced physical and emotional disorders), we considered one of the under-appreciated gems of baking: pumpkin puree. This humble, retro-colored, ploppy fellow warms the cockles of my heart and unhinges my jaws with joy throughout the seasons as pumpkin cookies, gnocchi, soup, roasted chunks on salad, and of course pie (and cheesecake!), and has even crossed over to assume beverage duties in our ale.

1 can of pumpkin. Endless baking properties. It adds moisture, texture, lightness, density, plays leading man or recedes to the background as a favorite character actor and work horse. We made monkey-bread my mixing it in with Pills cinnamon rolls, dipping scoops of that batter in butter, then topping the gooey mass of amazingness with pumpkin-spiked frosting. We also made muffins with a Pills cake mix base, apples, and cinnamon. Imagine the warm scent of these orange-gold splendorous orbs, baking that elemental yet exotic cinnamon into sweet-comfort perfection. I don't think I can say anything more.