Pumpkin Passion

It’s 103 degrees around here. The weather couldn’t feel further from Fall but our spirits have already eagerly accepted that the seasons will eventually change. We started our Fall tradition of watching all 7 seasons of Gilmore Girls. That show is pretty much shot perpetually in Fall. It makes sense. The show was supposed to take place in Connecticut but was actually filmed in Burbank, CA. It couldn’t be easy creating those winter episodes with Luke’s Diner buried under 4 feet of snow while the temperature outside was probably closer to 80 degrees.

Not only do I know that Fall is close because the Gilmore Girls marathon has started but also because i keep hearing about new Fall treats. For instance, Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts now has a limited edition Frosted Pumpkin Pie. This is one of those things that makes me wonder why waited so long. Of course there should be a pumpkin pie Pop-Tart! If you see it, please let me know where you found them. These are a 2010 Pumpkin Eatin’ Season Must-Have.

If I make up tomorrow and find that the Frosted Pumpkin Pie Pop Tarts are just a dream, there’s always the d.i.y. option here.

So the porch worked. Sometimes a little sunlight goes a long way…I was able to get 4 plants to sprout. So 4 out of the 24 planted is not great odds, but I am getting impatient with these little greenhouse trays. In fact I am growing more mold in some of them than I am actually pumpkin plant. Consequently I gave them to Mother Nature and planted them directly in the garden.

When I was planting the baby sprouts, I did go through the other sections in the seed tray and I noticed that several of the seeds had developed roots but had not gotten as far as sprouting leaves. So I shoved those in the ground too. I figure if it was on its way, then hopefully the actual soil, sun and water of being outside will further the process along. We shall see! My baby tiny garden is on its way! If in a few weeks if I have killed everything, I will just resume my regular tradition of buying my pumpkins at the local grocery store in October. I will keep you posted.

Pumpkin Spice Lattes are officially back at Starbucks today. It’s a rough day for me because I’m trying to kick the caffeine habit. It’s almost been 3 weeks without coffee. There was a tall Frappuccino slip up but that resulted in an almost instant migraine that lasted for two days. I keep going back and forth between really wanting one and really not wanting a migraine. My problem was solved when Shannon brought me a Pumpkin Spice Blended Creme. So delicious and caffeine free!

In a week’s time we have a couple of sprouts, I am so proud! However, before I run around the house in exuberant cheer… the remaining 23 are yielding absolutely nothing thus far. They seem to be a little too wet…enough so that I seeing what appears to be mold growing on a few. With that being said, I understand that this is a learning experience and I am just going to try things out.

I removed the netting that was around each peat pellet, I was hoping that this would encourage better water evaporation. Then I moved the little guys outside just for a mini field trip. We get some afternoon sun on our front porch and I thought that maybe the little greenhouse carton was not warming up enough. The directions say not to put them in direct sunlight, so I have used a shoe box to shield them from the light but still give them the actual warmth.

I am going to do this for about another week and see if I can yield better results…if not I shall go to the store and buy the already started pumpkin plants and use those instead. I am not above admitting defeat with seeds, but I refuse to surrender completely. We WILL have pumpkins growing in the back yard this Autumn!

What a weekend! Here we are only a few weeks into Pumpkin Eatin’ Season and I’m pretty sure I’ve already found my favorite pumpkin treat of 2010. Magnolia Bakery, a staple of the New York cupcake scene, just opened their first west coast store a few weekends ago. I’d visited one of their New York stores and loved it. The aesthetic of the store is my aesthetic: bright and cheery with a giant dollop of 1950’s retro. Even their cupcakes are simply beautiful. The colors remind me of Easter pastels and their cupcake decorations are reminiscent of a sophisticated kindergarten birthday party. So cute!

How do they taste? Yummy delicious! They’re the only store-bought cupcake that truly tastes homemade to me. They keep their flavors fairly basic. Combinations of vanilla and chocolate make up the bulk of the cupcakes in the case. Lately cupcake stores, at least those in Los Angeles, pride themselves on coming up with the craziest flavor combinations: sea salt caramel, cookie dough, cosmo, watermelon, etc. Magnolia doesn’t need to overwhelm your taste buds with crazy flavors because the simplicity of their flavors allows the quality to come through.

While the cupcakes and banana pudding (equally as amazing) would have left my taste buds dancing for weeks, they also had a Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Pecan Crust!!! I’m always raving about the Pumpkin Bars at Creative Cakey and these are equally as good. The gingersnap crust pairs wonderfully with the creamy spiciness of the pumpkin cheesecake. These are completely craveable. I’m drooling right now just thinking about them.

If you’re not near Los Angeles or New York, you can pick up the second book from Magnolia Bakery, More From Magnolia: Recipes from the World Famous Bakery and Allysa Torey’s Home Kitchen, which has the Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Pecan Crust recipe. I can’t wait to try it at home because the only thing that would have made it any better would be a little more salt in the crust.

I’m beginning to think I’m an east coast girl trapped on the west coast. I would choose Magnolia Bakery over Sprinkles any day—not to mention Five Guys over In-N-Out.

Yvette and I have found a spot in our backyard in one of the flower beds and our beginning the pumpkin planting process. I cleared the current occupant and tilled up all of the soil. We had purchased two bags of top soil called “Amend”, which supposedly was good for planting flowers and plants (says the 18 year old cashier at the store). It was organic and enriched with plant food already. After the flower bed was all tilled up and the old plants removed, I emptied the bags of top soil and spread it evenly throughout the garden.

We had purchased a small “flower bed” fence which was about 24” tall to keep our dog out of it. Along with the pumpkin seeds, we also bought small plants that were ready to plant in the ground: summer squash, a red bell pepper plant and some parsley. I chose one end and planted all three of them. The remaining part of the garden will be for the pumpkins (once they germinate and are ready for the outside).

Though our flower bed is somewhat small, I have heard that pumpkins do not get a deep root system. The biggest challenge will be the space needed for the pumpkin vines. Several websites say to just let them grow out on the lawn (as they do not attach past their root system-the site of planting). It can be inconvenient, but it is only for a few months. Now we have a plan and are set to grow!

Along with the Sesame Street greenhouse, we also purchased a seed pack of white pumpkins, a second green house tray and a little individual cup/kit pumpkin thing. It is like a personal greenhouse for just a few seeds. It was cute and Yvette had to have it.

You start with adding warm water to the peat pellets which are inside the greenhouse tray. As the water penetrates them they expand. You tear open the little netting at the top of the pellet and bury a couple of seeds into each one. I then added a little bit more water as I thought they felt a little dry when I was planting my seeds. Note: I did not have any excess water floating in the tray, the peat pellets were completely expanded and saturated, but there was no excess water.

I completed this process with both trays, all of the seeds and the individual pumpkin cup. The instructions said to pop the clear lid on them and put them in a warmer space but somewhere they will not get direct sun. I chose the top of a bookshelf in our “library”. This room does not get excessively cold and the seed trays are out of the way. So keep your fingers crossed that nature smiles down on our little experiment!

I will post periodically to show you our progress, probably a couple of times a month. If you have any tips for me, please leave a comment, I would love to have some advice! Autumn will be here before we know it (I get so excited thinking about it)! Though Yvette and I are completely falling into our “summer mode”, beach, barbeque, road trips, etc… I always keep a special place in the back of my head for fall, it is my favorite season. Until we meet again…

Hello Everyone!

I would like to introduce myself, I am Shannon–the famous “pumpkin passion” hand model and wife of Yvette. I am the new guest blogger on pumpkinpassion.com for the pumpkin growing section.

About a month ago we were at Home Depot when Yvette and I found these cute little plastic “greenhouse” kits with Sesame Street characters on the carton. They were labeled “My First Greenhouse”. We fell in love with them and knew that pumpkin growing needed to be blogged. Consequently, I figured this year I could buckle down and grow my own pumpkin patch. It would save us some money, I could be a rockin’ farmer person and it would be fun to document our progress on the blog.

Let me give you some of my back ground…I am not a farmer. I have never grown anything, possibly a houseplant but nothing to really boast about at backyard barbecues. The most farming/gardening experience I have ever had would be picking raspberries on a ranch up in Oak Glen, CA or being a “digital” farmer on everyone’s favorite networking site. Clearly this is a completely new experience, the choices I will make in this journey will be based off of info I locate on the web, maybe some advice from friends and hopefully a little common sense. So let’s see if we can get some pumpkins to sprout.

It’s time! I made a recent trip to the craft store, Michaels, and found a whole section of paraphernalia, stuff, decorations, thingamajigs, and junk for the fall season. As we all know, the return of the fall season means a return to pumpkins!

I am officially dusting off pumpkinpassion.com and officially welcoming the 2010 Pumpkin Eatin’ Season! Welcome back.

I have been baking up a storm lately. Some recipes I took one bite of and promptly put in the trash while others will now become wonderful seasonal standards. Here’s a quick run down:

Pumpkin Spice No-Bake Cheesecake from Gina’s Weight Watcher Recipes
I have enjoyed several recipes from Gina’s Weight Watcher Recipe blog and was looking forward to making the pumpkin cheesecake. This recipe seemed perfect: pumpkin and guilt-free dessert. I’d tried making a similar recipe before minus the pumpkin and was not impressed. Still, my hopes were high. However, the cream cheese was just too strong and tangy. We didn’t finish our slice. Maybe next time we’ll add more pumpkin and lighten up the density with some fat-free whipped cream

Pumpkin & Corn Fritters by Emeril Lagasse
I haven’t eaten many fritters before or I might have know better than to have made this recipe. Essentially these are like a savory pumpkin bread with corn added and then fried. A more realistic name would have been fried pumpkin corn bread. They did have some good flavor but they were just too much. It needed some kind of sour cream chipotle sauce…actually any sauce would have been an improvement. I ate a few of these but most of them went in the trash. Savory fried bread balls are not my thing. However, these Golden Ricotta Pumpkin Fritters sound like a delicious improvement and so do these pumpkin banana fritters.

Pumpkin Waffles by the Pumpkin Waffles Blog
We have also been pumpkin waffle making fools lately and I really do mean fools. The first batch of these pumpkin waffles that I got from a recipe at the aptly named Pumpkin Waffle Blog turned out CRAZY BAD. They were runny and thin and I couldn’t get them to cook without burning in the middle. I had no doubt that I’d done something wrong. Trying out a new recipe early on a Saturday morning without taking the time to drink a cup of coffee beforehand is a bad idea. I gave them another try a couple of weeks later and they were completely delicious. They have the Pumpkin Passion Seal of Approval. Yummmm!

Pumpkin Bread by the Polka Dot Cottage
Hands down, my favorite pumpkin recipe we tried over this past Pumpkin Eatin’ Season was the Pumpkin Bread recipe over at Polka Dot Cottage. I swear that I would not be eligible for a spot on the Food Network’s “Worst Cooks in America”–btw, I HEART Rachel Coleman. I can be a pretty decent cook when I try but I almost messed this recipe up too. I didn’t read that this was a recipe for two loaves, instead of the one gigantic loaf I tried to make. Luckily I realized my mistake shortly after putting it in the oven. I quickly took out the full loaf pan and took out enough batter to make 12 gigantic Costco muffins in addition to the one loaf. Even with this mistake the bread and muffins came out wonderfully. We’ve made this recipe several times and have frozen and thawed the second loaf without being able to tell that it wasn’t freshly baked. It’s moist and delicious. I highly recommend trying this recipe all year long. In fact, I think I’ll make some more this weekend!

Here’s a perfect example of my biggest pumpkin related pet peeve.

What exactly is pumpkin about these Pop Rocks? The orange color? Basketballs are orange too. Why not call these Basketball Pop Rocks? Or maybe Clown Fish Pop Rocks? Yum!

Just because you slap an awkward looking pumpkin on the wrapper doesn’t make this a cool seasonal item. Next time, try pumpkin flavored Pop Rocks. Those would be awesome!

A special thank you to our regularly featured Pumpkin Passion hand model, Shannon. We use her services regularly because she’s free, which is probably the reason why she can’t afford hand lotion. Dang! Those are some dry looking fingers! Love you!