The closest I have come to my own Iron Chef experience would be my ongoing Battle of Orange Food. This is a strange phenomenon at our house in which, one day, our child who LOVED everything orange in baby foods decided she no longer liked orange vegetables. For no reason.
The challenge was on. I admit, I got a little nuts. ALL of the squash and pumpkins in the photo, plus another 15 pounds of sweet potatoes and some carrots were stockpiled. I have a small problem with squash addiction. I also love orange food.
Over the course of the last two years, I have made soup, gnocchi, pasta dishes, desserts, everything from Pumpkin Gnocchi with Walnut Cream Sauce to Curried Squash Soup to Vanilla Bean Sweet Potato Pie with Brown Sugar Pecan Crust. It’s been a crazy mission to let no use for orange vegetable go unexplored.
My most recent favorite recipe follows …
Carrot Orange Souffle
2-1/4 pounds of chopped carrots
2/3 cup sugar
4 tbs. flour
3 tbs. plain yogurt
3 eggs
2 tbs. melted butter
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. mace (or nutmeg)
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. orange extract
Steam carrots until soft. Allow to cool completely. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place carrots in food processor. Pulse until pureed. Add the other ingredients, pulsing as you go. Run food processor until all the ingredients are well incorporated.
Spray a souffle dish with cooking spray. Pour in carrot souffle batter. Bake for about 50 minutes. It tastes great warm, but even better cold, the next day.
I meant to try this recipe last winter but haven’t yet – I definitely will.
My counter has four squash and a pumpkin on it right now….
I’ll see your four squash and one pumpkin, and raise you FOUR pumpkins and seven squash. That’s not including the seven carving pumpkins on the porch. I asked the farmer if I could eat the 60-pounder, and he just looked at me like, “You mean you eat these?”
What’s up with that?
i want the vanilla bean sweet potato pie recipe!