savour

Berthoud Weekly Surveyor September 25, 2014 Page B3

Keys to cooking with pumpkins Special to the Surveyor

Autumn is ripe with vibrant colors and scenery. One of the more vivid sights this time of year are the bright, orange pumpkins that adorn walkways and front porches of homes and businesses.

Not only are pumpkins ideal for decorating, but they’re also great to eat. Some people who plan to carve jack-o-lanterns mistakenly believe the same type of pumpkin can be used in their favorite recipes.

But what carving pumpkins have in visual flair, they usually lack in flavor and substance. Instead, would-be pumpkin cookers should look to other varieties if they plan to serve pumpkin on the menu.

Pumpkins are available from September through December, but they peak in October. Many smaller pumpkins are better and sweeter for cooking. Mini pumpkins, sugar, cheese, and pie pumpkins are va-rieties commonly used in recipes. The big jack-o-lantern pumpkins have stringy, watery flesh and will provide little to no pulp for cooking.

Select a pumpkin as you would any other type of squash. Look for a firm pumpkin with no bruises or soft spots. The pumpkin also should have a deep orange color. Store pumpkins in a cool, dark area until ready for use to prolong freshness. Wash the exterior of the pumpkin in cool water before cutting to remove any dirt and bacteria on the surface of the pumpkin so it won’t be transferred to the pulp of the pumpkin. Slice the pumpkin in half and remove the seeds and any stringy material. Rinse and save the seeds for planting or roasting.

Put the pumpkin pieces in the microwave to cook or you can steam or bake them until the pulp is soft and the pumpkin falls off of the skin. Cool the pumpkins, then puree the pulp until it’s smooth. You may want to strain the pureed pumpkin with a cheese cloth to remove any excess water before us-ing in a pie recipe.

Baked breads may benefit from the extra moisture. Pumpkins are a great source of dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, riboflavin, potassium, copper, manganese, vitamin E, thiamin, niacin, vitamin B6, folate, iron, calcium, magne-sium, and phosphorus. They’re also low in fat and calories.

Pumpkin puree can replace the oil in some baking recipes, much as you would use applesauce

Pass the pumpkin, pleaseBy Heidi Kerr-SchlaeferThe Surveyor

’Tis the time of year for pumpkin-flavored everything; coffee shops serve up spiced pumpkin lattes, and every brewery is pouring pumpkin beer; but did you know that the pumpkin is an American vegetable? That’s right. The bulbous, meaty, orange vegetable originated in North America, and it’s an incredibly versatile veggie.

According to Pumpkin-Patch.com, seeds from related plants have been found in Mexico dating back to 7,000 B.C. The word pumpkin is from the Greek word for “large melon,” which is “pepon.” The French changed the word to “pompon” and the English changed it to “Pumpion.” Apparently, American colonists changed it once again to “pumpkin.”

It turns out the Native Americans knew a thing or two about the many uses of pumpkins. They roasted pumpkin strips over campfires and used them as food. They also used the flesh in many different ways. They roasted it, baked it, parched it, boiled it and dried it. The dried flesh was woven into mats which they used for trading. They ate pumpkin seeds and used them for medicinal purposes. Pumpkin blossoms were added to stews, and dried pump-kin was stored and ground into flour.

Even the shells were used as bowls and storage containers. Interestingly, as useful as the Native Americans found pumpkins, the Europeans were not as impressed. When Columbus introduced the seeds in Europe the vegetable was used to feed pigs, not humans, according to the website AllAboutPump-kins.com.

The pumpkin’s association with Halloween is also a North American tradi-tion. The Celts have celebrated the spooky holiday for 3,000 years at least, and they did not carve pumpkins, but rather turnips. According to Pumpkin-Nook.com, they carved turnips and lit them with embers in order to scare away the malevolent spirits they believed roamed ancient Britain. When Irish immigrants arrived in the United States they started carving pumpkins instead of turnips and, thus, this American tradition was born.

According to Care2.com there are 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkins produced every year in the United States. That’s a lot of pumpkin lattes!

It turns out that Native Americans had the right idea. Pumpkin is a useful product, and not just for carving up on Halloween or flavoring beverages. Ap-parently pumpkin is good for your skin.

LiveStrong.com released an article in 2013 listing the many skin-care benefits of pumpkin. These include the healing benefits of vitamin A and C; pumpkin is packed with these vitamins. Pumpkin facial masks, moisturizers and peels nourish your skin and promote the absorption of these nutrients. Pumpkin can also dissolve dry skin and fight acne.

Who knew that your favorite fall coffee and beer flavor had so many other uses? Pumpkin can also be used to make candles, soup, biscuits and an assort-ment of desserts, from pie to pudding to cake.

So the next time you sip a hot pumpkin-spiced latte, remember you’re tast-ing an ancient and valuable vegetable with an astounding number of uses.

Page B4 September 25, 2014 Berthoud Weekly Surveyor

A sandwich by any other name

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Special to the Surveyor

The tradition of jack-o’-lanterns began in Ireland and Scotland, and pumpkins were not the first gourd of choice to use as lanterns. Turnips and rutabagas were often used be-cause of their availability.

When Irish immigrants migrated to America, they brought their jack-o’-lantern tra-ditions with them. Turnips were not as prevalent on this side of the Atlantic, so carvers turned to pumpkins, which were larger and easier to carve.

Jack-o’-lanterns get their name from Irish folklore, particularly a character named Jack. Jack liked to drink and couldn’t pay his pub tab, making a deal with the Devil for his soul to cover the pub fee. Jack

agreed, but he tricked the Devil to get away with his soul and captured the Devil. Jack agrees to free the Devil if he makes a new deal that the Devil can’t ever have his soul.

Years pass and Jack eventually dies. Because of his poor lifestyle, he

is not material for heaven, and Jack is once again

reunited with the Devil. Because the

Devil remembers he cannot have Jack’s soul, Jack is forced to roam the twilight world forever as

a lost soul. The Devil gives

Jack a few embers to burn to light the way,

which Jack stores in a hollowed-out turnip.

Eventually these lanterns, used to keep scary spirits at bay, were called jack-o’-lanterns.

The legend of jack-o’-lanterns

By Bob McDonnellThe Surveyor

Depending on the region where one lives in the United States, people have different terms for certain items. For example, depending on the locale, people may call a soft drink a “coke,” “pop” or “soda.” The same holds true for the names of sandwiches.

Take for example the “sub” sandwich. It’s generally known that the “sub” in this case refers to “submarine,” playing off the shape of the sandwich’s bread.

The website bonapppetit.com traces the name for the sub sandwich to New London, Conn. and the nearby town of Gro-ton. During World War II, the area served as the Navy’s main submarine base and shipbuilding yard.

The bon appetit website credits an Italian shopkeeper, Benedetto Capaldo, with creating the sub, but it originally went by the name “grinder.” The sandwiches’ name was changed to sub once the shipyard starting ordering up to 500 sand-wiches a day.

The grinder mentioned above seems to have nautical beginnings, too. The term grinder served as an Italian-American slang term for a dockworker. These workers per-formed many tasks, including sand-ing and grinding rusty ships before the hulls were repainted.

Another related type of sandwich is the “hero.” Bonappetit.com offers a couple of stories on the origin of this term. One theory is that hero is a mispronunciation of the word for the Greek “gyro” sandwich.

According to the website article, a more logical explanation is that the hero label came from Clementine Paddleworth when she used the word in a food column for the New York Herald Tribune in 1936. In the col-umn, Paddleworth commented that you had to be a hero to eat it, refer-ring to the large sandwich.

Another similar sandwich is the hoagie. A man named Al De Palma says he coined the term hoggie that later became the hoagie sandwich, according to the Educational Cyber Playground’s website blog.edu-cyber-pg.com.

De Palma, a jazz musi-

cian turned restaurateur, owned a

chain of sand-wich shops in Philadelphia and

fancied himself the “King of the Hoagies.” One day,

while watching a friend eat the sandwich,

he thought the friend was a hog, according to

bonappetit.com. Anyone familiar with Cajun

food knows of the “po’ boy” or “poor boy” sandwich. This food’s

name comes out of a streetcar strike in New Orleans according to

bonappetit.com.The website relates how, in 1929,

workers on the streetcars went on strike. The people of New Orleans supported the strike. About 10,000 citizens gathered downtown to sup-port the strikers.

Two streetcar workers and broth-ers, Bennie and Clovis Martin, pledged free meals to union members during the strike. The brothers meted out large sandwiches. Bonappetit.com cited the folklore of the name from the brothers commenting to each other, “Here comes another poor boy” whenever men stopped by for their food.

The Houston Press food blog, www.houstonpress.com/eating, offers ad-ditional information. The blog sug-gests that because of all the French words in New Orleans, the term pour boire — meaning “peace offering” in French contributes the name of the local sandwich.

The Houston Press food blog offers a quick geographic recap on which term relates to which region.

Sub: Used widely with a large cluster of usage in the Northeast including Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Massa-chusetts.

Grinder: Primarily in New Eng-land with the exception of Boston, the Midwest and Sacramento, Calif.

Hero: New York and Northern New Jersey.

Hoagie: In the Delaware Valley, Philadelphia, South Jersey and Balti-more, Md.

No matter how you slice it, there is always room for a sandwich.


By May SoricelliThe Surveyor

Pumpkin and coffee go hand in hand this autumn at Da Bean Coffee Shop.

“Because it’s fall time as well as pumpkin time, we try to do as much pumpkin as possible,” said Da Bean owner Jennifer Harris.

As the weather in Berthoud cools and the golden fall colors appear, coffee-seekers can get warmed up with Da Bean’s specialty Pumpkin Spice Latte this October.

“Pumpkin spice latte is popular. I like to feed off the customer’s view of something, if it is popular we will bring it back next year. It’s fun to listen to customer’s new ideas and try them out and see if it’s a go. Each holiday brings new creations,” said Harris.

The staff of Da Bean have fun

trying new recipes and creating new pumpkin treats as well as drinks for customers to try.

On warmer days a cool and re-freshing Pumpkin Frappafreezie is another great way to get a spiced-pumpkin fix. To accompany these beverages the coffee shop is offering a delicious pumpkin scone as well.

Enjoy the changing seasons as har-vest time is upon the town and drink a beverage on the vine-covered patio or the warmly decorated shop.

For those guests who prefer choco-late to pumpkin flavor, the coffee shop’s famous “Cocoa Bunny” hot chocolate will be back for fall. This gourmet hot chocolate includes secret flavors to make it unique and tasty.

These pumpkin specialty items will be available starting Oct. 1 through the season, just in time for Halloween and jack-o-lanterns.

BerthoudSurveyor.com

Pumpkin Spice Lattes and more at Da Bean


A respectable dishBy Bob McDonnellThe Surveyor

The lowly zucchini gets no respect — much like Rodney Dangerfield. In the spring, when ev-eryone’s garden pro-duces more than enough zucchini, it is sometimes hard to give it away.

It, like other squashes and pumpkins, belongs to the species cucurbita pepo, according to the Uni-versity of Illinois Extension website. Although the culinary world treats the zucchini as a vegetable, it is re-ally a fruit, according to Wikipedia.com.

Zucchini’s roots, like all squash, can be traced to the Americas, ac-cording to CommonGroundFarmers.com.

The website also says the types of squash we call zucchini developed in Italy long after the ones grew in the Americas.

Through the years, cooks devised various methods for cooking zucchini including steaming, grilling, sautéing and deep-frying. A common way to use excess zucchini locally seems to be making some variety of zucchini bread, cake or brownies.

A unique method of preparing

zucchini is to make a zucchini pie. Although it is called pie, this dish usually serves as a main dish. Since the zucchini came about in Italy, it seems fitting that this award-win-ning recipe is for an Italian zucchini

crescent pie. Food.com states

that this pie won the $40,000 grand

prize in

the 1980 Pillsbury Bake-off contest. It came from the mind of Mrs. Mil-licent A. Caplan of Tamarac, Fla.

Italian Zucchini Crescent Pie

Ingredients:4 cups thinly sliced, unpeeled zucchini 1 cup coarsely chopped onion½ cup margarine or butter½ cup chopped parsley or 2tablespoons of parsley flakes½ teaspoon salt½ teaspoon black pepper¼ teaspoon garlic powder¼ teaspoon sweet basil leaves¼ cup oregano leaves2 eggs well beaten8 oz. (2 cups) shredded Muensteror Mozzarella cheese8 oz. can Pillsbury Quick CrescentDinner Rolls

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard or yellow mustard

Directions: Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. In

a 10-inch skillet, cook zucchini and onion in margarine until tender —about 10 minutes. Stir in parsley and seasonings. Drain zucchini mixture.

Separate dough into eight tri-angles. Place in ungreased 11-inch quiche pan, 10-inch pie pan or 12 x 8 baking dish. Press triangles over

bottom of pan and up the sides to seal and form a crust. Spread

crust with mustard.In a large bowl, blend eggs and

cheese. Stir in vegetable

mixture.Pour

vegetable mixture evenly

into crust.Bake at 375

degrees for 18 to 20 minutes or until knife

inserted near center comes out clean. (If crust bakes too brown, cover with foil during last 10 minutes of baking.) Let stand 10 min-utes before serving. Cut into wedges. Serve hot. Six servings.

Get some respect in your family by serving this time-honored recipe.

BERTHOUD DININGA & W Restaurant120 Bunyan Ave. 532-2272

Brick Oven, The269 Mountain Ave. 532-4747

Da Bean434 Mountain Ave. 532-1451

Derby Grille110 Bunyan Ave. 532-0986

Grandpa’s Cafe903 Mountain Ave. 532-2254

Mi Cocina400 Mountain Ave. 344-5022

Nonna Bella335 Mountain Ave. 532-0224

New China Chan Restaurant506 Welch Ave. 532-3895

Pizza Hut821 Mountain Ave. 532-1111

Subway307 Mountain Ave. 532-9818

Tito’s Mexican Grill405 Fifth St. 532-5500

Trailhead Cafe250 Mountain Ave. 532-9886

Whistle Stop Tavern, The535 S. Third St. 988-9257


Many people would not even entertain the thought of eating pumpkin unless baked in a pie or the old stand-by, pumpkin

bread. But pumpkin can also be the primary ingre-dient of main dishes and soups — pumpkin is even good in pancakes, but that last thought brings to mind a different dish article.

The Spicy Pumpkin Soup recipe below is quite tasty. Pureeing the beans gives the soup thickness and body, while the spices and jalapeno impart an abundance of flavor. It can easily be doubled for a large crowd.

This soup was a hit with the office staff. The dish presented is adapted from a similar

recipe found on the website aspicyperspective.com.

Place a large stock pan over medium-high heat. Add the oil, onion, garlic and jala-penos. Sauté for 3-5 minutes until soft. Stir in the cumin, oregano and salt. Sauté an-other 2 minutes.

Add the stock, pumpkin puree and beans to the pot. Simmer for 20 minutes, uncovered. Then add the vin-egar and honey and simmer another 3-5 minutes.

Use an immersion blender to puree the soup until smooth.

Serve with a sprinkling of French fried onions, a dollop of sour cream and a dash or two of your favorite hot sauce, if desired.

Yields about 12 cups.Notes: The soup may also be pureed, in batches,

in a counter-top blender. Care must be taken as one is working with hot liquid. Ladle a portion of the soup into the blender and pulse until smooth. Recombine in stock pot and reheat if necessary.

Enjoy.

Spicy Pumpkin SoupFor the soup:1 Tblsp. oil1 large onion, peeled and chopped5 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped2 Tblsp. ground cumin2 Tblsp. dried oregano2 tsp. salt8 cups vegetable stock1 (29 oz.) can pure pumpkin puree1 (15 oz.) can white beans, drained3 Tblsp. red wine vinegar2 Tblsp. honeyFor topping (optional):French fried onionsSour creamHot sauce

Surveyor Columnist

RudyHemmann

Spicy Pumpkin Soup