Happy Halloween! Oh, what can you do with a can of pumpkin?



 The Answer: lots of things, but some taste better than others.

Sorry for all those that looked at this post and found no answer at all. How frustrating of me!


So, with this one large can of pumpkin, I made three recipes and had extra pumpkin (which, I still don't know what to do with). I decided to be adventurous this time around while also doing a great job of avoiding all my impending responsibilities. It was a great night!
 
For those of you who are not obsessed with the cooking/baking blogosphere, it is pumpkin season. I didn't know pumpkin could go into so much, and I have collected quite a few recipes over the past several weeks that are waiting to be made into reality. I fulfilled the dreams of some of those recipes.

Bagels bubbling away in their boil bath before being baked.

First, I made pumpkin bagels. This was a new experience for me and I am pretty sure I need more skills here, but I am willing to give it another go. Bagel-making isn't as scary as you would think. Yes, there are some unusual steps, like boiling the bagels for three minutes before baking them, but the product was decent enough. With most recipes I make, I usually blame the recipe if it is no good. Call me cocky, but I figure I have enough baking skills that the cookies should turn out pretty good if the recipe is up to par. However, I did come down from my pride tower with these bagels. I believe I could get some more advice on the proper way to boil them. (Any bagel aficionados out there?) I felt like the texture of the inside was a nice bagel-ly thickness, but the outsides were a bit too chewy and tough. Maybe I will try to boil them less next time. With this specific recipe, I felt like there wasn't quite enough spice in the dough. I could smell the lovely fall scents coming off the dough as it rose, and thought this was going to be a lovely bread to eat, but it was kind of bland for my taste. You can the recipe here at Itsy Bitsy Foodies.


Pumpkin bagels with pumpkin cream cheese!

I apologize for the horrendous picture. Some day I will learn how to be better at photography. For now, this is about as good as it gets. :)

With some of the leftover pumpkin, I made pumpkin cream cheese. Guys, this stuff is delicious. I am really in love with it. I wish I had made more bagels to have an excuse to eat it. It was such a perfect blend of spices and the sweet, tanginess of cream cheese. I got that recipe from Ezra Pound Cake. Go there and make this stuff. So, so good!  Unfortunately, the only picture I took was that one above with the horrible lighting, but trust me, it is like a gift from the god of Fall. Enjoy!

The last thing I did with the can of pumpkin was make pumpkin frozen yogurt. It was disgusting. I don't have an ice cream machine, so that may be why and I also may have measured incorrectly the amount of spice. So, yeah, probably my fault on this one. However, I'm not planning on making that one again, so I won't share the link and I didn't bother taking a picture.

Enjoy the season of Fall and eat pumpkin!

Cheers!