Creations by Alisha Rose: October 2013

In January, I decided to break into my pumpkin from my Fall Decor. I bought it in September and thought for sure it would be rotten inside, but just in case I didn't want good pumpkin to go to waste. I cut into and it was perfectly fine! I haven't done much cooking with pumpkin and was excited to try to find some yummy recipes to use it in.

My first task was to figure out how to take it from a whole pumpkin to usable for recipes. I searched around and one of the solutions I found was to cook it like acorn squash. Cut it up, put it the oven, fill the bottom with an inch or so of water, and bake until soft. It kind of worked, but turned out to be a much bigger ordeal then planned. The pumpkin was so thick that it took much longer to get the pumpkin soft then expected. By the time it was soft in the middle the top had a nice crispy crust which I had to peal off in order to use the soft pumpkin underneath. The other problem was because it was taking so long, the water kept evaporating, so I kept needing to add more water. One time, I wasn't thinking, and I added cold water to my pan instead of hot water. The below picture was result of that mistake. BAM! Explosion - glass everywhere. :( I'm sad too, because I can't find another blue glass 9 X 13 pan.

How do you cook a pumpkin?

The first thing I made from it were pumpkin pancakes. They were quite yummy, soo moist. I unfortunately don't know know what recipe I used. Anyone have any good pumpkin pancake recipes to share? I'd love to try them out this season!

The one thing that I do remember was that all the recipes called for pumpkin pie spice mix which I did not have because I don't like pumpkin pie (yes, I know, how could I not like pumpkin pie? Well, I don't like cheesecake either. I'm weird - it's just a texture thing I have). I looked up how to make it from scratch and all recipes included nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, and ginger - all ingredients I had on hand.

The other recipe I tried was from a blog I like to read - Something Swanky: Desserts and Designs . Her blog is all about desserts and diy blog design tricks... kind of a weird combination but two things which I'm very interested in. It appeals to both my tummy and my brain. :)

This recipe is to die for - so yummy and fairly easy to do too. I recommend you don't pass this recipe up this fall season.

Photo Credit: Something Swanky

This is a pumpkin roll with cream cheese frosting... oh so delicious. Just give it a try yourself, you'll be glad you did. I'm bringing this recipe to the next Thanksgiving gathering I go to this year.

Pumpkin Roll from Something Swanky.

So the season for pumpkins is here again - What are your favorite pumpkin recipes?