Pumpkin Archives • Mushroompride

Pumpkin Spiced Gingerbread Loaf – Delishar

Before I get to talking about this recipe, I’d like to share some exciting news! I’ve mentioned that I have been busy working on something that’s really exciting but I could not reveal what it was. So today is the day that I can finally let the cat outta the bag! I have written a COOKBOOK!

Yes, Delishar has been asked to published a cookbook with many new and exclusive recipes that were developed specially for this cookbook. The book features more than 40 recipes, sections where I share with you my kitchen tips & tricks, and also how to plan your meals to minimize food wastage. I’ve also had the opportunity to do my own food styling, and photography. So yes, the content of the whole book has been done with love by yours truly, and dedicated to all of you who has been so supportive of my cooking blog! Thank you, without you this would not have been possible.

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‘Daily cooking with Delishar’ is currently ready for pre-order from Kinokuniya webstore. They are currently offering a 20% off flash sale from until 30 Nov for all books on their webstore. That includes my title! So pre-order my cookbook today. 🙂

If you are ordering after 30 Nov, Kinokuniya is offering a 10% off pre-order deal for my book. Provide the discount code “DELISHAR” upon checkout on their webstore. This 10% off pre-order deal ends 15 January 2017.

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Let’s move on to the cake. The moist gingerbread cake loaded with pumpkin puree and fragrant warm spices. The husband, and the girls loved it so much it was gone in 2 days. The cream cheese frosting goes so beautifully with the flavours of the cake. It is tough to put into words how this cake actually taste like, but I have to say it taste a lot like Christmas. 🙂

This recipe have been created with the intention of a one cake fit all kind of recipe. Keeping in mind Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. A mom got to be efficient right? lol. Serve it at room temperature if you like a softer cake with softer frosting. Serve it chilled to have a firmer overall texture. I like mine at room temperature. What about you?

You can have the ingredients for this recipe pre-portioned and delivered to your door-step, so you as to save you the time and effort from shopping and measuring ingredients. Head to Cookit SG to purchase your Cook Kits.

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Spiced Pumpkin Gingerbread Loaf

Delishar

Makes a 8×4 loaf tin

125 g Plain flour
½ tsp Baking powder
½ tsp Baking soda
¼ tsp Ground cloves
1 tsp Cinnamon powder
¾ tsp Ginger powder
¼ tsp Salt
75 g Brown sugar
75 g White sugar
1 tsp Vanilla extract
85 g Unsalted butter softened
212 g Canned Pumpkin
1 Egg

Frosting

57 g Cream Cheese
43 g Unsalted butter
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
188 g 1.5 cups Icing sugar
2 tbsp Milk
Pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 165C.
In a mixing bowl, add flour, baking powder, bakig soda, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and salt together.
Grease loaf pan with baking spray with flour.
In your mixer, beat butter and sugars until combined.
Then add vanilla extract, and egg to beat until light and fluffy.
Add in pumpkin, and mix until just combined.
Add in flour mix in 3 parts and mix until just combined.
Pour batter into tray and smooth out top with the back of a spoon.
Bake for 55-65 minutes or until a skewer/knife inserted comes out clean.
Cool in pan for 10 minutes then turn it out onto wire rack to cool completely.
To make frosting, beat cream cheese and butter in your mixer until combined.
Then add in vanilla and gradually add in icing sugar while mixer is running.
Drizzle in milk 1 tsp at a time until desired spreadable consistency.
When cake is completely cooled, frost the top of the cake with cream cheese frosting.
Enjoy immediately, or allow icing to set in the fridge for an hour.

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Curried Pumpkin Soup – Delishar

Day 10! Based on the Whole30 timeline, day 10 & 11 is the time when most people who quit on the program caves. Day 9 was extremely tough for me. I was unusually tired, I crave sugar to get me going. Perhaps because of the lack of good night sleep the night before. My youngest came into my room in the middle of the night, crawled into bed, and asked me to snuggle her. I think she was a little anxious about having her cast and k-wires removed. Usually I’ll send her back into the room, but that night I allowed her to sleep with us. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep very well as I was afraid that I’ll roll over her or hurt her broken arm.

She had her cast and 3 k-wires removed, and her elbow and wrist are healing well. 6 more weeks of light duties before she can resume normal activities. Despite her limited arm movement when she still had her cast on, she was adamant about making dinner with me one evening. So I can’t say I made this pumpkin soup entirely on my own. It was team effort. She also had her chef hat and apron on while helping me out. lol!

I knew that this soup is going to put a smile on the husband’s face when he sees it. He is a big fan of soups. True enough, the first thing he said was, “This is reeeaaallly good!”. I made enough for us to have it for lunch the next day with a side salad. Soup and salad is always good. 🙂

The soup can be spicy depending on the curry powder that you use. My curry powder is pretty strong, so use a milder one if the kids are having it too. My kids aren’t pumpkin fan, so I made something else for them for dinner that night. If you have 30 minutes to spare, do give this recipe a try. I promise you it will be worth it. It’s a great make ahead as well!

Curried Pumpkin Soup

Delishar

4 cups 1L chicken/veg stock*
1 yellow onion diced
3 cloves garlic smashed
800 g pumpkin cut into 1 inch cubes
1 large carrot cut into 1 inch pieces
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and black pepper to taste

Toppings

2 cups baby kale
20 g walnuts
2 tsp olive oil
2-3 tsp curry powder
Salt and black pepper to taste
Olive oil to drizzle optional

Curried Pumpkin Soup

Heat pot on medium high heat with 1 tbsp oil.
Add onion to cook until softened, about 1 minute.
Then add garlic to cook until slightly browned.
Pour stock into pot, add pumpkin and carrot.
Bring to boil, and lower heat to medium low.
Simmer 20 minutes until carrot and pumpkin is tender.
Remove from heat.
Heat pan on medium high heat with 2 tsp oil.
Blend with immersion blender until smooth.
Bring it back up to a boil.
Season with curry powder, salt, and black pepper to taste then remove from heat.

Toppings

Saute baby kale with salt and pepper.
Remove and set aside.
Add walnuts into pan and toast.
Remove to cool, and chop into smaller chunks.
Serve pumpkin soup with sauteed baby kale and chopped walnuts.
Drizzle a little olive oil over the soup to finish.

I used Imagine’s No Chicken Stock that is whole30 compliant and available at cold storage.

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Browned Butter Seared Scallops with Cauli-couscous & Pumpkin Puree (Keto, Paleo, Whole 30) – Delishar

While grocery shopping, I saw some really pretty wild caught scallops that inspired this meal. I was planning to make pumpkin soup but quickly deviated from the original plan to make this ultra luscious and velvety pumpkin puree instead. So glad I did it though! I swear it was so delish and so easy to put together too! To pair, I made a low-carb version of couscous made using cauliflower and seasoned it with fresh herbs with a touch of citrus. The star of the meal is the sweet, meaty, and tender pan-seared scallops drizzled with browned butter that we can’t stop eating!

I know, I know… Keto folks will start saying that pumpkin is high in carbs. However, as with all ingredients, it’s all about the serving size. This recipe works out to be about 12g of total carbs, bearing in mind serving size. Do watch your serving size: 50g (1/4 cup) of pumpkin puree, 100g (1 cup) cauliflower couscous, and 125g scallops = Total Carbohydrates: 12.26 g, and 3.2 g Fiber. We had leftover pumpkin puree & cauliflower couscous from this recipe for me to have lunch the next day.

This recipe consists of 3 different recipes/dishes put together. The pan-seared scallops with browned butter sauce, the silky pumpkin puree, and the lemon parsley cauliflower-couscous. Feel free to deconstruct it and pair it with something else that you fancy.

The cauliflower couscous works very well as a staple on its own. Pairs beautifully with any kind of protein, especially seafood. Don’t be intimidated by the use of Xanthan Gum in this recipe. The Xanthan gum helps bind the puree together and give it a silky gooey texture. It’ll work without Xanthan as well. This is my kind of perfect low-carb meal and the colours on the plate are just visually very appealing!

Browned Butter Scallops on Cauli-couscous & Pumpkin Puree

Delishar

Pumpkin Puree

500 g pumpkin peeled and seeded (Butternut if you aren’t concern about carb count)
1/4 tsp Xanthan gum optional
Salt to taste

Lemon Parsley Cauli-Couscous

500 g Cauliflower
3 tbsp chopped italian parsley
1-2 tbsp lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
2 tbsp olive oil

Pan Seared Scallops

500 g Wild Caught Large Scallops
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt & Pepper to taste
3 tbsp butter for browned butter

Pumpkin Puree

Slice pumpkin into thin slices and steam over high heat for 10 minutes until soft and tender.
Drain any excess liquid and transfer to blender.
Season with salt, add Xanthan gum and blend until pureed.
Pour the puree through a sieve to remove larger lumps.
Use a spoon to push the puree through the sieve.

Lemon Parsley Cauli-Couscous

Clean cauliflower, remove stalk, and separate into florets.
Using a food processor, process florets into the size of couscous.
Heat pan on high heat with oil.
Stir-fry cauliflower until dried and slightly brown. (About 8 minutes)
Season with salt and black pepper.
Remove from heat, stir in chopped parsley, lemon juice, and 1-2 tsp lemon zest.
Save some lemon zest for garnish later.

Pan Seared Scallops

Pat dry scallops with kitchen towel.
Season generously with salt and black pepper.
In a pan over medium-high heat, add olive oil.
When oil is heated, add scallops on by one, taking care not to overcrowd the pan.
You might have to work in batches.
Allow to cook for about 2 minutes untouched. This will give the scallops a golden crust.
Flip and cook for another 1-2 minutes, do not over cook it.
In another smaller clean pan, melt butter over medium heat.
Allow to cook until slightly browned and smell nutty.
Remove from heat immediately and transfer into a bowl.

Putting it together

Ladle the puree on the plate, using the back of the ladle to spread the puree in a circular motion.
My ladle is small about 1/4 cup.
Top with cauli-couscous & scallops.
Spoon browned butter over scallops.
Garnish with reserved lemon zest.

Xanthan helps bind the puree and give a more gooey texture. But this is absolutely optional.
Paleo & Whole 30: Strain the browned butter to remove milk solids. This will give you browned ghee.
Keto: Watch serving size 50g of pumpkin puree, 100g cauliflower couscous, and 125g scallops =
Total Carbohydrates: 12.26 g, 3.2 g Fiber