Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

I love to carve pumpkins for Halloween.

It's fun to get together with friends to create our jack-o-lanterns. 

The great thing about jack-o-lanterns in Fairbanks is that they freeze solid, so they have the potential of being around all winter... or at least until the moose find them.  The moose love it when I carve pumpkins for Halloween.  This girl was certainly not shy about enjoying my jack-o-lantern for a midnight snack a couple years ago...

Our blank canvases...

It's always fun to scoop out the seeds and the gook from the inside of the pumpkin!

Saving the seeds in a bowl...

and then I picked out all the big chinks of pumpkin gook...

Rinsing the seeds to get some of the sliminess off the seeds...

Sarah swears by soaking the seeds in salt water overnight, but we didn't have the patience for that.... half an hour worked just fine.

We spread the seeds into two different casserole dishes and John sprinkled a bit of paprika (chile powder is good too!) on one and just plain salt on the other.

And then into the oven at 400°F for ~ half an hour until the were nice and toasty brown, stirring occasionally.

Voilà! And then once they cooled, we stuck them in air tight containers.

Lingonberry-raspberry streusel bars

During this past berry season, I had a lot going on, so I didn't get out nearly as much as I usually do to go harvest wild berries.  I'm bummed not to have loads of wild blueberries and lingonberries in my freezer, but I did manage to go pick some raspberries at the farm with my friend Linda, and we got a bunch!  We were originally only going to stay for an hour, but it was such a gorgeous Friday evening and the air had a crispness to it foreshadowing cooler weather to follow, so we blew off our other plans for the evening and continued to pick and pick and pick.

So this winter, I'll be using these cultivated raspberries to supplement my recipes that call for wild berries.

These streusel bars are quite versatile.  The original recipe calls for lingonberry jam and lingonberries, but I usually mix and match a bit-- using different types of jams (or multi-berry jam) and different types of berries, such as lingonberries, raspberries, or wild bluberries.


Ingredients

crust
2 1/2 cups gluten-free flour mix
1/2 tsp xantham gum (if the gluten-free flour mix doesn't already have some in it)
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks (1 cup) butter

filling
3/4 cup lingonberry or raspberry jam
3/4 cup lingonberries or raspberries
1 tbsp lemon juice

streusel
2 tbsp butter, softened
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup  rolled oats
1/2 cup pecans (or walnuts)

Directions

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Start by cutting the two sticks of butter up into little pieces.

Combine the flour, (xantham gum, if needed), sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.

Add the butter one chunk at a time while mixing at a low speed.

Mix until the butter is thoroughly blended in; it will have a crumbly texture.

Set aside 1 1/4 cups of the flour mixture to use in the streusel topping.

Butter a 9x13 pan (realistically, you can skip this step since the crust has plenty of butter in it and I've never had a problem with it sticking to a glass dish).

Press the remaining flour mixture in the bottom of the pan, creating a small edge around the perimeter.

Bake 14 to 18 minutes-- until the edges begin to brown.

In a small bowl, mix together the ingredients for the filling-- the jam, the berries, and the lemon juice.  Mash up the berries a little bit with a fork.

To the 1 1/4 cups of flour mixture that you set aside, add in the brown sugar, oats, and nut.

 Mix in the last 2 tbsp of butter into the streusel topping.

After pulling out the crust,

spread the jam filling evenly over the crust.

I didn't think in had enough berries in it, so I sprinkled another handful of raspberries over the top.

Gently sprinkle the streusel topping evenly over the jam filling. Return the pan to oven and bake 22 to 25 minutes-- until topping is deep golden brown and filling is bubbling.


Let the bars cool before cutting (but I have found that you can get away with not waiting too long!) Cut into squares to serve.

I made these when I had friends coming over for a bbq, and the streusel bars were a big hit!

Oh no, Martin goes in for the last one!  I guess there won't be any leftovers...

Curried sweet potato with kale

On my last trip to Juneau, I ended the trip by visiting and staying with my friend Marie and her family.  Marie is also gluten-free, so we often discuss and recommend new recipes.  She was telling me about the delicious sweet potato-kale dish she made many times.  Since there was kale to harvest from her garden, we though we'd make it for dinner to accompany a silver salmon her husband had recently caught.

Ingredients
olive oil
garlic
~ 3 sweet potatoes
big bunch of kale (we inadvertently had some chard mixed in with the kale)
curry powder (maybe a good heaping teaspoon or so?)
salt and pepper

Directions
Begin by peeling and cutting the sweet potatoes into small bite-size cubes.

Toss into a steamer and

steam until tender.

Mince the garlic.

Tear the kale into bite size pieces.  It cooks down quite a bit so we probably threw in about enough kale to fill half of a gallon-sized ziplock bag.

Heat a bit of olive oil to a wok,

saute the garlic,

and add in the kale.

Cover the wok and let it cook down.

Cook it until it's tender and shiny green.

Add in the curry powder, salt, and pepper.

Then toss in the steamed sweet potatoes,

and mix it all together.

It's especially good served with wild Alaskan salmon!

 A perfect dinner for my last night hanging out in Southeast Alaska with friends!

Sautéed green beans with homemade mustard

OK, so this recipe– unlike all my others– is not actually gluten-free since I use Kodiak Nut Brown beer in the mustard.  Since I'm only gluten-intolerant and don't have the much more serious Celiac disease, I can totally get away with cheating a bit.  In fact, I've declared this as my summer of drinking beer.  I went to the Haines Beer Fest in the end of May, indulged in beers from all the different Alaskan breweries, and decided that drinking beer doesn't affect me the same as eating a bagel does.  Some of my gluten-intolerant friends claim they can drink beer without issues.  I'd like fully believe that I don't react to the gluten in beer, but I can live in a bit of denial for the summer.

When I was at the farmer's market recently, I stocked up on some local produce including some fantastic green beans.  My sister had mentioned a few weeks ago that she had made a lovely green bean salad with a mustard vinaigrette, but I didn't get the recipe from her.  Instead I decided to just sauté the green beans and then add some homemade Kodiak nut brown mustard.

Kodiak nut brown mustard (prepare the mustard the day before to allow time for the chemical reaction between the mustard powder and the liquids for the flavor to mellow out)

Ingredients
1/2 c mustard powder
1/2 c brown mustard seeds
1/4 c brown sugar
3/4 c apple cider vinegar
1 c Kodiak nut brown ale
1 tsp salt
2 heaping tbsp corn starch

In a sauce pan, mix together the mustard powder, mustard seeds, and brown sugar.

Add the vinegar and beer.  I usually let it sit for a few hours at this point since I think this is where there's suppose to be a chemical reaction between the mustard powder and the liquids).

And the salt.

Stir in the cornstarch so it's completely dissolved with no lumps.

In order to activate the cornstarch to thicken the mustard, heat over a medium heat until the mustard begins to simmer.  Stir constantly until the mustard thickens up, and then remove from heat.

Spoon into glass jars and refrigerate.

So, I bought these green beans at the farmer's market, but they were this brilliant purple color!  I asked the farmer if they were just like regular green beans except for the color.  He said yes and that they'd turn green when I cooked them.  I couldn't tell if he was joking or not, so I was super curious to see if they would change colors.

First I cleaned them and chopped them into shorter lengths.

Then I heated a bit of olive oil in a skillet over a medium-high heat.

Into the pan...

A bit of salt...

And to my amazement (and a little bit of disappointment), they did start turning green!

After they were properly sautéd and still had a bit of crispness to them, I added two dollops of mustard. 

Then I removed from the heat and mixed thoroughly.

I thought about fixing something else to go with the green beans, but ended up just eating a big plate of green beans for dinner...