Pumpkin Bits

Ah 'tis the season of leaves changing on the trees, pumpkins in the patch, and butternut squash hefty in the veggie garden. So let's go sweet with this pumpkin one. Butternut squash soup to follow...if not today, then tomorrow.

PUMPKIN BITS

(These may be made ahead and kept in fridge or frozen.)

1 1/3 cups flour

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) cold butter

1 cup oats uncooked (may be quick cook or not)

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 pkg. cream cheese softened (8 oz.)

3 eggs

1 can pumpkin (15 oz)

1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice (and if you're like me and don't have any handy, use: 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, a dash of cloves)

Preheat oven to 350

Line a 13 x 9 pan/dish with heavy foil enouogh to leave some edge to form a "rolled handle" on each end, and then grease with butter

Mix flour, brown sugar and 1/4 cup of granulated sugar in a bowl

Cut in butter with pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture looks like coarse crumbs.

Stir in oats and pecans (may use a combination of pother nuts too--like walnuts, etc.). Reserve one cup of mixture for the crumbs on top.

Press remaining mixture onto bottom of pan. Bake for 15 minutes

Beat cream cheese, remaining 1/2 cup sugar, eggs, pumpkin and spice with an electric mixer until well blended.

Pour over crust. Sprinkle with leftover reserved crumbs.

Bake 25 minutes. Lift from pan using foil "handles."

Cool completely before cutting into square bits.

Recipe for fior di zucca and a note on Harold Pinter

Fior di zucca

Make a batter of flour, eggs, water, salt, pepper, garlic powder and baking powder and aside to rest while you wash and dry and prepare the flowers.

Don't bother to ask, because I can't tell you how much of each ingredient goes into the batter. Experiment and you'll live a happy life of daring...go by eye. like I do, for how many flowers you have. It's the way I was taught. Some friends think I hold out on them--this isn't true. REALLY. I never measured anything in my kitchen, bit have tried writing these blog recipes...and it's a total pain. And I'm not even sure they are correct measurements. I usually guess.

Clean the flowers. Cut the stems, take out the pistol and remove any sepals. Into each flower place a piece of anchovy and a piece of mozzarella. Roll the twisted flower into a bowl of flour and then dip into the batter and fry in hot corn oil in a deep fry pan.

Server hot.

The following has nothing to do with food, and is merely a not on Harold Pinter and play-writing.

I love theater and plays. Always have. I read somewhere that Harold Pinter wrote 29 plays. these include: The Caretaker (1960), The Homecoming (1964), Betrayal (1978), A Kind of Alaska (1982), and Celebration (2000). He died in 2008, at the age of 78. A great talent, who basically said that he wrote the way he did because that's the way he writes. Isn't that terrific?

He may be quoted as saying, "How can you write a happy play? Drama is about conflict and general degrees of perturbation, disarray. I've never been able to write a happy play, but I've been able to enjoy a happy life."

I've written two short plays for theater and one movie screenplay adapted from one of my short stories. And I began another but only got to 30 pages before I quit because I was merely auditing the class and had to leave because my husband was whisking me off to Asia. That idea of mine was made into a movie about the killing of Aldo Moro--well, at least I had the right instinct.

All writers should try to write plays or screenplays. You are forced to write only action and dialogue--no character's thoughts, thank you very much. And it'll also teach you plot and plot points and the spinning around of the action to go in another direction. Oh, just read the book by Syd Fields, he's the expert.

November 1st, All Saints, Rolled Eggplant

Rolled, stuffed grilled eggplant

Mix together ricotta, chopped mozzarella and grated parmigiano--don't ask me how much--do it by eye for 12 large pieces of grilled eggplant. Stuff and roll. Place in an oven-proof Pyrex dish. Cover with tomato sauce and basil, and some more mozzarella and parmigiano. Bake in a hot oven for 20 minutes. YUM!

After I prepared this I read this quote by Eugene O'Neill. "Keep on writing, no matter what! That's the most important thing. As long as you have a job on hand that absorbs all your mental energy, you haven't much worry to spare over other things. It serves as a suit of armor."

O'Neill wrote 50 plays, including The Hairy Ape (1921), Desire Under the Elms (1924), The Iceman Cometh (1939), and Long Day's Journey Into Night (1941).

Today is the 1st of November--the feast day of All Saints, and the beginning of NANOWRIMO--so start writing your novel and keep at it for a month. I'm adding to the one I wrote a few years ago in the shortest month...February. The important thing is to write something on it every day.

Good luck to all of you who try it.