Love for Food

The past few Tuesdays have been rainy in New York. The worst part of all the rain is that my favorite Tuesday activity - going to the local farmer's market in the Bronx, gets rained out. I love this farmer's market because it has grown in recent years and is much cheaper than the market in Union Square. Because it has been rainy the past few Tuesdays, the vendors and people have stayed away. This week we FINALLY saw some sun. I was a little over enthusiastic and picked up four large bags of produce. At work, I stared at all those bags. I was wondering how to get them all home, and what to do with them. I bought a hunk of fresh pumpkin, sage, lettuce, tomatoes, eggplant, radishes . . . I did some Googling and found a recipe for a pumpkin sage bundt cake. I've never baked with herbs before and had to give it a try. I found the recipe on the fine Cooking website, here. I was happy with how it came out. The sage gave the cake a little extra sophistication that you don't get with your typical pumpkin cake. I know what you must be thinking. How can someone so health conscious make a large cake? I was in the mood to bake an all butter, sugar, no holds back cake. I did however, only eat two slices. The rest of the cake was brought to a ladies night at a friend's. Because I only used a small amount of sage I also used a Martha Stewart recipe to use up some more of the sage and pumpkin. I made a side dish of roasted pumpkin with sage and onions. Simply mix a few tablespoons of olive oil, cubes of pumpkin, sage, and chunks of onions and roast (450 degrees) for about a half an hour. The sage really livens up the pumpkin which I had cut in huge chunks. The pumpkin alone would have been a bit blah. I hope next Tuesday is sunny and I can make good use of the last few weeks I have of the growing season!Ingredients: Serves Ten
3⁄4 cup (1-1⁄2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 Tbs. finely chopped fresh sage leaves
2-1⁄2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. table salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 15-ounce can pumpkin purée
3 large eggs
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Grease a 12-cup Bundt pan and dust with flour. Combine the butter and sage in a small pan and heat on low until the butter is melted. Set aside to cool.
• Whisk together the flour, baking powder, ginger, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Whisk together the butter and sage mixture, granulated sugar, brown sugar, pumpkin, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Stir the flour into the pumpkin mixture until combined. Stir in the chopped nuts.
• Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then invert it onto a wire rack to cool completely. Slice and serve.