Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Personal Pumpkin Tart

Oh boy, was I happy with this experiment I tried yesterday!  It all started here, with Lilibeth. She linked to a recipe for a crust made with just almonds and oats. I noted the proportions and then lit out on my own, and with a filling of my own, too.

Part of what makes a traditional pumpkin pie so creamy and nice is the evaporated milk in most recipes. I learned years ago that if I simmered my own fresh milk, even letting it scald a bit, reducing it by half or more, I had a better product. So that explains the bit of milk in this recipe.

PERSONAL PUMPKIN TART


Crust
1/4 cup oats chopped very fine with 2 T. raw almonds
1/2 t. tahini (can’t find my almond butter or I’d have used that)
1/8 t. each nutmeg and powdered ginger
Combine these ingredients with just enough water to make the mixture stick together to press into a large custard dish, then bake at 425 until toasty brown. Meanwhile, prepare filling:
Filling
1/4 c. low-fat milk (soy might work)
1/2 cup fresh baked pumpkin, mashed or pureed (canned would be okay)
2 dates, snipped very fine
1/4 t. cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves
In a small saucepan simmer milk until reduced by half--scalding it is fine. Stir in pumpkin, dates, and spices and cook gently, stirring as needed, until thickened. Spoon into crust and bake at 350 until further firmed up and slightly browned on top.
Verdict: Excellent and Amazing, and it uses only half a day’s nuts and grain (ala drfuhrman), then the additional calories of the milk (25) and the two dates.
For Thanksgiving at my sister's tomorrow (about a dozen people) I'm taking the following:
Baba Ganouj (or Dr. Fuhrman's Eggplant Hummus--same thing) with carrot and cucumber and blanched fine green beans and peppers as dippers
Ambrosia--just Valencia and Cara-Cara oranges with coconut, though I'm going to throw in some pomegranate arils I splurged on at Costco the other day
Winter Squash Soup I made the other day (see previous post)
Lower-Fat Yogurt Pound Cake (Joy of Cooking) with a tipsy elderberry sauce I made up.  No, this is not really healthy, but I was assigned a dessert. :-)

2 comments:

  1. Wow, great recipe! I'm glad I was able to inspire you with the crust recipe I posted. Isn't it great that it's possible to make a healthy pumpkin pie?! You're sure taking a lot of yummy stuff to your sisters! I MUST track down that Eggplant Hummus recipe, sounds yummy. Have a very Happy Thanksgiving! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Heidi, I just left a message on your blog, but here it is again: my recipe from about a year ago is very similar to Dr. F's but uses tahini instead of his sesame seeds.

    http://nutritarianrecipes.blogspot.com/2009/11/eggplant-hummus.html

    ReplyDelete

I'd love to know what you think of these or if you have suggestions for improvements!