foodbuzz 24X24: hallowien kuerbisfest

since me and my husband lived in austria for over a decade and used to go to the pumpkin province of austria - styria - where "kuerbisfest" or "pumpkin festival" was celebrated every october, we wanted to bring a bit of the austrian autumn to san francisco. to introduce some cultural and culinary experiences to the city and combine them with halloween, we invited a couple of friends to our home for "hallowien," which, in german, means "hello vienna." to make our event even more special, foodbuzz is featuring our "hallowien kuerbisfest" for their october 24x24 food event. the foodbuzz's 24x24 showcases food blog posts from 24 foodbuzz featured-publisher-bloggers of 24 unique meals occurring around the globe during a 24-hour period. i am thrilled to be featured this month.

for the event, i decided to have all courses somehow related to pumpkin. for that, i found several great recipes from an austrian recipe database: ichkoche.at. if you know german, this is a great collection of recipes. since i don't live there any more and have access to more variety of produce in california, i tried to make variations on the recipes and create some of my own ideas.

we started off with a kuerbissalat (pumpkin salad), steirische kuerbiscremesuppe (styrian cream of pumpkin soup), and kuerbisauflauf (pumpkin casserole.)

ingredients for pumpkin salad:

- mixed greens

- cocktail tomatoes

- pumpkin chunks

- pumpkin seeds

- pumpkin seed oil

brush the pumpkin chunks and seeds in separate baking dishes with some olive oil and lime juice and leave them in the oven. preheat the oven to 350f. leave the seeds for 10 - 15 minutes in the oven and the pumpkin pieces for 30 minutes. mix them with the greens and tomatoes and garnish it with the pumpkin seed oil. this oil is very common in styria. it has a very strong taste and aroma which makes it a perfect garnish for very simple salads. i prefer to have it even just with mixed greens.

ingredients for the soup:

- four small pumpkins

- three shallots

- one whole garlic

- butter

- vegetable broth

- sour cream

- chives

- parsley

- marjoram

- cumin seeds

- salt and pepper

- pumpkin seeds

- pumpkin seed oil

- ginger

i baked the pumpkins for 30 minutes, then carved the insides out; this way it was much easier to carve. chop shallots and garlic and saute them in a dutch oven with butter, crushed ginger and cumin seeds. add the squash meat and saute a couple of minutes. add vegetable broth slowly. stir and let it cook on low for twenty minutes. taste and add salt and pepper. mix the soup in a food processor with chives, marjoram, and sour cream. garnish it with pumpkin seeds, parsley, and pumpkin seed oil. guten appetit (as the austrians say)!

ingredients for pumpkin casserole:

- two layers of puff pastry

- six eggs

- bacon

- two shallots

- pumpkin chunks

- celery root

- mozzarella cheese

- butter

chop the bacon and shallots in small pieces and saute them together until there's no fat left on the bacon. saute the celery root chunks and pumpkin chunks about ten minutes. in a bowl mix eggs, salt, pepper and the sauteed ingredients. preheat the oven to 450f and smear butter on two baking dishes. lay the puff pastry on the baking dish. pour the mix in the baking dishes and bake it for twenty to thirty minutes. add mozzarella on top and bake for another ten minutes. enjoy.

after having so much as appetizers we needed a break before starting with the main dish. we also paired most of our meal with a great dry austrian gruener ventliner. it's a very refreshing dry wine which i really enjoy with vegetarian food or lighter meals.

we recently bought a small projector and we decided to make this year's halloween a bit more scary and fun by having a movie marathon during the food feast. the only problem is that when you eat so much, you get sleepy and can't watch too many movies.:-) we should have started our party earlier but then we couldn't use the projector because it was still daylight. we have so many leftovers that we should have scary movie nights the whole next week.;-)

finally although we were so full, i served the main dish. it also took a long time to cook it. i cook rice very often but mostly persian style. this time i wanted to make a risotto, so our main dish was pumpkin risotto with baked chicken.

i salted and peppered the whole chicken with potatoes, whole carrots, onions, and rosemary and put it all in a dutch oven, in the oven. after about half hour, i added two cups of broth and let it cook for another two hours. in the meanwhile, every twenty minutes, i basted the chicken.

ingredients for pumpkin risotto:

- four small pumpkins

- six cups arborio rice

- two bottles of dry white wine

- one litre of vegetable broth

- saffron

- three shallots

- olive oil

- nutmeg

halve the pumpkins and bake them about 40 minutes in the oven. carve the meat out and keep the skins for filling the risotto in later. peel and chop shallots and saute them with olive oil in a big dutch oven. add the pumpkin in and add salt and pepper. add one cup of rice and a cup of wine and stir. keep on adding rice and wine and broth and stiring. never let the risotto get dry. taste every now and then and adjust the amount of salt and pepper. dissolve one teaspoon of saffron in hot water and add to the mix. add a little bit of nutmeg for taste. fill the pumpkin halves with the rissoto and enjoy it with or without the chicken.

for dessert, i made some scary cupcakes and pumpkin tiramisu. i won't explain the cupcake in this post because i used the same ingredients as the cake pops i made last week.

ingredients for pumpkin tiramisu:

- six egg yolks

- one cup mascarpone cheese

- two cups espresso (cooled)

- four spoons port wine

- fourty lady fingers

- one cup heavy whipped cream

- one cup pureed pumpkin

- three spoons sugar

- one teaspoon cinammon

- one teaspoon vanilla powder

- pumpkin seeds

in a large bowl beat egg yolks and sugar until thin and pale. add mascarpone and beat until smooth. add cinammon, vanilla, whipped cream and pumpkin and mix for another two minutes. in a bowl mix port wine and espresso. dip each ladyfinger into the espresso mix for a couple of seconds and place them in small dishes for a layer. spread a layer of mascarpone mix over ladyfingers. arrange another layer of soaked ladyfingers and top with mascarpone mix again. leave tiramisu in the fridge for a couple of hours. sprinkle with pumpkin seeds and cinammon. guten appetit!

we had so much food and our guests also brought some wonderful cupcakes that we didn't manage to eat any of the tiramisu! we need another party to eat all the leftovers!

thanks to foodbuzz for the opportunity and looking forward to next weekends foodbuzz blogger festival.

Comments

Hi Visda, It was wonderful to meet you yesterday!

I have yet to be brave enough to try doing the 24X24 but yours looks like it turned out amazing.

The soup and the casserole looked especially delicious.

Posted by: Emily@SavoryandSavage | 11/05/2011 at 09:28 AM

I would become an Austrian citizen for that kuerbisfest feast! And I fainted when I saw the cream of pumpkin soup. That is going on my "must try" list of recipes for this month!

Posted by: Passionate Eater | 11/03/2011 at 09:17 PM