Another busy weekend of family celebration but a full and fun week ahead so a delicious and nourishing lunch is in order on the 25th day of school. We got a little pie pumpkin in our CSA box this week and I have to admit that in past years that I have only ever used the pumpkins decoratively and have not ventured into cooking with them. I resolved this year would be different and I roasted the pumpkin in order to make a batch of pumpkin and sunflower seed muffins from the recipe from Sarabeth’s Bakery in New York City. This muffin is apparently enormously popular there and I was delighted with the muffins when they came out of the oven. Roasting and pureeing the pumpkin was more labour and time intensive than I anticipated but felt like time well spent given these tender and flavourful muffins. The kids hesitated before tasting these muffins last night but eventually took a small bite and then devoured the rest.
We have a terrific butcher in our neighbourhood that carries, in addition to meat and poultry, some of the best bread and cheeses around. While I was up there picking up something for dinner, I grabbed a baguette and a ball of some fresh buffalo mozzarella from Quebec. I had a few red peppers from our CSA box, so tossed them on the barbeque to roast while I toasted a few slices of baguette and spread some herb pesto on each one. I topped these with a little slice of pepper, a few black olives and some fresh basil.
On the side, the kids have a little chickpea and diced vegetable salad with a lemon vinaigrette, some berries and a little gummy candy for a treat. A terrific lunch for a rainy Monday morning!
