Ben Starr

The Ultimate Food Geek

Tag: pumpkin

  • The easiest way to turn a whole pumpkin into food

    I know you. Because you’re like me. You pulled out all the stops for Halloween, but now there’s still a few uncarved pumpkins sitting in your front yard. They’re okay there for awhile. (Maybe people will think you’ve decorated for Thanksgiving. Riiiiiight.) Most pumpkin varieties will even endure sub-freezing temps for a few nights, so…

  • One-Bowl No-Mixer Pumpkin Muffins

    So it’s no secret that I’m enamored with pumpkin, and I have dozens of pumpkin recipes that get busted out in the fall.  But for many folks, the idea of setting up the stand mixer to cream butter and sugar…or having multiple bowls and measuring cups to clean up afterward…it’s just too much to contemplate…

  • Crispy Fish Tacos

    I’ve had quite a number of requests for the recipe for fish tacos that I served as my “signature dish” on MasterChef.  It’s certainly not my signature dish, but it’s one of the only things I make that could be made in an hour, so that’s what I made!  Fish tacos are one of the…

  • Cheesecake-Stuffed Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

    Just when you thought breakfast couldn’t be more decadent, I bring you my legendary Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins…but stuffed with cheesecake.  Yes…cheesecake.  It sounds complex, but it couldn’t be more simple.  These muffins come together in about 15-20 minutes and bake in another 20.  Less than an hour of work, and you’ve got what many people…

  • How to Cook a Pumpkin and Turn it into Puree

    In the fall, we’ve got pumpkins coming out our ears, and it just pains me to think that 95% of the pumpkins grown in this country are simply carved for Halloween and then tossed into the trash.  Sometimes people buy 4 or 5, carve only one, and let the rest sit on their front porch…

  • Pumpkin Cardamom Souffle

    Souffles are one of those things you see on cooking shows and MAYBE you’ll make one or two throughout the course of your life.  I’m not sure why this is the case.  Perhaps it’s because there is an old myth in the kitchen that souffles are temperamental and impossible to get right.  This is malarkey! …

  • Smoked Mozzarrella, Eggplant, and Mushroom Fritters

    The inspiration for this recipe came from the book Artisan Cheesemaking at Home, which is a FABULOUS way to get hooked on a new hobby.  Before I even started making my own cheese, though, I had to try this recipe.  The only problem was that I didn’t have most of the ingredients it called for,…

  • Pumpkin Gingerbread Cookies

    Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin.  It’s not just for pie.  These delicious cookies are rather decadent…chewy, moist, and exploding with pungent ginger flavor.  I recently baked hundreds of these with Michael Chen from MasterChef Season 3 for a third grade class at a local middle school during an assembly about seasonal cooking.  You might think kids would…

  • “Pumpkin”nickel Bread

    You all know how obsessed I am with pumpkin.  This recipe was birthed years ago for one of my legendary Fall Dinner Parties where I wanted to marry the dark autumn flavors of pumpernickel bread with my favorite ingredient: pumpkin.  The first incarnation was not a success, I have to say.  Recently, for our all-pumpkin…

  • Guava and Cream Cheese-Stuffed Pumpkin Muffins

    It finally got cool in Dallas, and even though it’s still mid September, pumpkin season is calling me.  One of my local markets finally started stocking sugar pumpkins (I didn’t get any planted in time in my garden this year), so I stocked up yesterday and made some puree.  And since I have a friend…