Pumpkin

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other dessert classics, check out the videos.

Soft, creamy risotto topped with warm roasted vegetables makes a complete meal in a bowl. If you don't like the idea of standing at the stove and stirring risotto to a perfect consistency, this is the method for you. Thirty minutes in the oven and this risotto comes out cooked to perfection while you and your beloved wind down from your day. If you've made Roasted Winter Vegetables earlier in the week, you can reheat leftovers as a topping here. If not, roast a favorite combination {mine is winter squash, yellow onion, and tomato} in the oven with your risotto.

{sweet and toothsome} Roasting is a no-fuss way to put a lot of vegetables on the table. Roasting brings out the natural sweetness in fall root veggies and winter squash. Roast them in big batches to top Baked Risotto , and throw them into fall and winter salads.

Roasted garlic serves as the base of the salad dressing. The allium not only adds depth of flavor but can also help lower cholesterol. Pumpkin is rich in potassium, fiber, and vitamin C.

When you’ve worked with food as long as I have, and have come up with as many desserts as I have, you get to a certain point where many of the dishes you construct are compilations of things you’ve done previously. When we opened Mozza, I had done a cream-filled date tart that I really loved, so I urged Dahlia to rearrange some of its components, and to her credit she came up with this sophisticated rendition of pumpkin pie. We serve it with walnut cookies that are a twist on a Greek walnut cookie that I included in a previous book. Pumpkin purée is one of the few canned items that I endorse, the reason being that it is totally pure—there are no weird ingredients in it, just pumpkin. Also, from my experience, roasting a pumpkin and puréeing it myself doesn’t yield more delicious results than canned. You will need an 11-inch flan ring (a straight-sided bottomless tart ring) to make this.

We used apple juice to sweeten the bread, but this recipe is equally tasty made with orange juice or cranberry juice.

If you do not have a doughnut cutter, use a 3-inch cookie cutter to cut out the doughnuts and a 1-inch cookie cutter to cut out the centers.

If you prefer to omit the bourbon, simply double the amount of hot water.

In the late summer and early autumn, in the interior of the island, the great harvests of pumpkin and squash are preserved by the farmwives in varied fashion. Often the flesh is cooked down to a marmalade and sparked with candied oranges, or poached chunks of it are set to rest in a sweet vinegared brine. Too, thick slices of poached flesh are often rolled around in a sugary syrup and left to dry. Of a most luscious flavor, this candied pumpkin is sometimes used with dark rum and a handful of broken, bittersweet chocolate, to make a tart like the one we were served in the village of Milo. I was dazzled by it. But when I heard of the perplexing process by which the tart’s author had candied the pumpkin (she began by saying that I should gather fifty to sixty pumpkins), I was slightly shaken. I found, though, that simply roasting the flesh of a pumpkin or squash and then bathing it in caramelized sugar gives a flavor similar and perhaps even richer and requires far less drama.

Of all winter squash, Kabocha holds a special place in my heart. Rich and sweet, its dense orange flesh is one of my favorite winter flavors. For this soup, instead of sautéing the squash and fennel, I roast them in the oven to bring out their natural sweetness. If you can’t find Kabocha, use another winter squash, such as butternut or Hubbard. The pumpkin seeds, or pepitas, are coated in sugar, paprika, cumin, cinnamon, and cayenne; I think of them as adult Halloween candy. Sprinkled over the top, they give this delicious winter soup a feisty coronation.

This pie will always have a special meaning to me because it was the centerpiece of the bake-off of my dreams! I remember watching Food Network programs as a teenager, thinking, “I would love to be on these shows!” Well, thanks to Bobby Flay, I got the chance to prove that my pies could compete with the best. In November 2009 he challenged me to a pumpkin pie throwdown on Throwdown! with Bobby Flay. Although Bobby ultimately won the throwdown, he told me my version was “one of the best pumpkin pies I have ever eaten.” I like to serve this pie with a dollop of Maple Whipped Cream (page 194).

This pie packs in all of the traditional pumpkin holiday flavor, but with a much lighter and airier texture than traditional pumpkin pie, making this a great alternative at the end of a heavy, multicourse meal. Serve with a dollop of Whipped Cream (page 193).

One of the things Michele’s Pies is best known for is our Pumpkin Pie. The secret to our success is simple: Use fresh pumpkins, never canned. I recommend using the sugar pumpkin variety for this recipe because not only do these pumpkins have the most flavor, but their dark orange flesh will make your pie a beautiful, deep, rich orange color. Processing pumpkins does take some extra effort, but it’s worth it when you see everyone’s faces light up as they taste their first bites of this special pie after Thanksgiving dinner. To be honest, when I first opened up the shop, I had to convince my own staff to take the additional step of pumpkin processing in the midst of the Thanksgiving rush. After hearing a few of them make the argument for using a premade canned pumpkin filling, I decided to prove my point. I sat the entire staff down for a blind taste test, during which I served them pumpkin pies made from a variety of canned pumpkin fillings and a pie made from my own freshly processed pumpkins. Unanimously, they chose the freshly processed pumpkin pie as the best of the bunch. Since then, I’ve never heard a single complaint about the extra effort. (For processing instructions, see page 65).

To use fresh pumpkin, halve and place a 1 3/4-pound sugar pumpkin, cut sides down, in a baking pan. Roast in a 400°F oven until very soft, fifty to sixty minutes. Scoop out flesh and purée in a food processor until very smooth.