[1] Serve pumpkin dip with crudités and tortilla chips (photo © Frontera Foods).

[2] Tortilla chips are a crunchy counterpoint (photo © Good Eggs).

[3] Pepitas, shelled pumpkin seeds (photo by Elvira Kalviste | © The Nibble).

For Halloween, Chef Bayless has given us his pumpkin seed dip, which he serves with crudités and Frontera tortilla chips.

Note that this is a savory dip, nothing like the sweet pumpkin purée dip popularly served with ginger snaps (of course, we like that version, too).

This dip should be enjoyed with a good beer or a glass of wine.
 
 
SAVORY PUMPKIN SEED DIP

The recipe can be made up to two days in advance. Makes 2½ cups of dip.

Ingredients

Thanks to Cheryl Indelicato, proprietor of HandCraft Wines in California, for sharing this recipe:

PUMPKIN CRANBERRY BREAD RECIPE

Ingredients For One Loaf

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. COMBINE. In a large bowl with an electric mixer beat together pumpkin, sugar, water, eggs and oil. Sift in flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and spices; stir just until batter is smooth.

3. ADD. Stir in cranberries and spoon batter into loaf pan that has been buttered or sprayed with non-stick spray.

4. BAKE. Bake bread in middle of oven 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until tester comes out clean. Cool in pan on a rack ten minutes.Turn bread out onto rack and cool completely.

Bread may be made 4 days ahead refrigerated, wrapped tightly; or it can be frozen for future enjoyment.

Let slices come to room temperature or warm in the microwave. Serve plain or with butter as a snack; or with ice cream (pumpkin spice, rum raisin, vanilla), mascarpone, or whipped cream for dessert.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CAKE AND A LOAF CAKE (BREAD)?

While the origin of the “bread” style of cake is unknown, food historians believe that it was originated in the 18th century with housewives experimenting with pearl ash. Banana bread became common in American cookbooks in the 1930s, with the popularization of baking soda and baking powder, and very popular in the 1960s, when variations with simple inclusions (nuts, chocolate morsels) created simple but delicious snack cakes.

While some recipes use the terms interchangeably, a cake is a bit different than a bread-style cake, which is a sweetened version of a quickbread. The term loaf cake is often used. A sweet bread is similar to a muffin, except for the shape.

Here are the key differentiators, which also differentiate a muffin from a cupcake:

Density. A bread is leavened with baking soda instead of yeast, and is more dense than a cake. (This is not necessarily true for conventional breads, which can be as airy as cakes). In general, loaf cakes or “breads” have a denser crumb, a rougher texture and often less sugar than their cake counterparts. A cake is airy and eaten with a fork. A bread is dense like a brownie, and can be eaten with a fork or with the fingers.

Frosting. Cakes are often frosted or otherwise garnished, for example, with confectioners sugar; the layers are filled. Loaf cakes may or may not be frosted.

Moistness. A cake has more fat, and thus is moister.

Sweetness. Cakes are sweeter.

Shape. Cakes are baked in round or rectangular pans. A bread is typically baked in a loaf pan. Cakes can be single layers (like bundt cakes) or multiple layers; loaf breads are single layer.

Find more of our favorite cake recipes.

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Sales of jerky and beef sticks more than quadrupled between 1995 and 2006. We don’t have statistics on homemade jerky, but given how easy it is to make, we’re surprised that more people don’t make their own—especially when there‘s a good sale on beef.

Making jerky is a great way to preserve meat when you have more than you can immediately eat. That’s why our ancestors learned to make jerky thousands of years ago! Today we’re blessed with freezers; but instead of freezing that extra meat, make jerky.

All you need are the meat, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, black pepper, red pepper flakes, onion powder, liquid smoke and honey. The equipment: just two resealable plastic bags, a cooking rack, tin foil and an oven or food dehydrator.

After you’ve made the basic recipe in this video, you can get creative with flavoring. And remember: The more tender the cut of meat you use, the more tender the jerky will be.

If you love your jerky, your friends and family will love it too. It might become your signature gift.

Find more of our favorite beef recipes.

In addition to snacking on roasted chestnuts, we have a passion for chestnut soup and for the classic French dessert, Mont Blanc, which uses sweetened chestnut purée. (More about that below.)

Much of our canned chestnut supply is cultivated in, and imported from, southern-central France. Canned chestnuts are peeled and pre-cooked, so they can be enjoyed without “roasting on an open fire.”

Look for the Roland brand at your grocer’s or specialty food store. They’re available whole, peeled and pre-cooked, in water, or as a cream or purée. (If you’re new to cooking, please note: Chestnuts in water are NOT the same as water chestnuts. You want the former.)

Chestnuts are chock full of antioxidants, and studies show that they may reduce the risks of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Chestnuts also deliver one’s daily dose of vitamins B6 and C, and are a good source of fiber and potassium.

Chestnut soup is an easy-to-make comfort food and a classic to ward off the fall-winter chill. A recipe from chef and beekeeper Laurey Masterton follows. It’s from her forthcoming “The Fresh Honey Cookbook” (September 2013 / Storey Publishing).

“From-scratch advocates may want to roast and peel their own chestnuts,” says Laurey, “which is easy enough to do although time-consuming. Or you can purchase whole, peeled chestnuts.”

Don’t pair chestnut honey with the chestnuts. “Chestnut honey has too strong a flavor for this recipe,” she advises. “Instead, I suggest eucalyptus, a dark honey that doesn’t have an overly assertive taste, so the chestnut flavor can shine.” (See the different varieties of honey.)

The recipe serves 6–8.

We don’t like a lot of sweetness in soup, so we use only a teaspoon of honey.

CREAM OF CHESTNUT SOUP RECIPE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE. Melt the butter in a large soup pot over low heat. Add the onion and sauté until transparent, about 5 minutes. Add the chestnuts, carrots and stock. Simmer over low heat until the chestnuts are very tender (until you can poke a fork through one), about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat.

2. BLEND. Blend the soup with an immersion blender until completely smooth, or drain the vegetables in a colander and pulse them in a food processor until smooth; return to the pot and blend with the broth.

3. ADD. Add the cream, honey and sherry. Add the salt and a few grinds of pepper. Taste and adjust the seasonings. If the soup is too thick, add additional stock or cream. Warm over medium-low heat but do not boil, as the cream will curdle.

4. GARNISH. Garnish as desired and serve. We like the combined garnishes of chestnut pieces and fresh herbs, but you can serve the soup plain, with just a bit of fresh pepper and/or a simple crouton.

Find more of our favorite soup recipes.
 
MORE WAYS TO ENJOY CHESTNUTS

While chestnuts can be eaten raw, cooking them allows for a sweeter, more delicate flavor. Other delicious uses include:

The ingredients are simple, except for finding that perfect candy spider:

SPIDER BITE HALLOWEEN DRINK RECIPE

Ingredients For One Drink

 
Preparation

1. SHAKE. Shake Frangelico and lime juice with ice.

2. STRAIN. Strain into a rocks glass, fill with ice and garnish with a spooky Halloween treat.

3. GARNISH. To drip grenadine “blood” on the glass, reduce some grenadine in a sauce pan until it becomes thick and syrupy. Use a small squeeze bottle or a medicine dropper to dribble the “blood” from the rim of the glass.
 
Find more Halloween cocktail recipes.

Find more delicious Frangelico recipes at FrangelicoUSA.com.