Triple F: Food Friday, Failure....

Okay, so I was super stoked to post a couple of new fall-based recipes, but I'm sad to say that they were just not good enough to post here, yet. I'm still working on them, and my goal is to get them up in the next couple of day, so that you can try them too. I would be bummed if you tried them as they are now, because they are just not in the tastiest place right now.... Whomp Whomp. But I'm still working on them!

Next weekend is my town's Giant Pumpkin Festival, where you can enter original recipes using Pumpkin as the main ingredient. They have two categories, a savory and sweet category, and I have been working on entries for each of them (you can enter one recipe per category, but that's it). This is the first recipe contest that I have ever attempted to enter, and so far I'm not having any luck and feeling a little discouraged.

Here were my ideas that failed, and some other ideas for what to make, that I'm going to try in the next couple of days.

Sweet Category: 

I was trying a new recipe for granola to make a sort-of-trifle recipe with Pumpkin granola and a Pumpkin custard, with a praline layer in there too (for good measure). The granola wouldn't get crunchy, and just stayed this soggy mess. I'm still working on it though! I think I need to cook it at a lower temp, for a longer amount of time and lessen the amount of pumpkin puree that I used. My pumpkin custard wasn't nearly pumpkin-y enough, so I'm still plugging away with that one as well. I just tasted mostly like vanilla, with a  little bit of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg in it.

The other idea that I had in the sweet category was to make a pumpkin Snicker doodle cookie, and some pumpkin ice cream, in my ice cream maker, and then make a homemade pumpkin ice cream sandwich. I think I might like this idea better, but not sure how I'm going to keep the sandwiches cold enough before turn in time. Maybe take the ice cream with me, and then put them together when I get there?

Savory Category: 

I tried to make a pumpkin meatloaf. There, I said it. It was terrible. It tasted like I scooped pumpkin pie on top of a hamburger. Not what I was going for. I was really hoping that the moistness of the pumpkin puree would help the meatloaf to stay nice and most, but the two of them just didn't pair very well. Truthfully, I'm having a harder time in the savory category coming up with other ideas. i thought about doing a pumpkin soup, or a pumpkin ravioli, but I think those are things that a lot of people are going to be doing... I'm trying to think outside the box, but not TOO outside of the box... where pumpkin meatloaf lives. (Ace is still laughing about how badly this turned out)

I'll keep you posted on some new ideas, and I apologize for not having a new recipe this week, but I don't think you would have wanted them anyway! I am hoping that next Food Friday will have a few pumpkin recipes just in time for October!