Greek Eggplant Pudding

We are not holding our traditional Pudding Hollow Pudding Contest this year. My schedule and my mother’s health make it uncertain that I’ll have the time it takes to put it together in October.

Nevertheless, as fall approaches I think fondly of this fun event. (You may see photos of last year’s festivities here.)

Contestants almost always enter more sweet puddings than savory, but I have a soft spot in my heart and palate for the savory ones.

The recipe below is for what may be my all-time favorite pudding entered in the contest, the Greek Eggplant Pudding from Nancy Argeris of Hawley, Massachusetts.

I ran across a small eggplant at a farm stand the other day and was inspired to throw together a miniature version of the recipe with my mother. We loved its slightly salty, eggplanty warmth.

We used the tiny eggplant plus 2 eggs and about a third of everything else.

We probably could have made the whole recipe since the pudding is delicious the next day. As it was, we finished it off handily with a little help from Truffle, who like me is a sucker for feta cheese.

Her pudding supper filled her up nicely and sent her right to sleep.

The pudding takes a bit of time to put together as it has three stages—soaking, baking, and baking again. None of the stages is difficult, however.

Ingredients:

2 medium to large eggplants
Kosher salt for sprinkling
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil (more or less), divided

1 large white onion, finely diced (I used a sweet onion as that's what I had)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
6 large eggs
1-1/2 cups crumbled feta cheese
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano or 1 teaspoon fresh (I tend to use a bit more)

Instructions:

Peel the eggplants and cut them into 1/2-inch rounds. (For my smaller version I made the rounds a bit narrower.)

Place the eggplant slices in a colander, sprinkling salt on each layer as they go in. Let them sit with the salt for 45 minutes. Half an hour into this process, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

When the eggplant slices are through sitting rinse and dry them thoroughly. Lightly oil a baking sheet and place the slices on it, turning so that both sides have been oiled. Bake until the pieces soften, about 30 minutes.

In a small sauté pan sauté the onion and garlic over medium heat until the onion becomes translucent. In a medium bowl whisk together the eggs. Stir in the crumbled feta, the oregano, and the onion mixture.

Oil a 3-quart baking dish and put a layer of eggplant at the bottom. Pour about 1/3 of the egg mixture on top. Repeat the layers, ending with the egg mixture.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until the mixture sets. (Avoid overcooking the pudding. It doesn’t have to be brown.)

Serves 6 to 8.

Pudding Perfection

I know! I’ve been posting TOO MANY SWEET RECIPES lately.

But I haven’t yet written about this year’s Pudding Hollow Pudding Festival. So here’s a brief report for pudding fans along with the winning recipe, a (gulp!) sweet pudding.

Save it for Thanksgiving when the calories will be just a small part of the day.

Our Day of Pudding was exhausting—and exhilarating—and just plain fun.

Its spooky scheduling (Halloween!) this year was an accident—the result of musical director Alice Parker’s busy schedule. We were a little worried that having the festival on this busy day would reduce attendance, but we had no choice so we decided to do it anyway.

It turns out that Halloween is a GREAT day for puddings! Several contestants (and even members of the general public) came in costume. Everyone seemed to enjoy the new prizes for best costume, spookiest pudding, and best pumpkin pudding.

Our wonderful judges—Edie Clark of Yankee magazine, Kathleen Wall of Plimoth Plantation, and Michaelangelo Wescott of the Gypsy Apple Bistro—had to work extra hard this year.

In the past we have held a semi-final round a few weeks before the big day to cull our finalists down to a manageable 15. This year the Sons & Daughters of Hawley had a heavy schedule and couldn’t face adding the semi-finals to it.

The judges therefore had all 27 entries to work on. I have a feeling their digestive systems are only now recovering from the experience!

If we had cut off entries earlier, however, the panel wouldn’t have been able to taste the pudding that won this year.

Paula Zindler of Cummington, Massachusetts, told me she only decided to enter the contest the week before Halloween. Her pumpkin gingerbread pudding delighted both the eyes and the taste buds.

As always, our entertainment took a lighthearted look at the culinary history of my hometown of Hawley, Massachusetts. “The Witches of Pudding Hollow” stirred up a big pot of potion and a lot of fun for thespians and audience members alike.

To read Edie Clark’s description of the judging process, please visit her blog. And if you’d like to see more photos of our big day, please go to the Pudding Festival web site. Meanwhile, here is Paula’s winning pudding recipe.

The Witches of Pudding Hollow (I'm the short witch in the middle) sing about their brew.

Paula’s Pumpkin Gingerbread Pudding

for the Pumpkin Gingerbread:

Ingredients:

1-1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons melted sweet butter
1/3 cup milk
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a loaf pan well; then line the bottom with buttered waxed paper. Sift the dry ingredients together and set aside.

Combine the wet ingredients in a large bowl and beat until well blended. Gradually add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture, stirring until smooth.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes. Allow to cool completely in the pan, covered with plastic wrap.

Cut the loaf into quarter-inch slices and line a 10-inch buttered ovenproof dish with the slices. (The dish must have 2-inch sides.) Set aside.

for the Vanilla Custard and Assembly:

Ingredients:

2 cups milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup sugar
3 whole eggs plus 8 egg yolks
1 tablespoon vanilla

Instructions:

Combine the milk, cream, and sugar in a heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and cool by stirring for 5 minutes.

Combine the whole eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla in a large bowl and beat lightly until well blended. Quickly whisk 1/2 cup of the slightly cooled milk into the egg mixture and then slowly pour the egg mixture into the milk pot, whisking continuously over low heat.

When the milk mixture just begins to put off steam, remove it from the heat and pour it into the baking dish. Allow the custard to soak into the bread for 10 minutes.

Place the baking dish into a pan of hot water in a 350 oven for 50 minutes or until the custard is set. Enjoy at any temperature.

Serves 8 to 10.

Crowning the Winner

Cyndie's Cheesy Corn Pudding

With LESS THAN TWO WEEKS to go before the Pudding Hollow Pudding Festival, I thought I’d post another pudding recipe. I hope it inspires readers to enter the festival’s gala pudding contest.

This year’s festival falls on October 31 so I’m offering a recipe from the Queen of Halloween in my hometown of Hawley, Massachusetts, town clerk Cyndie Stetson.

Each autumn the spooky display outside Cyndie’s home on West Hawley Road dazzles those of us who drive by. It offers a number of vignettes—a pumpkin crossing, a mad scientist’s lab, a witch’s lair, and a pirate ship—plus assorted spider webs, severed limbs, tombstones, and ghosts.



Indoors, Cyndie celebrates with Halloween jewelry, lights, dolls, and crawling creatures, plus (my personal favorite) an orange cocktail shaker and matching martini glasses.

Cyndie assures me she is entering this year’s contest. Two years ago her Autumn Comfort Pudding won the top award, and she has placed as a finalist several times.

The hearty pudding recipe below made it to the finals a few years back. It’s perfect comfort food for our current chilly, drippy weather.

I plan to adapt it soon. I’d like to substitute standard ingredients for the muffin mix. I’d also like to experiment with a Southwestern version and add a little chipotle and/or cumin. Meanwhile, below lies the easy version from the Queen of Halloween herself.

Before I give you the recipe, I want to let readers know about my new book giveaway. In keeping with the season, I am holding a drawing for a copy of The Perfect Pumpkin by Gail Damerow. The book offers a little history, a little advice on cultivation, and a number of tasty-looking recipes.

Anyone who takes out an email subscription to this blog will be eligible for the drawing, which will take place at approximately midnight EDT next Monday, October 26. This includes current subscribers, of course (I hope you’ll spread the word to your friends)! If you’re not a subscriber and would like to sign up, please click on the link below.

Subscribe to In Our Grandmothers’ Kitchens by Email

Good luck! And now, here’s Cyndie’s recipe……

Ingredients:

1 8-1/2-ounce box corn muffin mix
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter, melted
1 egg, beaten
1 cup sour cream
1 14-3/4 ounce can cream-style corn, with liquid
1 15-1/4 ounce can whole-kernel corn, with liquid
1 medium onion, diced and sautéed in olive oil
1 medium green or red bell pepper, diced and sautéed in olive oil
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (use a little more for ultimate cheesy-ness)
1 dash each salt and pepper

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, blend all the ingredients well. Place them in a well greased 11-by-7 inch baking pan or round 2-quart casserole dish.

Bake the pudding until it is lightly browned on top and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. This will take about an hour, but start checking after about 45 minutes. Serves 6 as a main dish or 8 to 10 as a side dish.

Cyndie (right) was surprised at her pudding-contest victory in 2007.

Mrs. Baker's Applesauce

This year has seen the most abundant apple harvest I can recall in our corner of New England. My neighbor Alice speculates that our literal windfall of apples has something to do with the hatching of swarms of bees just as the apple trees blossomed last spring. All I know is that our apple trees, most of which are older than anyone living on our road, suddenly acted like fertile teenagers.

Naturally, my mother and I have made large quantities of applesauce. Applesauce is the perfect fall comfort food, and it’s amazingly easy to make, especially if you have a food mill. Food mills render the peeling and coring of apples completely unnecessary. The skin, core, and seeds of the apple cook along with the sauce, adding flavor to the end product, and then get pushed out and discarded. The residue left in the food mill is surprisingly small.

If you don’t have a food mill, you will have to peel and core your apples. On the other hand, you will end up with lumpy applesauce, which some people prefer to the smoother version.

As you can see in the photographs above and below, my food mill requires me to push the apple pulp manually through the holes in the mill. My neighbor Peter has a relatively high-tech machine with a crank that does most of the work. Either type of mill is definitely worth purchasing.

My applesauce is named after Abigail Baker, who lived around the corner from our property in Hawley, Massachusetts, in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Mrs. Baker is famous (in our corner of the world, at any rate) for creating the winning pudding in a late 18th-century pudding contest that gave our district, Pudding Hollow, its name.

When my friend Judith Russell and I began work on our Pudding Hollow Cookbook, Judy suggested that we include a recipe for Mrs. Baker’s applesauce. Somehow it slipped through the cracks then so I’m rectifying that omission here on my blog. I portray Mrs. Baker every year in the entertainment that accompanies our revived pudding contest. Hawley’s most celebrated cook is therefore seldom out of my thoughts. Judy, too, is in my thoughts a lot, especially at this time of year. She died in the autumn of 1994, but her colorful folk art and sunny spirit live on in our hills, in our hearts, and in my cookbook.

Mrs. Baker’s Windfall Applesauce

Ingredients:

6 cups quartered apples (preferably more than 1 variety)
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 cup cider plus additional cider as needed
maple syrup to taste (I used 2 tablespoons for my most recent batch)

Instructions:

Wash the apples and quarter them. Remove any bad spots, but don’t worry about cutting out the core and seeds if you have a food mill.

Place the apple pieces, the cinnamon stick, and the cider in a 4-quart pot. Bring the mixture to a simmer over low heat, covered, and simmer it until the apples soften, checking frequently to see whether you need to add more cider to keep the sauce from burning. The cooking time will depend on your apples; my most recent batch, which used Cortland and Northern Spy apples I’d had sitting in my entryway for about a month, took 20 to 25 minutes.

Let the apples cool for a few minutes; then run them through a food mill. Discard the pulp and seeds (excellent pig food or compost!), and place the sauce in a saucepan. Add maple syrup to taste, and heat until the syrup dissolves.

The yield will depend on your apples. My test batch this week gave me just under 2 cups of sauce. Feel free to multiply this recipe if your apple harvest is copious.