Posts Tagged ‘Cyndie Stetson’

Cyndie’s Cheesy Corn Pudding

Monday, October 19th, 2009
 
Cheesy Corn Puddingweb2 
 
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.
 
Cyndie1web
 
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.
 
perfpum
 
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.
 
 
Good luck! And now, here’s Cyndie’s recipe…….
 
Cyndie2web
 
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.

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

November in the Hills: Embracing the Darkness (Part I)

Sunday, November 9th, 2008
Heather's Pumpkin Bread

Heather’s Pumpkin Bread

 
The blaze is gone.
 
The burst of color in our hills has muted. The sun is making itself scarce. The grays of November have arrived.
 
I’m not sure why November always takes me by surprise. It comes along every year. Nevertheless, during the glory of early autumn optimism fills my heart just as leaves fill the streams, and I nurture a tiny hope that the color and warmth will decide, just this once, not to retreat.
 
When instead of an eternal October we get a very real November, my dog, my cat, and I grow a little grumpy. Truffle and Lorelei Lee gather by the woodstove earlier and earlier each day, training their glare on me until I relent and light a fire.
 
I appreciate their viewpoint and enjoy the fire myself. Nevertheless, I find that the best cure for the November blahs is to leave my hearth and seek out people who look forward to this time of year—who instead of huddling inside embrace the darkness out of doors.
 
One such person is my neighbor in Hawley, Massachusetts, Cyndie Stetson. Cyndie is famous (one might almost say notorious) locally for the lavish Halloween display outside her home. The high point of her year comes in late October and November. An avid watercolorist, Cyndie uses her artist’s eyes to perceive much more variety in our hills than I.
 
“I love the colors in November—the browns, the purples, the grays,” she told me recently. “I love seeing and hearing the geese going overhead. I love growing pumpkins and gourds. When I was a kid, we grew gourds and sold them at my grandmother’s on a stone wall. So I grow gourds every year.”
 
The darkness and the cold give Cyndie permission to act creatively, unleashing her imagination in a way that the light of summer and early autumn cannot. “I feel more energetic at this time of year,” she said with a smile.
 
Here’s a terrific pumpkin bread recipe to help you celebrate gourd season along with Cyndie.
 
Thanks to Heather Welch of M&M Green Valley Produce in South Deerfield, Massachusetts, for sharing it. The boozy raisins are my own addition, and they’re optional, especially for kids.
 
This makes 2 big loaves so you may want to make 3 smaller loaves and reduce your cooking time. On the other hand, the big loaves have a lovely contrasting texture—crispy on the outside and tender and moist on the inside.
 
 
Part of Cyndie's Display (Courtesy of Lark Thwing)

Part of Cyndie’s Display (Courtesy of Lark Thwing)

 
Ingredients:
 
1-3/4 cups pumpkin puree
1 cup vegetable oil (I used canola)
2/3 cup water
3 cups sugar
4 eggs
3-1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon ginger
 
Instructions:
 
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 loaf pans.
 
In a large bowl, beat together the pumpkin, oil, water, and sugar. Beat in the eggs.
 
In a separate bowl whisk together the dry ingredients. Stir them into the pumpkin mixture JUST until blended. Pour the batter into the prepared pans.
 
Bake the bread until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Check the bread at the hour mark. If it is brown on the outside but still very soggy on the inside, reduce the heat to 325 degrees, and continue to check every 5 minutes until the toothpick test works. Remove the bread from the pans, and turn it onto racks to cool. Makes 2 loaves.
 
Truffle was allowed a SMALL piece of pumpkin bread.

Truffle was allowed a SMALL piece of pumpkin bread.