Those SlowTrav cooks have been working on these small bites based upon different ingredients for weeks now. I had intended to participate from the beginning but well, you know what they say about the road to hell…

Anyway, last week’s ingredient was pumpkin. And, basically, each cook is challenged to make something small (most thing appetizer but I guess it can be a dessert too), which utilizes that weekly ingredient. Some are pulling out tried and true recipes, some are finding new recipes to try and others are creating things on the fly.

For this week’s challenge, I decided to sort of join the last group. I was inspired by a pumpkin-sausage quiche recipe that Barbara (of Barb and Art fame) posted for me when I inquired what to do with a cheese pumpkin I received from our CSA. Instead, I changed it into something that I could use for the small bites.

You’ll have to accept my apologies as I really did wing this.

Pumpkin-Sausage Mini-Crustless Quiches

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups pumpkin (I cut open that cheese pumpkin, scooped out the seeds, roasted it, cooled, and mashed the pulp)
• 8 ounces hot turkey sausage, removed from casing
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped fine
• 4 egg whites
• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk
• 1 ounce fresh-grated parmegiano reggiano cheese
• salt to taste
• generous pinch of nutmeg
• pinch of cayenne pepper

Okay – so you saw that I roasted the pumpkin and all. After that, I sauteed the sausage and onion until the sausage was browned and the onion soft.

In my mixer, I beat the eggs, milk and parmegiano cheese until well blended then added the salt, nutmeg and cayenne. Finally I stirred in the pumpkin, sausage and onion.

I dropped it into mini muffin tins that were sprayed with pam and baked at 350 until the edges just browned.

The results?

Well, the flavor profile was perfect but the quiches were a bit soft which made for a difficult removal from the tin. Next time, I think I’ll use 3 egg whites and 2 eggs, or maybe evaporated skim milk/1% milk in order to stiffen it up a bit and/or give it a bit more density.

Pumpkin Sausage Small Bite