cooking with American shortcuts

[tielan]

The down side of a lot of American recipes is that they have 'shortcuts' that aren't available in other countries.

Graham cracker crumbs? Nope.

Sugar cookie mix? Nope.

Cherry pie filling? Nope.

And then once you add up all these NOPE items, the calculation begins: can you substitute with something else?

TBH Graham cracker crumbs is the easiest thing for me to substitute. The Arnott's NICE (pronounced like the Italian city) biscuits are our preferred cheesecake crumb crust. But Sugar cookie mix? Those may be available, but not easily and I wouldn't know where to start. Same with cherry pie filling - would blended, pitted cherries do? How liquid would it need to be?

Pumpkin pie filling? Don't make me laugh. You're not even talking about blended up pumpkin flesh, you're talking about pumpkin-flavoured custard which is an entirely different kettle of fish!

A stick of butter? Welp, that's unhelpful in other countries. As it turns out a 'stick of butter' is about 100g. Probably closer to 110g.

*sigh*

Comments

[tielan]

Blended up pumpkin flesh would be easier. At least I can make an educated guess that that would be baked pumpkin.

[conuly]

When we use pumpkin puree we're using puree from pie pumpkin. It's denser and less watery than many other varieties of pumpkin. Instead of using pumpkin like you buy in the store, I'd try butternut squash if you can get it - that's closer to the right texture.

[tielan]

I'm not sure what 'pie' pumpkin is - we don't have anything that's designated 'pie' pumpkin here. What we have are butternuts (yellow skin, a bulb at one end) or kents/japs (blue-green skin, sometimes mottled, like a round cushion). Or the blue-grey pumpkins that have just been labelled 'grey pumpkin'.

(We don't tend to call it 'squash' - 'squash' are small yellow UFO thingies.)

Although these days I mostly grow my own pumpkin or swap for pumpkins that others have grown. Right now, I have one and a quarter blue/grey pumpkin. Also a really long one in the same family called a trombocino - although this is only about a foot and a half long.

One of the links above recommended baking the pumpkin twice - once to get it soft, the second time to reduce the liquid in it.

Maybe I'll do that tomorrow...

[conuly]

As I understand it, all winter squash are essentially varietals of the same plant.