Prince William and Kate Middleton welcomed their third child on April 23 and it looks like having a baby in the house is catching up with William. During Anzac Day Services just two days after his baby's birth, the Prince was spotted nodding off. Check out the hilarious video of a sleep-deprived William.
I was recently challenged to do an all pumpkin segment. It’s not really that tough of a challenge because pumpkin is great in both sweet and savory dishes. Plus, I received two tasty recipes from friends.
I’ve shared NBC5 meteorologist Andy Avalos's wife Anna's spicy pumpkin soup in the past. This spicy soup is easy to prepare but really big on flavor. I’ve also added a little variation to the original recipe using roasted shrimp. The pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting came from Jennifer Schwarz, one of our morning show’s content producers. The recipe is her mom, Betty’s, and it’s a big hit, too. The last two recipes, pumpkin lasagna, and pumpkin ice cream, are mine. They offer a nice contrast to the first two dishes. So, combined, you now have four new ways to enjoy pumpkin this season.
Melt butter over medium heat. Add onions and jalapeños and saute until soft. Add garlic and cook for about two more minutes. Add pumpkin, chicken stock, salt, and bouillon cubes. Bring soup to a boil and simmer for about 30 minutes.
Remove from heat and puree in a blender in batches. Be very carful as you start the blender because contents can sometimes fly out (be sure to do it in small batches). Return to a medium heat. Add cream here if you choose, making sure not to boil soup. Take out 1 cup of liquid and blend it with the flour in a small bowl, stirring until all lumps are gone. Add mixture back to soup. Cook for an additional 5 minutes until flour mixture is fully heated and incorporated. Season soup to taste. Ladle soup into serving bowls. Sprinkle with toasted pine nuts and garlic croutons -- homemade are the best. Enjoy!
A variation to this dish: Rather than using croutons, try toasting thin slices of french bread. Set those aside and then roast shrimp that has been seasoned with a little salt, pepper and chili powder. Place a shrimp or two on a crostini and float it on the soup. Top with pine nuts and serve.
This dish is also great served in a pumpkin soup bowl. Simple cut the top off of a medium to small sized pumpkin (reserve the top). Scoop out the seeds and rinse the inside of the pumpkin. Turn upside down to drain. Just before ready to serve, place the pumpkin in an oven that has been preheated to 250 degrees. Warm for about 7-10 minutes then place on a nicely folded napkin inside of a regular bowl. Ladle the soup into the bowl and place the top back on the pumpkin and serve.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix eggs, sugar, vegetable oil, and pumpkin in a large bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture and blend well. Pour ingredients into a 12" x 8" x 1" pan that has been greased or sprayed with cooking spray and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.
Beat cream cheese, butter, cream and vanilla until smooth. Add powdered sugar until the consistency is smooth enough to spread. Once pastry has cooled completely, cover it with frosting. Top frosting with chopped walnuts. Slice into bars and serve.
Make pumpkin béchamel: Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan over medium high heat. Add flour and stir constantly until mixture is fully blended and just starts to color a bit. While still stirring, slowly add milk. Continuing stirring until fully blended. Bring mixture to a boil and continue to stir for about 5-6 minutes as mixture thickens. Add pumpkin and stir until fully blended. Remove from heat and add nutmeg. Set aside.
Heat olive oil and remaining tablespoon of butter over medium low heat in a large saucepan. Add onions and garlic and sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and continue to sauté, for an additional 10 minutes, until mushrooms are tender and have released their moisture. Add sage, salt and pepper and heat through. Remove from heat and set aside.
To assemble lasagna, spread about 1/2 cup of the pumpkin mixture in the bottom of a 9x13 pan that has been lightly coated with cooking spray. Place four noodles over the sauce, letting them overlap slightly. Cover noodles with 1/2 cup of additional sauce. Spread 1/2 of the mushrooms over the sauce. Cover mushrooms with 1/3 of the mozzarella. Add four more noodles. Add another 1/2 cup of sauce. Cover sauce with all of the spinach and then another 1/3 of the mozzarella. Add another layer of pasta. Cover with sauce, the remaining mushrooms and the remaining mozzarella. Add a final layer of pasta. If you have extra pasta, cut it into pieces to completely cover the top of the dish. Evenly spread the remaining sauce on top and cover the dish with aluminum. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove aluminum and sprinkle Parmesan on top. Bake for an additional 15 minutes.
Place cream and milk in a large saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk together egg yolks and sugar in a medium sized bowl until creamy and about the consistency of mayonnaise. Continuing whisking and pour in about 1 cup of the hot cream mixture until fully incorporated. Pour the warmed mixture back into the saucepan and cook until just before mixture starts to boil, stirring constantly.
Strain mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl. Add pumpkin, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and almond extract. Place a piece of plastic directly onto the surface and then chill the mixture for at least 4 hours before putting into an ice cream freezer.
Thanks again to Anna Avaolos and Betty and Jennifer Schwarz. I couldn’t have done this segment without you!
Look of these alloy pendants with lovely looks and dramatic color, which are welcomed by many customers. You can use these charming pendants on a chain, multiple strands of beading wire, leather cord or as part of your beaded design for the necklace. No doubt they will become your favorite pendants.
Stem cells with multipotent and self-renewal abilities play a vital role in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. They can assist tissue reconstruction through specific differentiation and secretion of various bioactive macromolecules. More and more studies confirm that the cell-fate commitment can be manipulated via constructing a specific stem cell niche. The construction of specific niches with conductive materials (conducting polymers, carbon nanotubes and graphene) can promote stem cell differentiation towards electro-active lineages and emphasize the promising role of stem cells in electro-active tissue regeneration (e.g., nerve and heart). In this review, we summarize the commonly applied conductive materials for scaffold construction and evaluate their contributions in the regeneration of electro-active tissues.
Recent studies have shown that selective inhibition of specific subsets of intercellular adhesion molecules protects the brain during ischemia. We studied selective inhibition of integrin alphavbeta3 with cyclo [Arg-Gly-Asp-D-Phe-Val] (cRGDfV) in the rat middle cerebral artery occlusion model (MCAO).
Rats were treated before and after MCAO with cRGDfV. Physiological parameters, expression of integrin alphavbeta3, infarction volume, brain water content, Evans Blue exudation, IgG exudation, histology, immunohistochemistry, and western blotting were studied in 4 groups of animals: sham operation (n=13), untreated (n=18), nonfunctioning peptide treatment (n=19), and cRGDfV treatment (n=27).
Treatment with cRGDfV reduced infarction, reduced brain edema, reduced exudation of Evans blue and IgG, and prevented fibrinogen deposition. Western blotting showed reduction of phosphorylated Flk-1 (a vascular endothelial growth factor [VEGF] receptor), reduction of phosphorylated FAK (an intracellular kinase phosphorylated in the presence of VEGF), reduction of VEGF, and reduction of fibrinogen in the cRGDfV treatment group.
The selective integrin alphavbeta3 inhibitor cRGDfV improves outcomes in the MCAO model by preserving the blood-brain barrier, which mechanistically may occur in a VEGF- and VEGF-receptor-dependent manner.
Significance of experimental infarct size as an indicator of therapeutic efficacy in humans. [Stroke. 2007]