Thanksgiving Pumpkin Recipe Round-up

Thanksgiving is almost here! So what does that mean? To me, it means pumpkin! As I'm sure you're well aware, I love pumpkin! Really and truly. Fall kicks in and I go pumpkin-crazy. (I have 5 cans of pumpkin puree in my pantry right now). Sigh, autumn is wonderful! So here are my pumpkin treats just in time for Thanksgiving:

Paleo Pumpkin Pie

Paleo Pumpkin Brownies

Paleo Pumpkin Mug Cake

Pumpkin Blackberry Pancakes

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

Pumpkin Hot Chocolate

Paleo Pumpkin Brownie Swirl

Paleo Pumpkin Pudding

Paleo Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars

Paleo Pumpkin Brownies

Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Pumpkin Blackberry Pancakes

I haven't been posting much lately because I haven't been doing much cooking (at least nothing new). Somehow, I managed to wake myself up this morning, and whip this together though. I'm pretty impressed with myself, because I rarely take the time to make breakfast. I normally just eat leftovers.

Pumpkin Blackberry Pancakes

1 Tbls coconut oil

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup almond flour

1/8 cup coconut flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 cup blackberries, cut into quarters

1. Heat 1 Tbls coconut oil over medium-low heat in a large pan.

2. Mix wet ingredients together, then mix in the dry ingredients.

3. Fold in the blackberries.

4. Transfer to hot pan by the heaping tablespoon full. (If you make each pancake too large, they'll just fall apart when you try to flip them.)

5. Cook for about 3 minutes per side. The pancakes are ready to flip when the edges of the pancake have turned a darker brown. Serve with maple syrup.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars

I gave it a try. I attempted another recipe of Paleo pumpkin chocolate chip bars. The results? It's a bit closer to the consistency (but it's not quite there) and the pumpkin flavor got a bit overwhelmed by the coconut sugar. I've never used coconut sugar before, so I wasn't sure how it would turn out. So here's the recipe I created today. Again, it tastes good, but it's not exactly what I was aiming for.

Paleo Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars (#2)

1/2 cup walnut chunks

4 Medjool dates, pitted

1/4 cup almond flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 Tbls pumpkin pie spice

1/4 cup coconut sugar

1/4 cup melted ghee

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup pumpkin puree

1/2 cup almond butter

pinch of salt

3/4 cup Enjoy Life chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Use coconut oil to grease a 8"x8" pan.

2. Put walnuts and Medjool dates into a food processor for a couple minutes (or until they almost form a paste)

3. Mix the almond flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt into the walnuts and dates.

4. In a separate bowl, use a hand mixer to mix the coconut sugar and melted ghee.

5. Once the sugar and ghee are combined, add the egg and vanilla. Mix in the pumpkin puree and almond butter.

6. Now mix the "dry" ingredients (everything from the food processor) into the "wet" ingredients.

7. Fold in the chocolate chips.

8. Transfer the mixture into the baking pan, and place in the oven.

9. Cook for 35-40 minutes. The sides of the pumpkin bars should pull away from the edges of the pan, and a toothpick entered into the center of the pan should come out clean. Let cool before slicing.

Toasted Pumpkin/Squash Seeds

You know what sucks? Migraines. Do you know what sucks more than migraines? Crying in front of your supervisors while you have a migraine. Yeah. That happened to me. I had a headache all morning, but then again, I have a headache most mornings, so it's nothing new. Anyways, I fought off succumbing to the headache for a couple hours before I finally took my migraine meds. 45 minutes later, the headache was significantly worse and every little sound was pounding in my head. The thing that finally set me off was a phone ringing. That was it. My final straw. I walked over to tell my supervisors that I had to go home (with tears in my eyes), and that's when they started freaking out, because in the words of my supervisor "You look terrible. You can't drive yourself." So one of my other co-workers drove me home, where I promptly crawled into bed and fell asleep. Let me just say that I have a renewed love of black-out curtains. Only black-out curtains were able to stop me from dragging myself under a pile of blankets... probably in my closet. Otherwise, being in my room with regular curtains in the middle of the day/morning would have been torture.

Today was the worst migraine that I've head in over a year. Since starting Paleo, most of my headaches haven't been too terrible. Yes, I still have headaches pretty often, but I can usually ignore them because they're not as intense as they used to be, and don't usually take any medicine for them. Unfortunately, I think that the lack of sleep this past week is what did me in. I've had such difficulties waking up this past week because I've been so tired and today's migraine is yet another sign that I need to pay better attention to my body. Obviously my goal of getting enough sleep (the 21-day challenge from Mark's Daily Apple that I mentioned) is not working out so well. Clearly, I still need some work. Health is a work in progress.

Anyways, enough of me, my migraines, and my need for sleep. Here's another pumpkin-related recipe.

Hot Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Seeds from one pumpkin

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

pinch of cayenne pepper

1. Preheat oven to 275 F.

2. Thoroughly clean the seeds after scooping them out of the pumpkin. I pull the pumpkin bits out by hand and then rinse the seeds in a colander.

3. Dry the seeds with a paper towel. It doesn't have to be completely dry.

4. Place the seeds in a bowl and add the salt and pepper. Stir to coat evenly.

5. Spread on a baking sheet and place in the oven. Cook for 25-30 minutes. The seeds are done with they're nice and crunchy if you bite into one.

Sweet Toasted Acorn Squash Seeds

Seeds from one acorn squash

1 tsp coconut oil, melted

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp ginger

1/8 tsp nutmeg

pinch of allspice

1. Preheat oven to 275 F.

2. Thoroughly clean the seeds after scooping them out of the squash. I found the seeds to be more thoroughly attached to the acorn squash flesh, so it took some extra time to separate the seeds from the stringy bits.

3. Dry the seeds with a paper towel.

4. Place the seeds in a bowl and add the coconut oil. Stir to coat.

5. mix in the cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice.

5. Spread on a baking sheet and slide it into the oven. Cook for roughly 25 minutes. The acorn squash seeds are smaller and I found they didn't need to bake as long to dry them out.

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

I made a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip bars last night. The non-Paleo kind. So tempting! My goal for this week(end) is to tweak my Paleo-ified version of it. I brought the pan into work, and it was cleaned out by noonish. Any some of my co-workers didn't even get any. Fortunately I have enough ingredients to make another batch. You're welcome, co-workers!

I really need to get back into good sleep habits. This morning, I either slept through a series of alarms or I partially woke up, turned off four alarms, and immediately fell back asleep.  My alarms are set at 5:00, 5:30, and 6:00, and sounds every 5 minutes if you don't turn it off. The first alarm to go off would be my sleep cycle alarm in the 4:30-5:00 range. The remaining alarms are on my phone. I finally woke up at 6:05 If I happened to sleep through all of the alarms (plus 5 minute reminder alarms), that would mean that my phone sounded 14 times this morning before I managed to rolled myself out of bed. I shuffled a few feet closer to the bathroom, and then dropped into 50 squats.

I'm doing a 30-day, 6000 squat challenge, meaning 200 squats per day. (Feel free to join in! Though you would need to catch up for a couple days.) Today was day two, and I'm 450 squats in. Unfortunately, I'm also already icing my knee. Though technically I started doing that yesterday evening. Maybe it's time to invest in a knee brace again. Each time I do a squat I can hear my knees creaking. It's a bit disconcerting. Anyways, to the good stuff...

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup cranberries
2 eggs
1/2 cup almond flour
1 Tbls pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 Tbls maple syrup

1. Preheat oven to 325 F.
2. Mix together wet ingredients (pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, and maple syrup).
3. Then stir in remaining ingredients. And spoon into coconut-oil greased muffin tin.

4. Bake for 35-40 minutes,  until toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean.

Pumpkin-Acorn Squash Soup

Yesterday I decided to try out intermittent fasting (IF). IF basically just means going through periods of time of not eating (drinking water and low-calorie drinks such as tea) and eating

It's one of those things of which I've been skeptical. I mean, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right? Well, that may still be true, but there is an argument that IF can aid weight loss by increasing fat oxidation, decreasing fasting insulin levels, and increasing insulin sensitivity. Head to Mark's Daily Apple for more information.

Despite a few hunger that hit around 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., I felt great. I drank water and tea. I wasn't hungry and I wasn't struggling with cravings for food throughout the day. My stomach did start rumbling pretty loudly after my Krav Maga class yesterday evening, so I ate some food after practice, even though I still didn't feel terribly hungry. I ended up feeling like I ate too much at dinner though, so that'll be something to work on in the future. I lasted a full 24 hours without food. I've mentioned before that I'm an emotional eater. If I'm stressed, bored, tired, etc., I tend to eat. Plus I seem to also use grabbing a snack as a short break. Yesterday I didn't have that option, but I survived without much effort.

Compare that to today. I started out the day with a mug of Pumpkin-Acorn Squash Soup (see recipe below). Within 2 hours, I wanted to eat something else. I know that I didn't have my usual protein for breakfast, so that could be part of the culprit. But I find it interesting that on my IF day, I wasn't hungry and didn't have to put any effort into restraining my snacking, but today, when I started off the day with food, I wanted more food, more frequently. I guess that's your body heading into starvation mode.

Pumpkin-Acorn Squash Soup (10 servings, 1 cup per serving)

1 pie/sugar pumpkin

1 acorn squash

2 Tbls coconut oil

1 Tbls olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

3 Tbls thyme, fresh, leaves

4 cups chicken broth (1 Mason jar)

1/8 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/3 cup coconut milk

1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

pepper, to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Line a baking sheet with tinfoil.

2. Slice the pumpkin and acorn squash in half. Scoop out the seeds and set aside seeds for a different use.

3. Brush the flesh of the pumpkin and acorn squash with coconut oil. Place the halves, cut side down on the baking sheet. Place in the oven for 50-60 minutes, until the skin is easily punctured with a fork. Remove from the oven and let cool for 15 minutes so you don't burn yourself. During this baking/waiting time, you can do something else, or chop onions, or whatever you want. After cooling, peel the skin off of the flesh or use a spoon to scoop out the flesh.

4. Once the pumpkin and acorn squash are cooling, heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add in the onion and thyme, cooking for 5 minutes or until soft.

5. Add the pumpkin and acorn squash flesh to the pot along with the chicken broth. Bring to a boil for 10 minutes, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 10 minutes.

6. Transfer the mixture in small batches to a blender. Process each batch for a minute or until the mixture is smooth and creamy. You can also use an immersion blender, but it may not end up as creamy.

7. Once the entire pot has been blended, stir in the remaining ingredients. Reheat on the stove and serve immediately. Top with sage if you feel like it.

Here's how much soup I got out of this recipe.

Here's a nutrition label based on the results from inputting my recipe to PaleoTrack.com. These values assume a serving size of 1 cup, with roughly 10 cups of soup altogether.

Pumpkin Hot Chocolate

Yum! Pumpkin Hot Chocolate. How can you have Paleo hot chocolate? you ask. Well, I'm happy to help you there. And to incorporate one of my favorite foods: pumpkin. Here goes...

Pumpkin Hot Chocolate

1/2 cup + 2 Tbls coconut milk

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1 tsp pumpkin spice

2-3 Tbls cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla

3 Tbls maple syrup

1 pinch of salt

1. Combine the coconut milk and pumpkin puree in a small saucepan over medium heat.

2. Once the milk and puree are completely combined and warm, stir in the remaining ingredients.

3. Serve immediately. It's really thick.

If you don't drink it all immediately, then you can put the rest in the fridge and use it as pudding.  Yeah, that's what I did.

Pumpkin Sausage Soup

In honor of the first week of October happening this week, I've decided to do a week of pumpkin recipes. Someone forgot to tell Texas weather that it's fall, but the spirit of fall is in the air. Grocery stores are displaying tons of pumpkin desserts, Halloween stores are open, and Christmas decorations are already on sale. But then again, I've seen Christmas decorations in stores since June. Anyways, pumpkin recipes will be happening for the week. I'm pretty excited, but since I'm cooking for one, and apparently never cook small batches of anything, I'm going to be eating pumpkin at EVERY meal this week. I would say that I'm concerned about getting tired of pumpkin, but I LOVE pumpkin, so I think we're safe.

Pumpkin Sausage Soup

2 Tbls olive oil

1 pound sweet Italian sausage (bulk if you can find it)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 onion, diced

1.5 Tbls sage leaves, chiffonade

3/4 cup white wine (I used Pinot Grigio)

1 1/4 cup chicken broth, homemade if you have it

1 bay leaf

1 cup pureed pumpkin

1/2 cup coconut milk

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Salt and pepper, to your taste

1. Heat 1 Tbls of olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Once the olive oil is hot, add the sausage. If you couldn't find mild (a.k.a. "sweet") Italian sausage, and instead have the sausage itself, make a light cut lengthwise along the sausage, then fold flip the sausage inside how, keeping hold of the casing. Use your hands to break up the sausage to smaller chunks.

2. Cook the sausage for a few minutes, until it's thoroughly cooked.

3. Transfer the sausage to paper towel, to allow the fat to be drained.

4. Heat another 1 Tbls of olive oil to a skillet and toss in the garlic and onions. Cook for 5 minutes until onions are soft.

5. Now add the sage, bay leaf, and wine to the pan. Cook for about 5 minutes to allow the wine to reduce. (To chiffonade the sage, roll up the leaves, and then make small slices from the rolled edge.)

6. Mix in the chicken broth and pumpkin puree. Once the concoction starts to bubble, reduce the heat to low.

7. Stir in the coconut milk and the sausage, and cook for 5-10 minutes to allow the soup to thicken.