Pumpkin Seed Trail Mix

I made this trail mix from the Food Network, minus the dried cherries, for my sister who is hiking in Yosemite, Mt Rainier and the Olympic Mountains of Washington State this month. Both the Hub and I ate our fair share of it before giving it to her though because it's kind of addictive. All of us liked the sweet and salty taste it gave the nuts and seeds. My pans took longer than the recipe calls for to become completely dry and crisp.

Pumpkin Lasagna with Caramelized Onions & Walnuts

This recipe, from Clean Eating magazine, is really good. I replaced the butternut squash with can of pumpkin, replaced the ricotta with cottage cheese and made it in two smaller dishes, but otherwise left the recipe alone. When reading the recipe, I thought the walnuts a little unnecessary, but added them anyway and both the Hub and I like the crunch the nuts gave. Mine didn't cut the first day as beautifully as their's did, but it still tasted great - warm, gooey and totally comforting. And at 260 calories for 1 1/2 cups, we could eat it often.

Pumpkin Oat Bread

I was a little skeptical about this recipe from the website Naturally Ella. It only contains one teaspoon of baking soda and no salt at all, which I thought was a prerequisite to making soda rise. But turned out lovely, a cross between regular bread and dense pumpkin bread. You use the food processor to grind up oats into a flour, which adds a nutty texture. I cut the maple syrup back to 1/2 cup and the nut oil to two tablespoons with no negative results. You can only see the loaf from one direction because the Hub accidently stuck his finger through the loaf on the other side while taking it out of the pan. We both liked this bread and had it for breakfast with Rainier cherries until it was gone.

Sesame Pumpkin Skewers

This recipe, which uses pumpkin as a party finger food, is fast, easy and tastes good. It comes from the website Jungle Frog Cooking. I think it would be just fine as a side dish too. It mixes soy sauce, honey and sesame oil as a marinade for the pumpkin, which is then baked in the oven. The skewers are optional. I was the only taster on this and thought it tasted great.

Beef & Pumpkin Shepherd's Pie

The Hub and I both enjoyed this recipe from Libby's. I did not use hamburger, but instead used Boca Crumbles. Neither one of us could tell the difference. It calls for pumpkin in the filling mixed with onions, carrots and meat and more pumpkin in the potatoes on top. I baked mine in the individual pie plates I got for Mother's Day and it made four individual pies. Served with beans from the garden it was a really filling meal.

Pumpkin and Feta Muffins

Both the Hub and I enjoyed these savory muffins from the website 101cookbooks.com. It calls for two cups of flour, but gives you options of which type to use. I used 1 1/2 cups of spelt flour and 1/2 cup of whole wheat pastry flour. But with roasted pumpkin, baby spinach, cilantro, sunflower seeds, parmesan and feta cheeses and mustard, you hardly notice the flour. The recipe makes 12 muffins.

Notice the bacon in the spinach salad we ate with the muffins. I made that out of tofu and Pensey's Mitchell Street seasoning. The Hub just loves it when I do things like that. lol. No in all fairness, he's been a very good sport over the years, not only with this pumpkin blog, but everything I cook.

Pumpkin Banana Pancakes

Both the Hub and I enjoyed these pumpkin banana pancakes from the website pumkinnook.com one Saturday morning. The recipe uses baking soda and beaten egg whites to make the pancakes rise enough to overcome the weight of the pumpkin and bananas. I should have sliced my bananas a little thinner to make them stretch more. I tend to make pancakes small so I got about 20 pancakes for two bananas and would have used the entire bunch if I didn't stop adding the bananas to the last ones. I was surprised at the fact that the bananas actually add a nice touch to the pancakes. The Hub used maple syrup on his, but mine were fine with just a little powdered sugar.

Pumpkin Sherbet

So, what's the difference between ice cream and sherbet. Well according to the Internet (which may or may not be correct): Ice cream is made with milk, cream, sugar, and eggs. Sherbet is made with fruit juice/puree, sugar, water, and dairy (usually milk).

This makes sense. I've made pumpkin ice cream before with six egg yolks, whole cream and half & half. Way too much saturated fat and calories, which is why I like this recipe from the website skinnytaste a lot. It calls for 1% milk, but I used skim, which is all we had. I cut the sugar to 1/2 cup and with a cup of pumpkin and some spices, that's it. Sometimes when you make the fat-heavy recipes in a home mixer, you can actually taste the fat in the ice cream and it leaves a film in your mouth. This one doesn't do that and with less than 150 calories a half cup, you won't be doing too much damage either. Best of all though it tastes great. Both the Hub and I liked it and found it refreshing on a hot evening.

Roasted Pumpkin Seed Butter

Happy Fourth of July. I've sort of been a slacker lately because I've needed to focus on other things right now. For example, we were without power from last Friday night until Monday night after a freaky summer storm took out most of the area's power including traffic lights. Driving without traffic lights is scary. Ninety percent of the drivers treat it like a 4-way stop and patiently wait their turns, but the other ten percent go barreling through like they're the only ones on the road and have the rest of us practically paralyzed with fear they're going to hit us. We need round-abouts like they have in Europe. There are many people without power still in the sweltering heat, so I'm grateful we have it.

Making this pumpkin seed butter couldn't be easier. Roast the seeds, process in the food processor, add a pinch of salt and you're done. But according to the Hub, who is a big peanut butter fan, it just doesn't taste good enough to replace his brand name junk. And, according to the list of ingredients, here's why: it doesn't contain sugar, palm oil or molasses. If you (unlike the Hub) have already banned such things from your peanut butter, you many like this. In fairness, Robin wasn't a big fan either when she was visiting. It has the exact same texture as natural peanut butter.