Pumpkin Luna Bars

I loved the idea of making my own Luna bars and it seemed like a perfect addition to this month of healthy recipes. According to the package a Luna bar is whole nutrition for women including calcium, folic acid, vitamin D and iron with 9 gms of protein and 3 gms of fiber. I've never eaten one, but did try it for a comparison to mine. This recipe from the blog V.K. Photography makes a tasty candy bar/cookie bar, but is missing most of the nutritional items that draw people to this type of bar. My Luna bar's ingredients start with soy rice krispies and oats, this recipe contains just regular brown rice krispies so I'm sure we're losing some protein and fiber here. The recipe also contains nut butter, coconut oil, canned pumpkin, agave nectar, stevia and spices - this hardly seems like whole nutrition.

Stephanie of Steph Chows also tried making this recipe and had many of the same issues with it that I found. The author recommends putting the mixture into a square or rectangular pan, but exact dimensions would be helpful. I thought mine were a little flat. The recipe also has structural issues in that it won't hold together unless covered with 1/4 inch layer of chocolate and frozen. Stephanie felt that baking them might hold them together. I think the krispies (and some oats) should be whirled in the food processor to make the mixture more crumbly and therefore hold together better. The author wants you to break the krispies with the back of a spoon while you're mixing them, but mine were too soggy to break. The fact that these bars need to be frozen until used kind of discourages portability too. After 30 minutes in the freezer there was no cutting mine into nice bars, so I broke them. Everyone, including the guys, liked the taste of these, but they're hardly a substitute for one of these nutritionally balanced commercially prepared bars.

Roasted Chicken with Pumpkin Mole

This recipe comes from the interesting website Feasting on Art. The author highlights a piece of art (in this case Frida Kahlo's Still Life) and finds or makes up a recipe to complement it. She gives the history of the piece of art and also discusses the recipe (in this case what mole is).

She adapted this from a recipe in Bon Appetit, which I have in my pumpkin blog files, but was hesitant to make because of its complexity. So I was really glad to see she had tested and simplified it. And here's what she has to say about mole: From the Mexican word molli meaning ‘concoction,’ mole is commonly known in the combined form guacamole - avocado concoction. Mole is a generic term for a variety of sauces in Mexico with ingredients ranging from chilies and peanuts to tomatillos and chocolate.

The recipe makes about three cups of mole and the chicken was long gone before the mole was. So I ate it as a side dish a couple of times and liked it that way too. I think chopping the onion instead of slicing it into rings would make the hand blending a lot easier. The Hub kept holding up the hand blender wanting me to pick the onions out of the blades - a job I wasn't loving. We all liked this recipe and I would make it again, perhaps in the summer, grilling the chicken as the original recipe did.

Pumpkin Slices in Syrup

This simple dessert recipe came from the blog At the Farmers' Market. It couldn't be easier with just four ingredients. I appreciated the fact that you only cook the pumpkin chunks for 20 minutes, which is all they can handle without falling apart. Without spices, the flavor of the pumpkin is distinct. Unfortunately no one loved it. We had it with whipped cream and toasted walnuts and the Hub complimented the nuts and the cream. I liked it, but the leftovers sat in the frig until I threw them away. I had halved the recipe so luckily there wasn't that much left over.

IHOP Pumpkin Pancakes

 My neighbor Cheryl asked me for a pumpkin pancake recipe. I looked back on the blog to find I didn't really like the recipe I had tested before. I went back through my files to find the recipe I had been using before this blog began - IHOP's pumpkin pancakes. For anyone unfamiliar with IHOP, it stands for International House of Pancakes. And they have not only great pumpkin pancakes but almost every other kind you can think of. I tend to make pancakes rather small, makes them easier to flip and ensures the middles are done at the same time as the outside.

Low GI Pumpkin Bread

I made this bread from the Avoca Tea Time cookbook that Kevin brought me from our favorite Irish store and restaurant. It doesn't actually contain any pumpkin, just pumpkin seeds. This is what it says about low GI. GI stands for "glycaemic index." This measures the speed at which foods are broken down by the body to form glucose, the body's source of energy. High GI foods break down quickly and leave you feeling hungry. Low GI foods, like whole grains and dried fruit, break down more slowly and leave you feeling fuller for longer. It is these low GI foods that form the core of the diet. 

I added some dried sour cherries to my bread, which we all liked even if we didn't eat it for tea. It uses equal parts whole wheat flour and spelt flour, an ancient grain that has recently gained popularity as a dietary grain due to its nutty flavor, high protein and nutritional content. I had no trouble finding it at my local Whole Foods.

Low GI Pumpkin Bread

250g coarse whole wheat flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour)

250g spelt flour

2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds

1 level teaspoon bread soda (baking soda)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon caster sugar (optional) (I used regular sugar)

Approx. 400ml buttermilk

Makes 1 loaf

Preheat the oven to 170C/gas mark 3 (328 degrees F). Grease a 900g loaf tin.

Combine the dry ingredients, stir in the buttermilk and mix together. Spoon into the loaf tin and bake for 50 minutes to an hour.

Remove from the oven and tin, and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Variations - You could add 2 tablespoons of any seeds, sunflower, linseed or hemp are particularly good or a mixture to the bread, or dried fruit, like diced apricots, cranberries or sultanas.

Tip - We use Ballybrado organic flour. Experiment to find a flour that works for you. they are all very different.

Pumpkin Coconut Curry with Chicken Meatballs

We all loved the results of this pumpkin coconut curry with chicken meatballs recipe. I used ground turkey in the meatballs, which were easy to make and then baked in the oven. The spices are a perfect blend and used to flavor both the meatballs and the sauce. Funny thing is, it has no curry in it. It has a little heat and lots of flavor. I grated the carrots and probably added more than the two cups called for in the recipe. Served over brown rice, this healthy recipe is one I will definitely be making it again.

Happy New Year & Pumpkin Black Bean Soup

Happy New Year to everyone. I think I speak for everyone in this country when I say I'm pretty happy to be kicking 2011 to the curb. I apologize for whatever is happening on Facebook that doesn't allow me to link the blog to my posts. Hopefully they will get it fixed and in the meantime I'm putting brackets around the URL, which gets you close but not quite there.

Since the beginning of this blog I've been praising the health benefits of pumpkin. Because we have a wedding coming up later this year, the Lockard, Falzone, Powers and Forman families have decided to have a biggest loser contest to make sure we don't look like pumpkins in the pictures. To help us all and maybe you too, I've decided to do a month of the healthiest pumpkin recipes I can find. I'm starting with this pumpkin black bean soup recipe which is good for you and tastes great too.

The Hub and I had a disagreement over whether I had ever made a soup recipe with black beans for this blog. No one could remember and I was unwilling to back through the months to see. Anyway if I did - this one from the website Very Culinary - is better. I really really liked this soup and I'm not normally a soup person. It has two tablespoons of sugar, but comes out kinda sweet, so next time I would eliminate the sugar. Other than that, it's a winner. It's easy to make and good for you too.