Wow the week has gone quickly. I must say this all the time but seriously. This week has been fairly tough. We’re working on the customer site at the moment and this adds an extra 30 mins on to my already one hour commute. And it’s half term at the moment which means traffic is amazing. Next week is just going to be terrible. I’m here for another five weeks!!
Right, moan over. As I said in my last post I had meant to post on Monday but it just didn’t happen. Sleep was chosen instead. Sorry I’m not sorry.
I wanted to do a quick mention of the mammoth task that was cooking my pumpkin. I was devastated when I’d used up my one and only tin of pumpkin puree that I’d got from America on my honeymoon. I almost bought a million a few more tins but decided I should try making my own.
OK I realise pumpkin might be a bit old news now as Halloween is over and October is finished but this was quite an arduous process and I just want to at least document it as, honestly, a fair amount of effort went into it and I’m chuffed at my achievement (yes, achievement). I followed THESE instructions. In the end I got a hefty amount of pumpkin puree, and I saved a quarter for roasting, and got a handful of pumpkin seeds. Fabulous. Stocked up for a few years at least!
So I’ve been using pumpkin everywhere as you can imagine. I wanted to make some relatively healthy pumpkin cookies for Halloween and this recipe was really quite easy.
Pumpkin oatmeal spice cookies (recipe adapted from HERE)
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups flour (you could use whole wheat here I guess but I only had normal white flour)
- 3 cups of rolled oats
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white sugar (I actually subbed this for Stevia and went on taste just to make it a bit healthier)
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
– Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
– Combine pumpkin, eggs and vanilla until well combined. In a separate bowl, add flour, oats, sugar/Stevia, baking powder, baking soda and spices. Combine wet and dry ingredients until mixed. The dough is very thick and fairly dry, I added a few splashes of almond milk.
– Drop onto a greased baking sheet. I did 18 fairly chunky cookies, though you could easily make them smaller to make more. Bake for 12-15 minutes until lightly browned.
They were crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle. Lovely! You could probably add chocolate chips or nuts in there as well but I wanted to keep things simple.
I also threw some roasted pumpkin to a feta salad. This was great. I love salads with hot ingredients.
And I added pumpkin puree to porridge:
I’ve got to say, I didn’t notice any difference apart from it being slightly more creamy. I’m a big fan of more stodgy porridge/oatmeal so this didn’t blow me away if I’m honest. But some extra nutrients in the morning is always good I guess!
This weekend we have nothing planned. Hurrah! So I’m hoping to get a long run in tomorrow morning (we’ll see) and the usual chores. We’re loving Grey’s Anatomy (season 6) at the moment so Saturday night will probably be a fair few episodes of that with maybe a cheeky gin & tonic. Bliss.
What are you up to this weekend?
Have you gotten over the pumpkin craze or is still living strong?
Pumpkin loving is still going strong with me 🙂 It will carry on for another month at least!
Those cookies sound lovely- ones to add to my list.
Tomorrow I am going on a cake decorating course which I am really looking forward to, and then catching up with my parents as they just got back from a trip to India- so fairly relaxed overall. Have fun!
Oh wow a cake decorating course sounds amazing!! Have fun 🙂
I’ve never tried cooking with pumpkin myself, but I really am intrigued, I’m just concerned I won’t like it! I’m hoping to find a tin of the stuff either in Waitose or my local health food shop. Otherwise, does the homemade pumpkin puree taste the same as the tinned variety? Not sure how easy it will be to track one down post Halloween!
Pumpkin doesn’t have a very strong taste. It’s similar to butternut squash I think. And when I put the puree into things you can’t taste it at all really. Homemade and tinned tasted the same as well! Yeah they might be in the sale now I guess, perfect time to buy one hehe.
Food’s lookin’ good! I haven’t used pumpkin nearly enough yet….only once or twice, but hopefully I’ll make up for it in November!
Thanks 🙂 Yeah I hope to do a few more things…make some space in my freezer at least! Hehe.
A 90-minute commute?? I’m not surprised you’ve not blogged much; sleep always wins!
Those cookies look fab. I never really got into pumpkin (although you can buy the canned Libby’s stuff in Waitrose, at least sometimes, if that helps?) I usually substitute cooked bureed butternut instead as I prefer the flavour…
Hope you have a fab chilled weekend 🙂
Oh I didn’t know that about Waitrose! I will definitely have a look. Ooooh that sounds good about the butternut, I never thought to use that. Have a good one too!