Pumpkin and PCOS - Thanksgiving treats

Picture from Gluten Free Easily.com

     Pumpkin Pie Smoothie - Gluten Free Easily

    (Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Refined Sugar Free + More Free)

      1 cup pumpkin puree, chilled (fresh or canned)
      ½ cup full-fat coconut milk, chilled
      ½ cup filtered water
      1 sliced, frozen ripe banana
      1 tbsp almond flour (optional) (I would use coconut flour instead)
      1 tbsp hemp seed (optional) (I don't have these, and would just omit this)
      A tablespoon or two of honey, to taste (or other sweetener, agave, stevia, etc)
      ½ tsp pumpkin pie spice, or more to taste
      Prepare glasses by dipping rims into shallow bowl of water and then cinnamon.
      Combine all ingredients in blender. Cover and blend on high until smooth, about 30 to 60 seconds.
      Pour into prepared glasses or pint-sized Mason jars as I did.
      Enjoy!



This recipes was highlighted by InCyst today, and since I have lots of pumpkin to use up I may have to make a shake tonight.


     Vegan Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream - Elana's Pantry
      ½ cup cashews (raw)
      ¼ cup coconut milk
      2 cups roasted pumpkin, or other squash (learn how to roast pumpkin in 10 easy steps!)
      1 ¼ cups water (I would use more coconut or cashew milk to make it creamier)
      ½ cup agave nectar
      1 tablespoon vanilla extract
      1 tablespoon cinnamon
      1 teaspoon ginger
      ½ teaspoon nutmeg

1. In a Vitamix (blender) combine cashews, coconut milk, pumpkin, water and agave
2. Blend ingredients on high speed until smooth
3. Add vanilla, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg
4. Pour mixture into an ice cream maker and process according to instructions
5. Serve

Now this one from Elana's Pantry is nice, but thin. It is more like a sorbet, and I was hoping for something a bit more creamy.  Luckily she included links to others posts and recipes, and this one sounds delicious, although not dairy free or vegan, if that is what you are looking for.  Next time I might even add in the heavy cream in place of the water.

More From Elana's Pantry - this one was found in the notes, and uses coconut flour! I'm a fan of coconut flour, and I'm glad to see recipes popping up using it in seasonal favorites.

     Pumpkin Cookies

         1/4c butter, softened (or coconut oil)
         1/3c pumpkin puree
         3 eggs
         1/4c agave
         1/2tsp vanilla
         1/2c coconut flour
         1/4tsp salt
         1/4tsp baking soda
         1 1/2tsp pumpkin pie spice

     1. Preheat oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment.
     2. Combine wet ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
     3. Combine dry ingredients in small bowl.
     4. Blend or whisk dry ingredients into wet, making sure no lumps remain.
     5. Let batter sit for a couple of minutes to thicken. Dough should be soft but hold its shape when scooped.
     6. Scoop dough onto parchment-lined sheet, about 1" scoops.
         Cookies will not spread much during baking.
     7. Bake 17-20 minutes. Cookies will be set and very lightly browned.

It should be noted that Monika brought to my attention that Almonds have plenty of Omega 6 in them, so it does add up over time, and we need to focus more on getting our Omega 3's, you can also read up on it here.

"You can make flour out of any nuts with your food processor. You may want to mix up the nut you choose since almond is high in omega-6 and that will add up over time. Try pecan for the holidays!" - Monika

Well, have a great time celebrating and being thankful. I will have more posts on food, and celebrations to come.  We get to celebrate twice every year! So how wonderful is that?  Luckily our celebrations are very different. One is much more the "traditional", cream based type foods. The other is much more like a fall roast, with the foods being very unadulterated. Those recipes are much easier to post, example. Cranberry side, one bag of cranberries, one orange put in blender, and puree. Mix in Stevia, or honey to taste (this is generally still very tart).  The sweet potatoes are similarly made, by cutting into chunks and sprinkling with cinnamon and baking, add a bit of butter (or Brummel and Brown) as desired.




I found this free e-cookbook over at the Baking Beauties. 

Pharaoh's Daughter - Halloween costume

Pharaoh's Daughter - 9 years old

So here is the one costume I did have, for the Harvest Festival at Salt Lake Christian Center.  Things have changed over the years, but that was where my sister and I did get to dress up.

But before then, we had another type of celebration.  We had friends of ours come to the house and all of us kids played games, and had candy, and had a grand time.  The Crainers have been life long friends of ours, and their boys were like our brothers.  We grew up together in a different church, and were in plays together, got in trouble together and of course we teased them.  There was one of these occasions were the two oldest boys, my sister and I were picking on the then youngest boy about something or other, and he ran and hid in the closet.  Coaxing him out took most of the night.  This could have also been the night that we colored the wall in mine and my sisters room with crayons.  Our artistry knew no bounds, we moved the bed to make sure that we all had plenty of space to color.  It never completely washed off either, that was the beginning of wallpaper in our room.  I have never been a fan of wall paper, especially when removing it and repainting.

Now my sister used this costume later on, and she got a full shot of the outfit.  It seems that my mom was much more concerned about my eye makeup.  It was the first time I wore eye shadow, and it was caked on, and itchy.  I do not remember anything about the party, but I do remember my mom putting on the eyeshadow and how it felt.

My little sister as Pharaoh's Daughter - I'm not sure how old she was

So now that I'm an adult and you'd think we'd be over celebrating by dressing up, it seems that all of my employers here in Cali love to dress up for Halloween.
Here are some of my costumes, I'm still not great at coming up with costumes, so I'll explain them.

Cat Burglers - Accounts Receivable Department 

I went as Miss Marple, an Agatha Christie character, and yes, no one knew who she was so my costume was pointless

Well this year I might go as a window installer, or I will wear one of my Indian outfits - Salwar Komeez
I'm not a fan of dressing up for Halloween, and I'm not excited about having to do it for my work.  It's really frustrating when I can not explain it to my boss about my not believing in celebrating the holiday for Religious reasons when she shares the same religion, but views this holiday differently than I do.  Well here's to celebrating holidays in all the ways that people do.

Weekend BBQ's

It was nice enough to eat outside

My handsome man at the grill!

Friends chatting, and eating really good guacamole!

Dinner and games

Guys against the girls at Bamboozle

Ladies conspiring to come up with difficult words

Group shot: guys turn at guessing

Bear attacking our guest

We had a great night, good food, good friends, and lots of laughs.  Bear got a bit excited at the end though, so we did have a bit of mayhem.

Breathing is a bit overrated isn't it?

I have been unable to breathe the last few days, my nose is sneezy and running and all of that gross allergy commercial wording kind of stuff.  But it seemed to me that allergy season could not have begun just yet, we are still in August, the kids have barely gone back to school, and we just got over the Spring allergy season.

I took some allergy medicine anyway once I got to work, they do prefer me to function while I'm there.  It helps me too when accomplishing my tasks through out the day.

So I went outside during a break, and saw my car...it was clean and shiny when I parked it this morning.  It's not even noon yet.....

This is why I can't breathe.  This pollen is from just one of the trees in our parking lot, and we have lots of them. Yep, this is going to be a great time of the year.