Happy Halloween everyone. My twelve-year-old daughter carved her first pumpkin all by herself with her mom saying, “Careful, don’t cut yourself” every few minutes. Do you think I was being over protective? Well, she didn’t need my help or her dad’s with her mockingjay pumpkin above. I couldn’t have done a better job. On with the pumpkin recipes. And have a blessed Halloween trunk, trick or camper treating. We’ve got pumpkin treats in store for you!
photo from $5 dollar dinners
I found this wonderful homemade pumpkin pie spice over on Erin’s blog. She has several homemade spices I’ve made and love. I’ve been using this spice in my microwave prep granola and substituting the cinnamon for pumpkin pie spice. It’s delicious for the fall.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 Tbsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cloves
- 1 tsp allspice
- 1 tsp nutmeg
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in small, sealable container and mix together. Use as directed in recipes that call for pumpkin pie spice.
- Store in a dry place, up to 6 months
And Just in case you need other pumpkin recipes:
- how to make pumpkin puree and freeze
- pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting
- pumpkin chocolate chip muffins
- healthy macaroni made with pumpkin or butternut
- pumpkin scones
- pumpkin pancakes
Don’t waste those pumpkins. I hear carving pumpkins work for puree, too. They may not be as sweet and take longer to cook, but they’ll provide a lot of puree.
Have you made any pumpkin recipes lately?
We carved an ENORMOUS pumpkin. I’d heard what people say about carving pumpkins being no good to eat, but at the end of the day, it’s food, and I don’t like to waste it. So I scraped out as much as I could with an ice cream scoop (I’m glad I did, as the pumpkin weighed a ton anyway – if I hadn’t scraped it out it would have been practically unliftable!) and, since I didn’t have time or a plan, threw it in the slow cooker with some honey – as I’d heard it might not be sweet enough – and spices. I’m not quite sure but I think it cooked for about 4 hours on High, and I then left the lid off for an hour or so (still on High) to thicken it up a bit. I froze it. I already used half of it to make sticky toffeee pumpkin cakes – http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/sticky-toffee-pumpkin-cakes – it worked fine, though I needed to cook longer than the recipe says, probably because my pumpkin puree was wetter than it should be. But they tasted excellent. I’ll either use the other half in a cake or bread, or make it into soup.
Should have added I pureed it with a handheld blender before freezing.
awesome use of resources! u can strain thru cheesecloth
Wish I’d thought of that! I’ll strain the next lot before using it.