Superfood Pumpkin Creativity

Don’t know why…but today turned into a pumpkin kind of day.

I started the day out with a Green Monster.  I was craving pumpkin in it…but was too lazy to deal with it so I just made a simple, regular drink….with spinach, banana, almond milk, Chocolate Superfood for a change, and 1 TBS flax meal.

I was pretty full after this and was thinking I could hold out until lunch….but that was not to be!   The hunger started creeping up on me by 10 and I knew I needed to eat something.

I started out with pumpkin oatmeal, and finally broke down and opened the can.  I put 1/3 cup oats, 1/3 cup vanilla almond milk, and 1/3 cup water in a bowl with 1/3 cup pumpkin.  Remember, this is the pure pureed pumpkin, NOT the pumpkin pie filling!

I popped it into the micro for 3 minutes at 50% power ‘cuz I didn’t feel like dealing with the oatmeal pot to clean afterwards.   When it came out I dumped on top a whole bunch of pumpkin pie spice (not measured…just a lot),  1 TBS raisins, 1 TBS walnuts pieces, and  1/2 TBS Agave syrup.   The vanilla I had added to the pumpkin milk (see below) smelled so good, that I dumped a bunch in here too (maybe 1/2 to 1 TBS….a little more than I meant to!)

It was still missing something so I mixed up 2 TBS of Chocolate PB2.   I would have liked regular old almond butter in it, but I didn’t want to use the points and the Choco PB2 has only 1 points for 2 TBS.  That did it and my oats were perfect!

Now I have also been craving a pumpkin latte lately, and had been researching recipes on how to make it myself, naturally.  I had found some recipes that used pumpkin puree in them and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to use up some more of the puree.   So using this recipe as a launching pad, into a pan went 1/3 cup vanilla almond milk, 1 heaping TBS of pumpkin puree, a large amount of pumpkin pie spice (again, a very very generous sprinkle…no measuring), 1/2 TBS Agave nectar, and 1/2 TBS vanilla. 

Even though I am not Latin myself, growing up in a Latin community I have learned lots of Cafe’ Con Leche tricks, and one of them is how easily milk will foam when it has been heated.  It works much better when heated in the micro and then whisked afterwards, but this  would do just fine.

I mixed all the ingredients together (and ended up dirtying the pot anyway that I had saved from the oatmeal!) and then when it was hot whisked until foamy.  I poured it into my cup and poured some good hot strong coffee in with it.   Aaahhh….pumpkin fix satiated.

Of course I still have this little guy to cook who came in my organic produce box on Monday.   I can’t decide what to make from him….kids want pumpkin pie (surprise!) but I was thinking of cutting him into wedges and roasting him for dinner.  I will see….

Total points for breakfast was high today though at 8.5 between the Green Monster, pumpkin oats, and pumpkin latte.

And finally for now I leave you with this:

FabTeen was eating her breakfast (which I had her make herself today as I was running late) and then apparently grabbed the camera I tend to leave lying around (handy), and snapped a picture of it.  She came running to me with the picture and said, “Mommy…this is a healthy breakfast, right?” 

Coming from Little Miss Queen of Junk Food I felt a glimmer of hope for her future eating habits bubbling inside!  I think I might be doing something right!