Pumpkin Waffle Sunday Brunch

Sometimes you just want to make something nice for your sweet husband. Keeping in mind that his favourite thing on earth is pumpkin pie, I thought I would take a stab at making some Pumpkin Waffles.

Well, let me tell you, it was a hit! Served alongside some turkey sausage and fresh fruit... part of a complete breakfast!

I love my waffle maker, it's like magic... just take about a 1/2 cup of batter....

...and just like magic- about 5 minutes later- you have a crispy waffle on the outside and a tasty, soft waffle on the inside.

Served with some delicious fruits... all orange- just a coincidence- and you have a real delicious brunch filled with whole, grain, fibre and packed with vitamins and a punch of colour.

Here's the recipe:

Pumpkin Waffles

 (adapted from http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/11/pumpkin-waffles/)

 ·         2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour ( I used whole wheat flour)
·         1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
·         2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
·         1 teaspoon baking soda
·         1/2 teaspoon salt
·         2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
·         1 teaspoon ground ginger
·         1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
·         4 large eggs, separated
·         2 cups well-shaken buttermilk
·         1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin
·         3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
·         Vegetable oil for brushing waffle iron or cooking spray
 

Preheat oven to 250°F and preheat waffle iron. Sift together flour, brown sugar, baking powder and soda, salt, and spices. Whisk egg yolks in a large bowl with buttermilk, pumpkin, and butter until smooth. Whisk in dry ingredients just until combined.

In a mixing bowl with a whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites until they hold soft peaks (as in, far softer than the over-beaten whites you’ll see in my picture above). Folk them gently into the waffle batter, until just combined.

Brush waffle iron lightly with oil and spoon batter (about 2 cups for four 4-inch Belgian waffles) into waffle iron, spreading quickly. Cook according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Transfer waffles to rack in oven to keep warm and crisp. Make more waffles in same manner.

Smile and warm melting butter approved!

Pumpkin Love- Skinny Pumpkin Bunt Cake

Since our American friends just celebrated Thanksgiving, it's not too late to share a recipe that I made a few weeks back to bring to our very own Canadian Thanksgiving.
Who doesn't love Pumpkin-Spiced anything???? This will surely bring in the flavours and warmth of the season, but without too many calories and fat and add tons of fibre because of the pumpkin puree included in this delicious coffee cake.

Here's the cooked and finished upside down bunt cake. You can really see the pretty ribbon here.

Delicious and nutritious- packed with loads of vitamin A and antioxidants, it’s a good source of vitamins C, K, and E, and contains plenty of minerals, including magnesium, potassium, and iron.

Looks funny at first...

But then you make the ribbon all swirled-up and it comes out gorgeous.

So here's the recipe folks!

Skinny Pumpkin Spice & Cream Cheese Bunt Cake

(adapted from TheSkinnyFork.com)

Ingredients:

Pumpkin Batter:

1 1/2 C. Pumpkin Puree

1/2 C. Apple Sauce, Unsweetened

1 Large Egg

2 Large Egg Whites

1 2/3 C. Whole Wheat White Flour

1/2 C. Sweetener (Stevia or other cup for cup preference.)

1/2 C. Sugar

1 Tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp. Ground Cinnamon

1/2 Tsp. Ground Cloves

1/4 Tsp. Ground Nutmeg

1/4 Tsp. Ground Ginger

Cream Cheese Ribbon:

8 Oz. Fat Free Cream Cheese

2 Tbsp. Sweetener

2 Tbsp. Sugar

1 Tbsp. Whole Wheat White Flour

2 Large Egg Whites

1 Tsp. Vanilla Extract

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. and lightly spray the inside of two 9x5 loaf pans or a bunt pan with non-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, mix together the puree, applesauce, egg and egg whites until well blended.  Set aside.

In another bowl, whisk the remaining dry ingredients for the pumpkin batter. Slowly add the dry ingredients in to the wet until it is all well combined.  In a medium bowl, mix up the ingredients for the cream cheese ribbon until smooth and creamy. Add about a third of the pumpkin batter to the bottom of the pan(s). Top with about half of the cream cheese mixture. Spoon another third pumpkin batter atop the cream cheese mixture.  Finish it off with the remaining cream cheese and pumpkin.

If you're feeling spunky you can swirl it together with a knife. 

Place in the oven and bake for about 40 minutes for loafs or 55-60 for a bunt, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Once done, remove from the oven to cool slightly and remove from pan(s).

Here are the nutritional details:

Servings: 16 • Size: 1 Wedge/Slice • Calories: 110.8 • Fat: 0.7 g • Carb: 20 g • Fiber: 2.8 g • Protein: 5.6 g • Sugar: 8.4 g • Sodium: 196.5 mg

Look how gorgeous! It makes a giant bunt cake, so we enjoyed half with friends and family and wrapped up the rest and froze it for later.

Mini Pumpkin Pies

... and the other, my dear husband's favourite, and it turns out that it was Melanie's too!  The mini pumkin pie recipe.

Mini Pumpkin Pies

http://kidscooking.about.com/od/thanksgivingdesserts/r/pumpkin-tarts-mini-pumpkin-pies.htm

Ingredients:

•1 package containing two refrigerated pie crusts

•1 15 oz. can unsweetened pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix)

•2 large eggs

•1/2 cup firmly-packed light brown sugar

•1 12 oz. can evaporated milk ( I used lower fat version)

•1-1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Preparation:

1.Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

2.Unroll each pie crust. Using a 3-1/2 inch round biscuit or cookie cutter, cut circles in the pie dough, starting from the outside and working your way around, so you can get as many circles as possible without having re-roll. You should be able to get 10-12 circles out of each pie crust. Press circles into the cups of a standard muffin tin. The crust will not come all the way up the muffin cups -- don't worry. It should come up about halfway.

3.Mix together remaining ingredients. Using a 1/4-cup measuring cup, fill the pie crusts with the pumpkin mixture, being careful to fill only to the top of the crust not all the way to the top of the muffin cups.

4.Bake 18-24 minutes until crusts are lightly browned and pumpkin pie filling is nearly set.

Makes 20-24 mini pumpkin pies or tarts.

You can make these pumpkin tarts up to two days in advance. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Garnish with whipped cream, if desired.

Yummy Pumpkin Scones Recipe

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Scones
(http://www.longos.com/MagazineFeaturedRecipes/whole_wheat_pumpkin_scones.pdf)

These scones are pretty delicious, they are better when they are warmed up with a bit of butter.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup (80 mL) unsalted butter

1 cup (250 mL) unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup (250 mL) whole wheat flour

1 1/2 tsp (7 mL) baking powder

1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt

1/2 tsp (2 mL) cinnamon

1/4 tsp (1 mL) each ground cloves, ginger and nutmeg

1/3 cup (80 mL) packed brown sugar

1/3 cup (80 mL) pure pumpkin puree

1/3 cup (80 mL) buttermilk

1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla

1 tbsp (15 mL) milk

1/4 cup (60 mL) Longo’s Shelled and Roasted Unsalted Pepitas

Directions:

Place butter in freezer. In bowl, combine all-purpose and whole wheat flours, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, mix together brown sugar, pumpkin, buttermilk and vanilla.  Remove butter from the freezer and using box grater, grate butter into flour. Toss to coat butter with flour. Mix in pumpkin mixture and stir until just combined. Turn onto a flour dusted surface and bring dough together. Pat into an 8-inch (20 cm) circle, about 1-inch (2.5 cm) thick. Cut into 8 triangles and place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Brush each piece  with milk and sprinkle with pepitas. Bake in 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 to 18 minutes or until lightly golden brown and tester comes out clean.

Makes 8 servings. (but I made them into 13 servings, weird, I know, I can't cut straight)

Per serving: 230 calories; 5 g protein; 9 g fat; 34 g carbohydrate; 3 g fibre

Healthy Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes

These were for my family, they are big fans of pumpkin pie (me, not so much), so when I stumbled upon these on www.sheknows.com. I had to make them for my family.  Well guess what, they loved them, and when I added the berries around and blended the flavours together I loved them too.

Healthy Pumkin Pie Cupcakes

   

Ingredients:

•             2/3 cup all-purpose flour

•             1/4 teaspoon baking powder

•             1/4 teaspoon baking soda

•             1/4 teaspoon salt

•             1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

•             1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree

•             1/2 cup white sugar

•             1/4 cup brown sugar

•             2 large eggs

•             1 teaspoon almond extract

•             3/4 cup skim milk

•             Whipped topping and cinnamon for garnish

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake wrappers in a muffin pan and coat wrappers with cooking spray.

1.            In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice.

2.            In a larger bowl, combine pumpkin puree, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, almond and milk until fully combined. Add in dry ingredients and mix until no streaks of flour remain and batter is smooth. (Batter will be runny).

3.            Fill liners about 3/4 of the way full and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until cupcakes are brown. Once cooled, add a dollop of whipped topping into the concave center and sprinkle with cinnamon!

My family loved them so much they kept on eating them all week, even without the berries.

Nutrional Information:

110 calories

18g carbs

 1g fat

 3g protein

 1g protein

Pumpkin Muffins and Tea Party

These Pumkins Muffins are good for you and not too sweet, perfect for an early morning tea party. Just check out me and my beautiful friend Jenny and our beaming daughters Georgia and Melanie enjoying the day.

Pumpkin Muffins (adapted from http://recipes.sparkpeople.com)

Ingredients:

 2 cups whole wheat flour

1.5 cups white enriched flour    

6 Tbsp white sugar         

2 tsp baking powder      

½ tsp baking soda

2 large eggs

1 ½ cups 1% milk

4 Tbsp canola oil                

1 ½ cups 100% pure canned pumpkin

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp all spice

½ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp salt

Sliced almonds, seeds (about 2 Tbsp)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly spray 24 muffin tins. Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, mix the eggs, milk and oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mix well, then gently mix the pumpkin puree.  Batter will be lumpy. Add a few sliced almonds and seeds to the top of the muffins to add crunch. Bake muffins for 15-18 minutes. I made a tray of 12 regular sized muffins and 24 mini muffins.

Nutritional Information:

114 calories

18g carbs

3g fat

 3g protein

 2g fibre

Check out our Tea Party

Look at Melanie's 'Special Instructions' for the Tea Party... another 'cute daughter moment'.

A great pose to start the Tea Party- Peace and Attitude.

Georgia giving us her 'version' of Peace.

Amazing Adventure- Weekend at the park

Mella and I enjoyed some great adventures this weekend. We first went to a local farmer's market in Oakville- Cristan Farms- We were looking for a nice pumpkin and found some great produce too!

Choose one, only one Mella.

We chose this one!



They have won so many ribbons and prizes for their produce.

Colourful Cauliflower.



More beautiful colours.



Mini pumpkins and squashes



Basket of Red Delicious.

We then went to a new park for us along the Lakeshore in Oakville. It had great views, awesome playground and a great trail. What a beautiful place for our nature walk.


Couldn't resist the picture of me in Mella's sunglass lens.



Beautiful Fountain moment.

 

21st Century monkey bars.

 

My Fountain moment.

Peace and Sunshine!

Those rocks were so gool and the waves look like I claw.

Another beautiful daughter moment, Melanie noticed this tire in the little creek and said 'The tire is like the tire around our stomachs, it's like we are throwing our extra tire into the creek.' I just love how she comes up with this stuff.