Pumpkin "Ice Cream" (Dairy Free)

Hey y'all! As promised I'm back as soon as I could be! This recipe is one I came across a few months ago and wanted to wait until pumpkin season to carry out.  

In the last year or two I've become a lot more sensitive to dairy hence the presence of dairy free recipes.  I sure do miss full fat creamy ice cream and sometimes it's worth it for the stomach ache but not always. 

This recipe is pretty simple and all your really need are the ingredients and a food processor, which makes things easy.  As you will see the recipe is done after you combine all the ingredients in a food processor and it is up to you if you want to eat it as soft serve right away or freeze it and bring it back out at a later date.  

I also have to give credit to The Gracious Pantry blog for inspiring me for this recipe! I only made half of what the recipe called for but I will provide the full amounts so your batch will be twice as big as the pictures I provide! 

I hope that everyone is having a wonderful October fall thus far and is looking forward to the holiday season.  My pumpkin frenzy has been off the charts lately.  Here is the photo of the lunch I made the other day of pumpkin french toast.  The bread soak was made up of just an egg, about 1/4 cup of pumpkin, a splash or vanilla, a splash of almond milk, and a few sprinkles of pumpkin spice! It was way too good. 

Enough about my obsessions... here's the recipe!

Ingredients:

4 bananas 

1 cup pumpkin puree

1/3 maple syrup

1.5 tsp pumpkin spice 

Photo: my favorite maple syrup! 

Directions: 

1.  Chop up 4 bananas into slices and freeze in tupperware overnight. 
2.  The next day combine bananas, pumpkin, maple syrup (to taste), and pumpkin spice in a food processor until uniform.  This will create a frozen yogurt consistency that is delicious! 

3.  If you would like a more icy consistency (as in the first photo on the post) place in a tupperware container and place in the freezer and enjoy at a later time!

Photo: pre-freezer ice cream.

Hope you try it out and happy baking! 

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies (Dairy Free)

So another year has gone by and I have not posted anything on my blog.  It's probably the wrong time to attempt to start things up again but here it goes! Amongst mid terms and my last semester of college I may be jumping the gun but don't blame me for trying.  I'm entering the time of my life where I must start attempting to figure out what the heck I'm doing with my life and wow is it overwhelming.  I've got my head on straight and am taking things one day at a time with no rush to have a concrete plan. 

And one of my favorite times of year is upon us.  The leaving are changing colors and making there way to the pavement.  The rain should be coming soon and it's no longer ghastly hot outside.  With fall comes pumpkin everything which I never complain about.  Trader Joes is my favorite place to shop this time of year because they have everything from pumpkin ravioli, to pumpkin cream cheese, to candied pumpkin seeds.  I just can't get enough of it! And as I read my last blog post it is not so different from this one... raving about fall, what can I say!

So of course with the pumpkin frenzy I had to make something of my own.  Pumpkin cookies with chocolate chips, couldn't leave that second part out could I?? I didn't take pictures during the process of making these cookies but they are so easy that I'm sure you won't have any problems!

First off I want to acknowledge a new blog I've found called Two Twenty One where I found this amazing recipe that I will be using year round now that I've discovered it. 

There's really not many tips I can give for this recipe because it was just so straight forward and easy. One thing that I did tweak was that the recipe only calls for cinnamon and I used pumpkin pie spice instead which gave it that extra oomph but totally up to you. 

Ingredients:

This recipe makes 18-24 cookies. 

1/2 cup vegetable oil 
1 cup pumpkin puree 
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. milk (I used almond)
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (or cinnamon)
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups flour
1.5-2 cups chocolate chips 

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2.  In a medium bowl, combine oil, pumpkin, sugar, egg, and vanilla and whisk until combined.
3.  In small bowl combine baking soda and milk and stir into pumpkin mixture. 
4.  In another medium bowl, combine spices, flour, baking powder, and salt. 
5.  Combine pumpkin mixture and dry ingredients until uniform. 
6.  Fold in chocolate chips to desired amount. 
7.  Place dollops of cookie dough onto pre-greased cookie sheet (no need to space out a lot, I didn't find they expanded outwards much). 
8.  Bake for 12-13 minutes, allow to cool, and enjoy! 

Happy baking y'all!! 

Pumpkin Spiced Ginger Cheesecake Bars

Yes, another cheesecake item!  I'm not really even sure what to call them because they were baked in a 9 inch round pan and could easily be called a normal cheesecake, but on the other hand I kind of cut them into square shapes so I decided to call them bars but be what they will (aka delicious).

Let me just say that there was a lot of tampering and changing of things within this original recipe that I started with but they turned out great! 

I have been a bad blogger lately and I can totally put all of the blame on college!  I've never been so busy in my life and I couldn't even tell you what I've been up to.  Just constant class, homework, labs, meetings, meals, and the very minimal amount of relaxing time is spent catching up on my TV shows or sleeping.  So I know I apologize all the time, but I really am sorry and hope that this summer I can bring you all some smashing new recipes!

I have discovered that in the past year or so heavy dairy makes my digestive system hate me so I usually will buy 1/3 less fat cream cheese and avoid heavy cream but I decided to just go for it with this baby because it is just so much better when its legit cream cheese! 

This recipe I found on A Kitchen Addiction but definitely changed it up.  I did not add cardamom or pepper and instead of using gingersnaps (which I don't doubt would be yummy) I used Newman's Ginger-O's, which I have never had before and was quite pleased!

Ingredients: 

This recipe will make a 9" round pan.

2 cups crushed Ginger-O's
1/4 cup melted butter
16 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
1.5 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (or mixture of nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon)
1.5 tsp. cinnamon
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree
3 eggs
2 tbsp milk

Directions:

Buy a box/package of Newman's Ginger-O's and using a food processor or man power crush them into small pieces but they should not be too fine.

             

Combine with melted butter and place this mixture into the base of a 9" round pan or a 9" square pan and bake for 8-10 minutes until it is turning brown.

In a mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, both sugars, and flour until smooth.  Beat in pumpkin spice and cinnamon until well combined.  Remove half of this mixture and place it aside in a spare bowl. 

Add in pumpkin puree and eggs to the other half of the mixture in the mixing bowl.

Stir in milk into the other half of the cream cheese mixture that was set aside.

Pour pumpkin mixture on top of Ginger-O's crust and dollop the cream cheese/milk mixture over it.  Using a knife swirl them together to make a cool design. 

Bake for 30-45 minutes (depending on your oven but you want the center to be set).

Cool in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before consuming.

Enjoy! Happy Baking and Happy Spring!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday.  I stayed in Half Moon Bay with 20 of my family members at a very nice hotel so I had a buffet Thanksgiving dinner, which oddly enough did not include pumpkin pie... So as soon as I got home 3 days later I busted out the giant can of pumpkin puree and got to it.

This post is not going to include a recipe because I just boring and used the recipe on the can with one exception: I didn't use the full 2 cans of evaporated milk, I just used 1 and a half, which I find often works better.

I used Libby's pumpkin puree and the recipe can be found here: Libby's Pumpkin Pie Recipe.

It didn't totally feel like Thanksgiving to me because most years I am used to slaving away in the kitchen all day and when it is finally time to eat it feels very rewarding. But my family usually has the same meal on Christmas Eve so I will have that to look forward to!

I have many things to be thankful for this year: my great new school and education I am receiving (Lewis & Clark College), my friends, my supportive family, good health, the Giants winning the World Series, and much more! I hope you all have many things to be thankful for as well.

The pie disappeared pretty quickly to no surprise!

In a few days I will be making a cake for two of my friends at school who recently had birthdays so keep your eyes peeled!

Have a great Tuesday afternoon and Happy Baking!