Okay, I know that most of you (myself included) just buy canned pumpkin already done.  But if you should happen to come into possession of a pie pumpkin, the effort it takes really makes a tasty difference!

I will admit here that I never do this.  John always does the pumpkins, but I happily consume the end result 😀

You can actually cook the pumpkin in different ways: Microwave, steaming, or pressure cooker.  John decided to do the microwave since more people have one of those than a pressure cooker.

Find yourself a large knife and get ready:

Cut the pumpkin in half:

Remove the seeds.  An ice cream scoop works really well for this:

Once the seeds are removed, cut the pumpkin up into wedges to fit into a microwave safe bowl:

Put water in the bottom of the bowl, maybe 1/4 cup or so and cover with plastic wrap:

Put in the microwave and cook on high.  This pumpkin was kind of thick and took about 20 minutes.  This is why the pressure cooker is great, because it is much faster.

When the pumpkin is soft and tender, let it cool for a bit before handling.  Then scoop out the cooked pumpkin from the shell. The same ice cream scoop still works pretty good:

You can use the pumpkin at this point, or you can make it like the canned stuff by putting it in a bowl and applying the spurs to it.

You can also use a food processor for this part if you want.

Beautiful, fresh pumpkiny goodness!

This can be used like any pumpkin puree – like in a pie:

Or pumpkin custard oats:

Give it a shot sometime.  It’s not so hard! 😀

Pumpkin Cranberry Oat Bars

This is not a new recipe, but I made this up a couple years ago and it may have gotten lost (which it shouldn’t be), so I wanted to give it some love!  These are super duper easy.

Ingredients:

• 28 grams of whey protein powder (I used unflavored, but you could try a flavored one)
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup lowfat yogurt (plain or vanilla– I happened to have vanilla on hand, just don’t use fruit)
• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 1/2 cups of rolled oats
• 40 grams of Craisins (or dried cranberries).

Preheat oven to 350.   Line a 9×9 pan with a parchment paper sling. This will really make it easier to get these out, trust me.

In a bowl, mix together the protein powder, pumpkin, eggs, yogurt, spices, brown sugar with a whisk.

You want to make sure the protein powder is really well incorporated and the mixture is smooth.  Chop the Craisins smaller and add to the mix.

Then stir in the oats.

Press the mixture evenly into the 9×9 pan and bake for 35 minutes.

These won’t really get brown, they will just firm up – so don’t over bake. Remove from the pan right away and cut into 9 squares.

It’s much easier to cut these when warm.  The pizza wheel – multitasker extraordinaire!  The picture at the top has been cut into 18 pieces, but I normally do 9.

Store in the fridge (if they last that long) and warm up in the microwave for 10 seconds.

Stats with my ingredients for 9 bars:
Per bar: 157 calories, 3 grams fat, 27 grams carbs, 3 grams fiber, 8 grams protein, 54 mg sodium.

I think I will try adding some chopped pecans to this (obviously altering the stats), as I think that crunch would be awesome.

May sprinkling some yogurt chips or white chocolate chips on top after coming out of the oven would be pretty awesome as well!

These turned out great!  Don’t be afraid of the butter in these.  It’s just really hard to get good scones without some solid fat, but there really is not that much per scone.  I reduced the butter in a typical recipe and changed some of the sugar to brown sugar to help keep in moisture that removing the butter might cause.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of white whole wheat flour (240 g)
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 stick of cold butter (4 tablespoons)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup of canned pumpkin
• 1 tablespoon of milk.

Preheat the oven to 375 F.  In a large bowl, mix together the flour, both sugars, baking powder, salt, and pumpkin pie spice.

Dice the butter into small pieces.  Make sure it is very cold butter.

Add the butter to the dry mixture.

You can use a pastry wire cutter to mix in the butter, but I find that clean hands are your best tool for this job as you get a much better mixing.  You want the mixture to look kind of sandy when finished:

You can put this mix in the fridge to keep cold while you mix the wet ingredients (or are waiting for your husband to return with the milk that you forgot you were out of).

Combine the eggs, pumpkin and milk together and mix well.

Add to the dry ingredients.

Mix until everything is just moistened and turn out onto a floured surface.  Keep some flour nearby for dusting, as the dough may be sticky.

Using your hands, press and form into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick.  You probably could use a rolling pin, but why dirty another piece of kitchen equipment?

Cut this in half the long way.  Cut each half into 3 equal pieces, then cut each of those squares on the diagonal so that you have 12 pieces (each half of the above dough will make 6 triangles).

Do try to make them even 😀

Bake at 375 degrees F for 15 minutes.  Do not over bake.

Makes 12 scones.  Nutritional info per scone

Calories: 151
Fat 5 g
Carbs: 23.6 g
Fiber:  2.3 g
Protein:  3.9 g

Topping ideas:

– You can mix together 1 tbsp of neufchatel cheese with 1 tbsp of powdered sugar to make a cream cheese frosting and add only 70 calories and 3 grams of fat to each scone.  Compare 220 calories  to Starbucks Pumpkin Scone at 480 calories.

– Or do like Debby and mix a wedge of Laughing Cow with cinnamon Splenda to top (which would be 35 calories)

– Make fat free glaze by mixing powdered sugar with a little milk.

– Sprinkle the scones with large sugar crystals before baking.

We topped with a sprinkle of crystallized ginger, too.  Awesome!

Enjoy!