HEART HEALTHY PUMPKIN GINGERBREAD

When I come home for the holidays, I wreck havoc on my poor dad’s diet. A couple pounds of butter, a bag or two of sugar, two dozen eggs… and then all of the sudden there are six dozen cookies in the kitchen and I’m whisked back to school leaving all of them for him. So when I got home this week full of pent-up baking energy, Mom not-so-subtly suggested I maybe try something a little more healthy. So here I go, vegan pumpkin bread.

Scrounge the following from the dusty empty-nest shelves of your childhood home:

1 2/3 cup flour

1/3 cup oatmeal

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

andddd about another tsp of a nutmeg-allspice-cloves-cardamom mixture

1 tsp vanilla

½ cup brown sugar

1/3 cup water (or chai tea, because it’s yummy)

1 cup pumpkin puree

¾ cup applesauce (about 2 medium apples**)

¼ cup canola oil

**Don’t have applesauce? Peel and dice two medium apples, and add enough water to cover them. Boil for about 15-20 minutes, drain, and mash with a fork or potato masher. Boom, applesauce.

Mix applesauce, canola oil, pumpkin, vanilla, chai, sugar, and spices. My mom and I tried to estimate what we did with spices, but really just add stuff until it tastes right. She insists there’s a point where you do too much, but I haven’t found it yet.

In another bowl, mix the flour, oatmeal, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add this gradually to the wet mixture, little bits at a time.

Pour the batter into a greased and floured 9x5 loaf pan, and bake at 375 for about 50 minutes. Even if a toothpick comes out clean, the bread is ridiculously m**st (edited for you, Kilbride- ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?)

SQUASH-Y MUFFINS

Now, if my one week of medical education has taught me anything, it’s that we’re all eventually going to get diabetes and die. Especially if you have eaten anything documented in this blog. Actually, you’re probably developing insulin resistance with every sentence you’ve read.

Thus armed with a healthy dose of fear, this week’s stress-baking was sort of disturbingly healthy. But delicious, I promise. Don’t freak out.

Get a squash.

I used a carnival squash, and took this rather artsy picture below. But in general you want a sweeter one, butternut or acorn or a pumpkin or something. Other things you need:

1 tablespoon butter (That’s it! Super healthy!)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

a generous spoonful of cinnamon

healthy sprinkle nutmeg

anddddd sprinkle ginger powder, why not? Add to taste, people.

1/2 cup oatmeal

2 cups flour

if you’re not using self-rising flour: 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt

From a local farm, because now I do things like that.

Hokay, so first things first, you gotta cook that squash. I saw several different ways to do this- two of the most popular were 1) dicing/boiling and 2) roasting. I would have lost a finger if I tried to dice it, so I went with option number two. Cut it in half and scoop out the inside seeds and goop (like prepping a Jack-o-lantern). Spray some Pam on a baking sheet and put the halves hollow-side down. Roast in the oven at 350 for as long as it takes to watch an episode of True Blood on a unreliable internet connection (an hour? maybe?). You can put a pie plate of water in the oven at the same time. This keeps things hydrated and makes you seem professional.

When done, you should get about a cup of mashed squash. Mix in your butter, sugar, spices, and eggs. Let the batter cool a little before you add the eggs... you don’t want to accidently scramble them. Finally, mix in the oatmeal and flour/baking soda mixture. It’s going to be really, really thick batter- almost like cookie dough. This seems weird until you remember how much fiber you’ve crammed in there. Disturbingly healthy, I told you.  That’s like negative cholesterol.

Anyway, fill muffin tins about 2/3, and sprinkle some granola on top if you feel ambitious. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes, and don’t tell anyone they have vegetables in them until AFTER they’ve tried them. Trust me.

Noms^

PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

...cause sometimes you just need a baking session before you casually perform in an Indian Bhangra show on a casual Friday night.

So, arm yourself with the following and get excited cause these things are effing phenomenal.

1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
just a rittle bit o salt
1 teaspoon baking soda (re: another tsp baking powder cause you can't find the god damn baking soda to save your life)
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon milk
teeny tiny bit of vanilla extract (finger-to-bowl-to-mouth test proved the batter so good pre-vanilla that I was hesitant to put any in at all, but its just one of those things your supposed to put in cookies all the time always no matter what as though there's some sort of vanilla extract mafia just waiting for you to screw up if you don't... so I did it)
2 cups (plus more depending on what kind of mood your in) chocolate chips

In one bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. In that bowl's slightly larger cousin, combine pumpkin, sugar, egg, and oil.

NOW PAY ATTN CAUSE IT'S ABOUT TO GET REAL: put the baking soda (or last tsp baking powder, as the case may be) INTO a little thing of milk. The word "dissolve" would come in handy here, if I weren't allergic to science.

Now add that crazy white stuff to its wet friends. Add all dry stuff to all the wet stuff (if you wanna feel fancy, employ the old add-some-then-mix-then-add-more-then-mix trick... as though that somehow affects ANYTHING.) Throw in lots and lots of chocolate chips. Then...

"Drop by rounded tablespoons onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes."

... jklolz I don't actually give a shit how big you make your cookies, I've just always wanted to write that. Cook for 10ish minutes (again, depending on your cooking machine), put onto plate to cool, leave out, and await late-night roommate freakout when they find them. Consider self Christmas hero.

Note: picture not even a little bit mine, but I swear this is what they looked like.

boredinmaine FLOURLESS PUMPKIN MUFFINS

What on Earth does one do with canned pumpkin left over from the world's greatest pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, no flour, and an insatiable desire to make muffins? An excellent question. In short, one recognizes one's useless supply of oatmeal and decides to get cray cray. Cause what the hell else are you doing?

 Ingredients:
3/4 cup pumpkin (...ish. Whatever is leftover from cookies)
1 cup sugar (...ish. Whatever is leftover from boredom-induced Maine baking frenzy)
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup instant oatmeal
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt (does anyone seriously measure salt?)
nutmeg (just shake it. Settle down, it'll all work out fine. people baked before they invented the teaspoon. i think.)
cinnamon (see above)
dregs of flour left at bottom of bag. (fine I guess they aren't technically flourless)

Dump pumpkin, white sugar, egg, and oil in small bowl. Mix. Put oatmeal, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, spices, and a little flour in big bowl. Also mix. Add wet stuff to dry stuff. Mix again. Add a little milk if it doesn't look like muffin batter. If it looks too wet, go with more oatmeal. Always more oatmeal. Again, I really can't recommend the spices too highly. They're lovely.

Fill muffins tins with batter (mine made 6 muffins). Bake 6 minutes on 350 degrees. Take out, top half of them with oatmeal (half of your friends like crunchy stuff on their muffin and half don't. Its science.) Put back in for 8ish minutes, depending your oven's level of ghetto and how fast it turns stuff into edible food.

Nom nom made up pumpkin oatmeal muffins.