Running Mama Cooks

Pumpkin french toast? Why not!! I have leftover pumpkin in the fridge so I thought Id put it to good use this morning. Came out great!

I didn't really measure anything, so this won't be a real "recipe." Just mix one egg, a splash of milk, a scoop of pumpkin, dash of vanilla and a generous amount of pumpkin pie spice together. Dip bread into the mixture coating it and cook in a pan with a little bit of melted butter.

I had high hopes for this recipe since I love pumpkin in savory dishes. While it was pretty good, I wasn't as impressed as I hoped to be. I did think that using cottage cheese for a low fat cream sauce was ingenious, so I will be using that technique again.

Creamy Pumpkin Penne
Recipe slightly adapted from Cara's Cravings by way Cook Pray Love

Ingredients:

8 oz whole wheat penne pasta
2 tsp olive oil
1 small onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
about 2T chopped fresh sage
1 cooked chicken smoked sausage, sliced
1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese (1% milk fat)
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup nonfat milk
pinch of nutmeg
5oz torn spinach, thick stems removed
grated parmesan or pecorino romano cheese, optional

Preparation:

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add onions and cook gently for about 10-15minutes, until softened and beginning to caramelize. Add garlic, sage, and chicken sausage; continue to saute.

Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions.

In a blender, combine combine pumpkin, cottage cheese, and milk. Blend until no lumps are present. Add to sausage mixture in skillet and continue to cook over low heat. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg.

Drain pasta and return to pot over low heat. Add sausage mixture and baby spinach, and toss together. Cover for a few minutes to let the spinach wilt. Serve with parmesan cheese, if desired.

ZACH'S RATING - ***

Pumpkin is one of my all time favorite flavors. I was anxious to use the canned pumpkin I bought earlier this week so I looked up a bunch of recipes to find a pumpkin pancake for this morning. This one looked good and it didn't disappoint. I liked that it used mostly whole wheat flour. They were dense but not too heavy and very tasty. I cut the recipe in half because they were just for Cecily and me, and it worked out fine.

2. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and blend together with a wooden spoon until just combined. Lumps are ok, just make sure all the flour on the bottom of the bowl is mixed in. If batter seems too thick to pour, you can gently stir in a little more buttermilk.

We started a new Thanksgiving tradition this year by running the Turkey Trot 5k in Morristown. Zach and I woke up early, dropped Cecily off at my mom's house and headed to Guinty Field (a 5k course we've run 2 other times) to run. We met up with Kathy and her two daughters and joined almost 1500 others in this fun Thanksgiving race. My time was 33:15, definitely not my fastest 5k, but since it was 4 days after a half marathon, I'll take it!

Our Thanksgiving consists of two stops, my Aunt's house for my family and my in law's house. Fortunately they are only 10 minutes apart, but we do a lot of eating on this day!! Good thing we ran in the morning!

My contribution to Thanksgiving was a Pumpkin Cheesecake. I decided to try Paula Deen's Recipe after watching her make it on her Fall Harvest show.

Cecily and I had the afternoon free and since I just read this blog entry on Living Eventfully, we decided to make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies since I had all the ingredients on hand.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yields 60 cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temp
1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
3 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 scant teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 cups (12-ounce bag) MILK chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet since that is what I had)
Nonstick cooking spray or parchment paper

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray cookie sheets with nonstick spray or line them with parchment paper (if you bake frequently and haven't tried parchment paper yet, do yourself a favor and buy some.) and set aside.

Using a stand mixer, beat the butter until smooth.
Beat in both sugars, a little at a time, until the mixture is light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs 1 at a time.
Mix on medium high for 3-4 minutes.

Turn speed on mixer to stir or low and add the vanilla and pumpkin puree.In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.
Slowly mix the flour mixture into the batter in thirds until just incorporated.

Do not over mix.

Stir in the chips.

Scoop the cookie dough by heaping teaspoons (i use a small cookie scoop. cookies are more uniform.) onto the prepared cookie sheets and bake for 13-16 minutes, or until the cookies are light golden brown around the edges. (i pulled them out right at 13 minutes and the were soft and perfect. your oven is different so watch them and do not over bake.)Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let them rest for 2 minutes. Take the cookies off with a spatula and cool them on wire racks.

Cecily helping me scoop the dough onto the cookie sheet

Since I am also making pumpkin bread today, I decided to warm myself up with a homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte. I had saved the link to a crockpot version from A Year of Slow Cooking and have been dying to try it.

Most Sunday afternoons you can find my family gathered at Aunt Dale's house for dinner. Today Zach and I ran a 13 mile training run and quickly headed over for some comfort food. I decided to make Pumpkin Soup since I have enjoyed this recipe so much.