Pumpkin Pie, 21 Day Fix Style

21 Day Fix Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

1 can pumpkin (2 cups pureed roasted pumpkin or other winter squash)
1 cup nonfat skim milk
1/4 cup powdered stevia extract (or other non-nutritive sweetener)
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons molasses
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
dash cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cooking spray

Directions
Prepare a pie pan with cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Combine the pumpkin, milk, sweetener, eggs, molasses, spices, and salt in medium bowl and stir until smooth. Pour mixture into pie pan or ramekins. Bake for 15 minutes at 425ºF. Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F; bake an additional 35 to 40 minutes or until knife inserted 1-inch from the edge comes out clean. Cool the pie before serving. This recipe serves eight. Store in the refrigerator.

It was hard to get out of the pie pan.

Container Break Down
2/3 green container
1/4 red container

The 21 Day Fix Eating Plan allows 2 cups (8 oz.) of of coffee and tea a day. Each cup of coffee or tea can have 1 to 2 tablespoons nonfat skim milk and 1 to 2 teaspoons of raw sugar, honey, molasses, maple syrup, agave syrup, or stevia. If you don't have coffee or tea you can use the coffee and tea allowance of 1/4 cup and up to 4 teaspoons of sugar for other things like PIE! Each slice of this pie has 1/8 (2 tablespoons) cup of milk and 1 1/2 teaspoons of stevia and 3/4 teaspoons of molasses.

1 cup of diced winter squash equals one green container. One cup of diced pumpkin yields about 1/3 cup of pumpkin puree.

Roasted Pumpkin

Inspired by my favorite pumpkin pie recipe published by eagle brand and this light and crustless pumpkin pie recipe. Per the reviews on the crustless pie recipe, it might be nice to bake it in ramekins.

Roasted Pumpkin Becoming Pumpkin Puree

Pumpkin Pancakes

Fall has turned into being all about that squash, that squash being pumpkin. But I still think of fall as apple season. Late in September my maternal family would head up to Edward's Orchard to go apple picking, buy apple cider, and eat the absolute best apple cider doughnuts. To me fall is all about harvesting apples. But sometimes you buy a pie pumpkin (for the seeds of course) at the store and end up with quarts of fresh roasted pumpkin puree. So, here's a recipe for pumpkin pancakes!

Various Winter Squashes in Various Forms

Pumpkin Pancakes
Makes about fifteen two tablespoon of batter pancakes

3 eggs
1 1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 cup whole wheat flout
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 pinch to 1/8 teaspoon cloves (optional)

Grease and heat the pan on medium. Mix liquid ingredients and sugar. Mix the dry ingredients. Gently mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients. Add the batter to the pan. Flip when bubbles form in the batter and the bottom of the pancake is brownish.

Inspired by Mark Bittman's Everyday Pancakes (his pancake making instructions are the best if you need more detail than I've provided) and Eagle Brand's Pumpkin Pie.

I hope you enjoy,
EAH


PS I'm sorry about my spotty posting. I try to post Tuesdays and Thursday and I was able to do that before our kiddos joined us. I will definitely be posting every Thursday (because when I realize that I've forgotten on Tuesday, I'm extra motivated to get a post scheduled for Thursday).

No Spend October

October is going to be No Spend October for me. I bought a lot in Spetember.

I ordered a better sweater jacket, two pairs of the warmest long underwear bottoms and a long underwear top from Patagonia. I placed a large order at Target for some kiddo clothes and throw blankets for the kids to use because they keep draging their bed comforters all over the house. I also got new pillow cases and a throw blanket for me. I bought a TON of blue pens from Jet Pens (this site is so awsome) and Amazon because I am a lawyer and pens are very important to me and I've been having trouble finding ones that I like to use that don't bleed thru legal pads. I also picked up a bible translated to a third grade reading level, an external hard drive to back up my computer now that I carry it aroud with me regularly (we had shared an external hard drive for back ups between our two computers but I wasn't backing up my computer often because I had to detach it from my husband's iMac and recconect it to my MacBook and there's no convient place for my MacBook to sit next to the iMac), and a charchol odor absorber since the kiddos like perfume and I do not Then I bought some new tights and bras because Bare Necessities is have a sale. All these purchases were justifiable but not entierly necessary.

My Rules Are:
I'm not spending money on me this month. I can spend money on consumables and replacements for necessary things. So I'll be gassing up my car and buying groceries as usual. I'll be replacing things as they break if they are things that really add value to my life. I'll also be buying gifts to give to people if I see something they like that is on sale--my dating anniversary, my mom's birthday, and Christmas are all coming up. I won't eat out of my own initiative. If my family wants to go out to eat, I will. I'll go out to lunch or eat lunch out once no more than once a week if my co-workers or work schedule demand.

Let's see how this goes!

Birthday Month, in Review

My birthday was this month. My mom came out to visit. Her flight was delayed overnight so I picked her up the Saturday morning of labor day weekend. I saw a praying mantis at the airport while waiting to pick her up! We headed up to Freeport for lunch and shopping. We at lunch at one of my absolute favorite places the Mediterranean Grill. As far as I can tell it's the only place where you can get gyros north of Portland and they're absolutely delicious. As to shopping ... We're shopaholics, yet we didn't end up buying anything. (I am still on the look out for a new wallet that will hold my inhaler, some spare antihistamines, and chapstick.) It was quite the accomplishment. Perhaps we are recovered? The kiddos wanted to go to Olive Garden for dinner. (Ugh. But they and my mom like it and there are unlimited breadsticks.)

On Sunday we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in town and then headed home for cake on the porch. Hubs accidentally bought magic relight candles for his asthmatic wife. I huffed and I puffed then I had to take a puff on my inhaler before we could have cake. It took a long time to blow out the candles AND they generated a lot of smoke so even though we were out side it was as challenge.

Post Candle Fiasco

I got a Kindle and I asked my husband if he got me a cheap one. He did and he was offended by the question. I also got a Chewbacca koozie.

On Labor Day, I dropped my mom off at the airport and hit the mall by myself. It was great! I got a bra fitting, picked up some stuff at Sephora, and found some Fiestaware on sale at Bon Ton.

I had cake for breakfast for a couple of days. I love Hannaford's sheet cakes. They are almost as good as my wedding cake. (Last year Hubs asked the woman who made our wedding cake to make my birthday cake because he is the best and I told him that was a good idea.)

Later we celebrated my birthday with my in-laws. It was a pasta salad extravaganza!

We had five types of boxed pasta salad and two veggie salads, pea salad and a green bean salad. Also, there were hot dogs. But I had just requested pasta salad. I know know that I prefer classic, creamy Italian, and caesar. Parmesan and Bacon Ranch are kind of overwhelming.

And that's about it. I did get ready to start my first round of the 21 Day Fix Extreme! I took before photos, measurements, and I tested my strength. I'm a week in right now, I got sick in the middle of the month, and I'm interested to see what kind of results I'll have. Since, I have a lot of pasta salad and cake to work off.

Ponds and Head and Shoulders, Two Product Reviews

So this past winter I had some skin trouble. It was so dry in our new rented house and so dry at work; my skin and hair were in anguish. I tried new makeup and I tried a new leave-in conditioner for my hair. They both gave me rashes since my skin is so sensitive.

Hubs's aunt recommended I try Ponds because that's what his cousin used on her sensitive skin. I was skeptical at first because it had fragrance, a big no for people with sensitive skin, and the fragrance smelled overwhelmingly like a stereotypical grandmother's perfume. It was over powering and my husband noticed. But it went on and it didn't irritate the rash caused by the new tinted moisturizer I tried. So, I kept using it and in about a week I noticed that the dark circles under my eyes weren't quite so bad.

Ponds noticeably improved my dark circles. It's about $5 for a big jar, all the little $20+  eye creams from Sephora that I've tried haven't done so much so fast. I was seriously impressed and I will keep using this until I die so that my grandchildren will come to associate the smell of Ponds with their good looking grandma.

So I ended up with a really, really bad rash on my scalp. I had tried coconut oil on my hair but I found that to hard to manage and too greasy. So I switched to a leave-in conditioner with a lot of fragrance in it that made it smell like a dirty hippy trying to cover up her dirty hippy smell. I got a rash on my scalp. I thought it was just dry scalp so I used more and the rash got worse. Eventually I figured out it was the leave-in conditioner, I'll blame the overwhelming fragrance, I should know better.

I ended up going to the doctor because the rash generated really bad dandruff, I thought my scalp was falling off (it was disgusting), I started to develop a bald spot on the side of my head, and my husband's dandruff shampoo burned when I used it. She recommended head and shoulders but said I had to stick with it. About the same time I read Chioma's review of Head and Shoulders new product line for "textured hair" aka Afros. I think Head and Shoulders must have had a big blogger based advertising push because I read about it other places too.

I was pretty skeptical of the the Head and Shoulders since I had been trying to go no-poo/sulphate free shampoo. But, it made my dandruff better and now I don't have dandruff anymore. And, when I went to get my hair cut last week my hair dresser commented on how soft my hair was! I wash my air with the shampoo about twice a week and I use the "co-wash" (the conditioner) after shampooing and in-between. I am so happy with how my hair is!

I was so pleasantly surprised by both these relatively cheap products that I discovered over the past year and I just had to share about them! It almost made up for the fact that Dove discontinued my favorite, and virtually the only, fragrance free antiperspirant deodorant this past year. I loved that stuff, now the only truly fragrance free antipersperant I can find is a gel. I've been alternating between that and Dove's Go Sleeveless Soothing Chamomile Deodorant (the fragrance is over powering but it hasn't caused a rash so far).

Best,
EAH

Do you have any products that you recommend?