Creamy Pumpkin Coconut Sauce

I love the fall for all the cooking/food making inspiration!!! It’s my favorite season when it comes to kitchen time 🙂 My very first seasonal recipe was this Salted Caramel Chai tea infused concoction I made. The kids and I have been devouring that one with sliced apples, soooo tasty!!!

And now I am looking forward to all the pumpkin and squash recipes I will be coming up with and getting inspired by!! This was another semi-accident. It was late and I needed to get dinner ready fast. I had this leftover baked pumpkin and it only took a few moments for me to realize that the fastest way to eat that (other than straight out of the skin with a fork), was to throw it in the blender with a few other ingredients to create a soup. No wait! I’ll make it a sauce so we can have it over pasta 🙂 And there it was, minutes later, our tasty family dinner.

I topped my bowl off with some homemade spicy seeds.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup fresh raw pumpkin seeds, not dried or cooked (I just keep the seeds after taking them out of the raw pumpkin)
• 3/4 cup almond milk or coconut milk
• 3/4 cup cooked pumpkin or squash
• 1/4 cup coconut cream (from a can, organic toxic free if possible)
• 1/4 tsp real salt
• 2 TBS fresh parsley minced
• 1/4 tsp dried sage

Steps:

• if you dont have left over squash, then bake it in the oven for about 45 minutes
• put first 3 ingredients in blender and blend on high until nice and smooth
• add other ingredients and blend until the herbs are nicely incorporated but not fully blended
• serve how ever you like!
• we did it over zucchini pasta for a light yet satisfying dinner

Check out my other zucchini pasta recipes here:

With tomato sauce

With sesame peanut sauce

With rawlfredo sauce

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Pumpkin Toasted Coconut Bread

MMmmmm mmmmm. This bread came out great. Moist on the inside with a slightly crisp outer shell. My plan was not to make pumpkin bread. I actually had other plans for this pumpkin. But it started going bad and I needed to use it immediately. I had already made dinner so the obvious choice was to make something, well not dinner-y.

Although I usually choose muffins when making baked goods, we have a guest staying with us and serving a warm slice of pumpkin bread with either some butter or coconut oil and a drizzle of honey and some tea is such a nice treat. (Although I have a feeling the kids will be eating most of it.)

I made this last night so I went to bed with a house filled with beautiful sweetly spiced autumn smell.

Again, this bread is not too sweet, which I like because then we can add toppings to it if we feel like it.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour (I used teff and rice)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups chopped raw pumpkin
• 1 1/2 cups milk (I used coconut)
• 1 inch chunk of fresh ginger
• 2 TBS apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 shredded coconut
• 3/4 cups coconut sugar

For topping:

• 2 tsp coconut oil
• 2 tsp honey
• (melt those two together in a small bowl)
• 1/4 cup coconut flakes

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 375 F
• in a large bowl sift flour and add following 4 ingredients
• in a blender blend pumpkin and milk until smooth
• add all other ingredients and blend until well combined
• pour wet ingredient into the large bowl and mix well with dry ingredients
• pour in a bread pan (mine is 9.25×5.25×2.75 in/23.5×13.3x7cm) if yours is bigger, you will have to bake for a shorter time
• bake for a total of 50 minutes.

BUT

• 5 minutes before the bread is fully done baking (Insert a knife, if it comes out with just a little stickiness, then it probably only has a short time left of baking) quickly rub the oil and honey mixture on the bread (I used a small spatula) then sprinkle the coconut flakes on top and put back in the oven to finish baking.
• keep a close eye on this as the coconut can burn quickly. If you notice the coconut getting too dark and the bread is not done baking, just put a piece of foil on top. Don’t seal the foil around the bread, just lay it on top of the flakes so they stop browning.

And yes, those are little muffins topped with chocolate mouse that you see in the picture. The muffins are the same dough. I will post the recipe for the chocolate mouse real soon, I promise 🙂 And here it is 🙂