Pumpkin, Pumpkin and more Pumpkin: Recipes 4

Pumpkin Pancakes

I just made up a huge tripple batch of these for breakfast tomorrow and then extras to freeze for later. They freeze really well but I do reccomend putting a  squair of parchment paper between each pancake to help pull them apart once they're frozen.  

Pumpkin Pancakes

2 cups Pumpkin

1 cups flour

1 ¼ cup milk

1 egg

2 Tbsp melted butter

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

3 Tbsp brown sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp salt

In bowl mix the pumpkin, milk, egg, butter and sugar. In another larger bowl, combine the flour with the remaining ingredients, substituting pumpkin pie spice for the other spices if you prefer. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mixing until just incorperated. Don’t over mix. Let stand for 5 min’s then cook on a hot griddle until bubbles form, flipping and cooking for another 1-2 min’s.

Serve with syrup, powdered sugar, cream cheese or all three combined.

Yum!

Weekly meal plan and Brussel Sprout Hash recipie

This week I’ll be busy setting up for our mega yard sale. We’ve planned on doing a garage sale for over 2 years and never gotten to it. Needless to say, between our ‘regular’ accumulation of crud and the additional things left from Pappy’s home, our garage is packed to the roof! My job is to organize, clean and tag everything. I’ll post a before and after picture just to illuminate on the mess that it’s become. I’m hoping to make quite a bit of money, for a garage sale.

For our meals this week we’re ‘eating from the pantry.’ Meaning I am banned from the grocery store until Friday. Here’s the plan:

Monday – Breakfast: Eggs, brussel sprout hash, pancakes and fruit salad

Tuesday – Grilled (spinach bread) cheese sandwiches with tomato soup

Wednesday – Pad Thai Pork in the crock pot

Thursday – Roast Beef sandwiches with side salad and wedge potatoes

Friday – Green Chilli chicken, tortillas and beans

As for my HCG diet, I prefer not to really plan out my meals. Considering how restrictive the diet is already the thought of having every meal planned out with no spontaneity drives me crazy, so I eat what ever sounds good at the time. I usually cook up several chicken breasts, chicken patties, hard boiled eggs, lean ground beef and steak strips to keep in the fridge as my choices. I’ll admit, cooking tonight’s breakfast for dinner was rough. I LOVE the brussel sprout hash and it was everything in my power not to cheat and eat that for dinner. To combat my desire to cheat, I grilled some fresh chicken instead of the chilled, week old stuff in my fridge. I also made up a huge crown of broccoli and grilled onions. All in all it was a pretty good meal. Anthony even commented that he was envious of my grilled chicken. He still wouldn’t trade me though.

Brussel Sprout Hash

Potatoes

Yellow and/or red bell pepper

½ onion

½ lb fresh brussel sprouts

Butter

Lawries

Pepper

Usually my go to method for any kind of hash browns is frozen tater tots, they make them perfect every time! Today though, I didn’t have any so I shredded 10 small(ish) yellow potatoes that I got in my bountiful basket last week. The trick to hash browns (according to me – and this is my blog *wink*) is a good non stick skillet. I put the shredded potatoes on the hot pan with out any butter or other oil. This helps them dry out and not stick together in one big blob. Once they are starting to brown add 2 tbsp butter and continue to fry. Dice the peppers, onions and brussel sprouts then add to the potatoes. Keep frying, adding more butter if you desire, until golden brown and the veggies are tender.

Serve with a sunny side egg on top. Yum!