Gluten Free Pumpkin Cupcakes

What you need:

1 & ¾ all purpose gluten free flour (use 2 cups if you want firmer/less moist cupcakes)

1 egg

1 & ½ tbsp honey

3 & ½ tsp baking powder

1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree (or 1 ¾ cups homemade pureed pumpkin)

2/3 cup of vegetable/canola oil

1 & ½ cup of sugar

½ tsp salt

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

½ tsp cinnamon/nutmeg

½ tsp ground ginger

Cinnamon roasted pumpkin seeds

What to do:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees, and line the tray with liners.
In a medium sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and all of the spices.
In another bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, honey, oil, egg, and sugar. Slowly add the flour blend to this bowl and mix well.

Place the cupcakes in the tray and bake for about 20 minutes for moist cupcakes or 23-25 minutes for firmer cupcakes.

Once they have cooled, frost the cupcakes and garnish with a few pumpkin seeds.

Frosting:
I used a simple powdered sugar frosting recipe that I found online (http://www.tablespoon.com/recipes/powdered-sugar-icing/7b63e81d-a088-473a-8bca-74bb1641fc8d) but a cream cheese frosting would have tasted better. 

(here they are pictured next to a pumpkin & coffee soup)

Cinnamon Pumpkin and Black Bean Tacos

It's the best time of the year...pumpkin time. Something significant that I recently learned is that you can do a scary amount of things with just one medium sized pumpkin. This past weekend I finally took mine and gutted it, cut it into pieces, and roasted it. Now I have 4 tuba wares sitting in my fridge full of either pureed pumpkin or chunks of roasted pumpkin. Out of desperation for good food with a lack of groceries, I decided to get creative with my pumpkin and the cinnamon soaked black beans that I had conveniently soaked two days before. The result: Cinnamon Pumpkin and Black Bean Tacos

What you need:                           *makes about 4-5 tacos
1 Cup of chopped up roasted pumpkin
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of nutmeg
1 cup of black beans (preferably soaked in cinnamon)
Feta cheese
Provolone cheese
2 tbsp of diced or chopped onions
1/2 tsp of salt
Corn tortillas

What you do:
Take a skillet and melt 1 tsp of oil on it, followed by sauteing the onions until they soften. Add the pumpkin, sprinkle with salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg and saute for about 7 minutes. Lastly, add the beans and saute them all together for 3-5 minutes.

Place the pumpkin and beans into a bowl while you warm the tortillas on the skillet, melting the provolone cheese on the tortillas. Once they are done, fill up your tacos and sprinkle feta cheese (I topped mine with parmesan but it would be better with feta) and cinnamon on top.

Butternut Squash and Apple Winter Soup

It's winter time, meaning soup is actually appealing for once. I've seen multiple recipes similar to this floating around pinterest, so I just adapted it to fit the broke and simple lifestyle of a college student and honestly wouldn't change it.

Prep time: 35 minutes (not including crock pot time)

Ingredients

·         1 medium butternut squash

·         1 cup of vegetable broth

·         1/2 cup of water

·         1 granny smith apple

·         ½ tsp of cinnamon

·         ½ tsp of nutmeg

·         ¼ cup of heavy whipping cream

·         1 tbsp coconut oil

·         2 tbsp of diced onion

·         Few basil leaves

·         Roasted squash seeds

·         Feta cheese

What to do

First, preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Cut the squash in half vertically and scoop out the seeds. Peel the apple, core it, and cut it into pieces. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter and brush it over the squash, then heavily sprinkle nutmeg and cinnamon over the squash and apple. Place the apple and squash (flesh side up) on a cooking sheet and roast them for 25 minutes (or until squash is soft).

While they are roasting, clean the seeds and cover them in cinnamon and nutmeg. Let them sit until the squash and apple are done, then roast them for 20 minutes.

Once the squash and apple are done, let them cool and the chop the squash into 1 inch (or smaller) cubes (peeling off the skin). After that, place the squash and apple in the crockpot. Add the vegetable broth, water, cinnamon, nutmeg, cream, oil, onion, and basil. Turn the crock put on low and let sit for 4-6 hours, mixing every other hour.

Finally, pour the soup into the blender and puree it (little by little). When it’s ready to serve, sprinkle the top with the roasted seeds, cinnamon, and feta cheese. I added a tiny bit of cream to each bowl and mixed it in just for aesthetic appeal. 

Please remember as you are buying ingredients to be mindful of where you are making your purchases and what they are supporting. I got my squash from a local farmers market, basil from a community garden, and everything else from sprouts or local markets.

Guacamole

As a full time college student with 2 jobs, life gets pretty demanding. Meaning sometimes sitting down for lunch isn't an option. Yet it's still more important to me to eat well than grab a quick meal and feel terrible for the rest of the day. Due to this, I typically stick to a Special K protein shake or a Lara Bar followed by a mid day snack of guacamole and tortilla chips. Guacamole is extremely simple to make and can take less than 5 minutes to make a healthy snack-sized portion.

What you need:

• 1/2 an avocado
• 1/3 of a small jalapeno
• A pinch of garlic salt
• 1 tsp of salsa
• 1/3 tsp of minced onion
• A squirt of lemon juice

What to do:

Take your smallest tupperware, slice 1/2 an avocado into thirds and place it in the container. Mash the avocado with a fork and add the salsa, salt, onion and lemon juice. Mix this all together very well. Lastly, add the jalapeno and mix it in lightly. Let the guacamole sit until it's time to eat it so that it will absorb the flavor of the jalapeno and other ingredients. 

Black Bean and Kale Soup

Well, this blog is a new experiment to document an attempt at a healthy, gluten-free, vegetarian/vegan, sustainable, and purpose-driven lifestyle. Mainly I do this through my purchases and cooking. Therefore, I will post recipes and maybe the occasional homemade beauty product...maybe an occasional ramble. We'll see how it goes. This first recipe is black bean and kale crock pot soup, which was perfect for this cold and rainy day.

Black Bean and Kale Crock Pot Soup

*Note: I made this with a small crock pot, so you can double the recipe for an average size

Ingredients

• 2.5 cups of organic vegetable broth
• 1.5 cups of water
• 1/4 of an onion (cut into large chunks)
• 1/2 pound of dried black beans
• 1 large bell pepper chopped up (or 3 small bell peppers)
• 1  jalapeno chopped up
• 1 cup of white rice (basmatti is preferred, but anything works)
• Chili powder to taste
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 tsp of minced garlic
• 3 sticks of kale, torn or chopped
• A few dried basil leaves
• 1/2 tsp of dried oregano

What to do

It's simple. Dump everything into your crock pot and make sure it is mixed well, add the spices, salt, etc. Then turn it on low for 5 to 6 hours (what I did was low for 3 hours and high for 1 hour but the beans were still crunchy). When it's ready, serve it up and slice a good amount of avocado to put in each bowl

After you're done make sure you don't waste the leftovers. Give them to your neighbor, put them in the fridge/freezer...anything. You can save a lot of money and effort by not wasting things.