Pumpkin Pumpkin Pumpkin

PUMPKIN.

My number one staple for this fall...

 So about a month ago I bought four cans of pure pumpkin. I have now bought two more cans and used all of it! From pumpkin cookies to pumpkin smoothies it has been a great fall. Yes, pumpkin happens to be my favorite if you had not guessed yet.

One of the great things I made recently was these Pumpkin Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies. I looked up a few recipes online and just adapted them to my liking. So here is what you need:

1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
2 bananas
2 tablespoons honey
2 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup almonds
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
a pinch of salt

 

So then you just...
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Smash bananas and mix with pumpkin.
3. Mix in the honey and spices
4. Grind 1/2 cup oats and almonds in food processor to flour consistency. The almonds may still be chunky. That is good!
5. Add all oats, ground and unground, and almonds to banana mixture.
6. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray the foil with cooking spray

7. Bake for 10 minutes and then let cool!

These are awesome for breakfast! Just a little cookie to get the day started right :) Also very healthy!! There are no nasty chemicals or sugars :) They are a quick breakfast, just grab and go!

SO.... Remember that stew from my last post... basically just throw a bunch of veggies and a can of diced tomatoes into the crockpot? WELLLL this autumn I also threw in about 1/2 cup of pumpkin :) and a little bit of cinnamon and some pumpkin pie spice. I went for the mixture of sweet and spicy so I also put in some garlic and chili spices. As well, the canned diced tomatoes I used had green chillies in them.

PUMPKIN STEW. 

This one I made recently I also put some ground lean turkey that I browned on the stove first .

If I do say so myself it was awesome!

Yes, I know this does not look that appetizing but it was delicious!

 

WELL I HOPE YOU ENJOY!

You can stay healthy and get all the joys of fall :)

xoxo

Marie

Sunday Cook Fest

HELLO :) and welcome to College Healthy

As a college freshman I was opened to a world were my parents no longer made me dinners, I had to deal with the stress and lack of time in a day, and the vending machines full of chocolate bars seemed so alluring. Let me tell you, the Freshman 15 does exist. However, I spent the summer after freshman year trying to get "healthy" again. The journey to figuring out how to be a healthy college student has been a long one and still an every day struggle. Especially in an environment full of binge drinking and snack foods. Not to mention the craving of a chocolate bar when you are just too stressed.
Over the past few years I have also realized I have a passion for cooking. SOOOO why not combine them. Now that I am a senior in college I have my own kitchen and can therefore cook my own healthy meals. As I experiment I want to share what I make in order to inspire college kids everywhere and let them know that they CAN eat healthy. In fact, I now am so much happier when I do eat healthy. I feel better, my mind seems clearer and everything seems more in my control! To begin I am going to share what my housemate and I made a few weeks ago. We cooked it all on a Sunday and then had leftovers for weeks. So helpful hint number 1:

COOK A LOT ON SUNDAYS.

Although the picture quality is not great this time around I will show you what we cooked up:

#1: Crockpot Stew

 We basically took a ton of veggies and threw it in the crockpot and let it sit for an hour or so. This is VERY simple. WE included these vegetables:
1) Carrots
2) Mushrooms
3)Zucchini
4) Yellow Squash
5) Kale
6) Butternut Squash

Then we added a can of diced tomatoes, some Trader Joe's Everyday Seasoning, some Red Pepper flakes and a little bit of salt. It turned out to be quite the nice stew and we had leftovers for awhile!!

As well we cooked up some sea bass :)

We put each piece of fish in the foil and cooked it at 350 degrees for around 15 minutes
On top of it we put a little bit of salsa and some chopped up peaches. Absolutely delicious! And simple :)

Now my favorite thing we made was the sweet potato, black bean, and kale bites. We used the leftover kale from the stew.

It was very simple...
1) Cook 2-3 Sweet potatoes in the microwave until they are soft. Make sure you pierce them before putting them in the microwave so they do not explode!
2) As well, you are going to need to steam the Kale to make it soft. We did it on a stovetop steamer but it is very easy to put it in a microwave safe container with a little bit of water and cook it for a few minutes until it becomes soft!
3) We mashed up the sweet potatoes in a large bowl and then added the steam kale in.
4) Lastly, we added the beans.
5) Next we scooped the mixture into muffin tins and baked it at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. You can cook it shorter or longer depending on how crispy you want the outside edges to become.

We had these little muffins all week and they were great for lunch when I needed to grab something real quick!

All of these recipes used nice, clean ingredients and in this case was very heavy on the vegetables! If you are not a vegetable fan add a little more spice to the recipe! It helps to cover some of that "vegetable taste" that some people don't enjoy!

Happy Cooking!
xoxo
Marie