Four Things I Did With One Can of Pumpkin

I might just possibly have a pumpkin obsession. Yeah, it is pretty bad. It was made worse when I went to the store for a can of pumpkin and the giant can of the off brand was cheaper than the small can of Libby's. And they didn't have small cans of the off brand. I was only making pumpkin cookie-dough truffles. Thus, I had leftover pumpkin. Lots of it. This resulted in pumpkin cooking galore.

So here, without further ado (and without pictures because I wasn't thinking about blogging this), I have my extended thoughts about multiple pumpkin treats.


Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles

These were pretty good. I found the texture to be a tiny bit gummy. That is normal for a pumpkin batter, but it is a bit weird when you aren't cooking it. I don't think there is really a remedy to that situation, though. If you make the truffles smaller, the texture is a little less noticeable. I also could have done with a bit more pumpkin flavor, I think. But then, as we have already discussed, I have a problem.

Pumpkin Pancakes

I added mini chocolate chips to the recipe. I had them left over from the truffles and thought it would be good. It was. The batter came out a little thick, but that is easy to adjust. I also halved the recipe. When I cook, I usually use just the 1 cup measure and guess based on that. Thus, when I make less than a whole batch, I just use a different size cup and pretend that is a cup (1/2 a cup for a half recipe, 2/3 a cup for two thirds recipe, etc.). It helps me do the whole process without having to think about adjusting amounts as often. Of course, you still have to adjust things like eggs, which is what brought me to this digression. I didn't halve an egg. I have done it before, but this time I didn't feel like it, and I don't often do it on my own pancake recipe either; it never seems to be that big of a difference, just a little denser. I think it may have made a bigger difference in these pancakes though (they were rather on the dense side), so I would probably try it with the correct amount next time. All in all, nothing spectacular, but perfectly good and edible.

Pumpkin Frozen Yogurt

I very much like this. I don't have an ice cream maker, so that left me mixing it every half hour, which was a bit of a pain. However, it ended up tasting great. In fact, it tastes a lot like Baskin Robbins Pumpkin Pie ice cream. The only complaint was that, once I was done and stopped mixing it,  the leftovers turned pretty hard in the freezer.

Pumpkin Spice Hot Chocolate

Now for the warm version. I don't drink coffee, but apparently pumpkin spice lattes are good. So they tell me. Anyway, I decided that a warm pumpkin drink sounded divine. I didn't exactly use anyone's recipe for this. Just did my common, look at lots of recipes and then do what I think sounds best.

We have a hot chocolate maker, which basically mixes and heats your cocoa all at once. I didn't know these things existed until someone gave us one shortly after we got married because they didn't use it. We use it a lot. I mostly make hot chocolate from scratch now with milk, cocoa, and sugar. Sometimes I add spices (cayenne pepper is rather good, as is cinnamon, mint leaves, and several others). This time I added pumpkin, a bit more sugar, and pumpkin pie seasonings (use the spice mix if you would like). The great thing about making your hot chocolate from scratch is you can adjust it as you like. If you don't want to do all that, though, here is a recipe for a simpler version.

For thoughts about more recipes, see my pinterest board "Recipes I Have Tried." I keep this board mostly for my reference, but maybe someone else will find it interesting.