Pumpkin Butter Tarts with Pepitas and Cranberries

Pumpkin Butter Tarts with Pepitas and Cranberries

Appetizer Canadian Dessert Food Maple Pumpkin Recipe Tart Vegetarian

Unknown 03:00 Add Comment

When it came time to plan my Thanksgiving dessert this year I knew exactly what I wanted, these pumpkin butter tarts! Butter tarts are a Canadian tart with a light and flaky pastry crust filled with a mixture of butter, sugar, and eggs that is baked until the filling is set and either semi solid or still a bit runny. Normally I make butter tarts for the Christmas holiday season but this year I thought that I would try making a fall seasonal variety and add pumpkin to the filling! Butter tarts can be made plain or you can add nuts like walnuts or pecans and/or raisins but for these pumpkin butter tarts I went with toasted pumpkin seeds, pepitas, and dried cranberries instead. These butter tarts start out with an all butter pie crust pastry and I went with a slightly different version of the filling substituting half of the brown sugar with maple syrup which is something that I like to do with my regular butter tarts, along with the addition of the pumpkin puree. These pumpkin butter tarts turned out even better than expected! They are quite simply divine! The pumpkin, pepita and cranberry flavours work so amazingly well with the butter tarts flavours and lets not forget those fantastically light and flaky pastry crusts!

The only problem is that I have already polished off two batches of them all by myself and I'm going to have to make a few more batches! No, wait, that's not a problem at all! :)

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Thai Peanut Pumpkin Turkey Curry

Thai Peanut Pumpkin Turkey Curry

Chicken Curry Food Gluten-free Main Course Pumpkin Recipe Stew Thai Turkey

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Pumpkin is always fun to use in savoury dishes and I really enjoy using it with Thai flavours like in this Thai style curry! I start the curry out with a base of the red curry paste and add to that the standard ingredients for a Thai curry including the coconut milk, fish sauce, lime juice and sugar to create a nice balance of sweet, salty, spicy and sour. Up next is some peanut butter which is so amazingly good with both the red curry paste and the pumpkin and it makes the curry nice and creamy. The pumpkin comes in the forms of both pumpkin puree and diced pumpkin for maximum flavour and texture! This curry continues with the fall flavours using turkey as the meat adding pureed apples to the sauce and some dried cranberries just for the fun of it! This fall harvest Thai style peanut pumpkin turkey curry is the perfect way to enjoy the bounty of the harvest!

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Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake Dip

Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake Dip

Appetizer Dip Food Gluten-free Pumpkin Recipe Vegetarian

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With all of the pumpkin recipes these days I could not help but think of one of my favourites, this caramel pumpkin cheesecake dip! Yes, that's right, all of the flavours of a caramel pumpkin cheesecake in the form of a dip that literally only takes 10 minutes to make! Cheesecake has to be one of these best desserts around and it only gets better when you add the flavours of pumpkin pie but lets face it, a nice cheesecake takes a bit of time and effort to make, and this dip takes almost no effort so you can whip it up on demand whether for last minute guests or just for yourself for some late night comfort cravings! When I make a pumpkin pie or a pumpkin pie cheesecake I like to use a gingersnap crumb crust because the ginger flavour goes so well with pumpkin so when I make this dip I add that gingersnap flavour either by using the ginger snap cookies for dipping or just crumbling them on top! If you're looking for a snack or appetizer for halloween or Thanksgiving, or for any time for that matter, you really can't go wrong with this caramel pumpkin cheesecake dip!

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Pumpkin Pie Quinoa Parfait with Gingersnap Pecan Streusel

Pumpkin Pie Quinoa Parfait with Gingersnap Pecan Streusel

Breakfast Food Pumpkin Quinoa Recipe Vegetarian Whole Grains

Unknown 14:32 Add Comment

I had some leftover pumpkin puree that I wanted to use and after the apple crumble quinoa parfaits earlier in the week, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it; pumpkin pie quinoa parfaits! The idea was simple, mix some pumpkin pie spices and brown sugar into the pumpkin puree and layer it with Greek vanilla yogurt and quinoa spiced with cinnamon. At this point everything sounds nice and healthy but I could not resist topping it off with a gingersnap pecan streusel since gingersnaps and pecans go so well with pumpkin pie! Now i am looking forward to quick, tasty and fairly healthy desserts for breakfast from the leftovers for the next few days!

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Slow Cooker Pumpkin Pie Steel Cut Oatmeal

Slow Cooker Pumpkin Pie Steel Cut Oatmeal

Breakfast Crockpot Food Gluten-free Pumpkin Recipe Slow Cooker Vegetarian

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With the cooler weather here I have been getting back into warming bowls of oatmeal for breakfasts and one of my favourites at this time of year has to be pumpkin pie oatmeal with pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spices. I often prefer to go with steel cut oats rather than rolled oats as the have a chewier texture and nuttier flavour. The only problem is that it takes a bit longer to cook and who wants to be cooking early in the morning while rushing to get to work? Up until recently I was using my rice cooker with a timer to cook the steel cut oats overnight but it recently died so I thought that I would try using my slow cooker instead. After a bit of experimentation I found that it is actually pretty easy to cook steel cut oats in your slow cooker overnight, you just need a slow cooker with a timer. It takes about 4 hours on low to cook in the slow cooker without burning on the bottom so you need one that has a timer based start or one that can be programmed to cook for 4 hours and then switch to keep warm mode and it works like a charm. Of course I sweetened the pumpkin pie steel cut oats with caramel saucerather than sugar and the flavour combo is simply amazing!

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Pumpkin Pie Pancakes (with Caramel Sauce)

Pumpkin Pie Pancakes (with Caramel Sauce)

Breakfast Food Pumpkin Recipe Vegetarian

Unknown 14:15 Add Comment

I had a bunch of pumpkin puree leftover that needed to be used and I figured that it was the perfect opportunity to make one of my favourite pumpkin dishes, pumpkin pie pancakes, and to update the photos for the recipe! Pumpkin pie pancakes are one of my favourites because they are so nice and light, fluffy, moist and tender and not only do they taste just like pumpkin pie but they are so quick and easy to make! I mean really, it is as simple as mixing the dry ingredients, mixing the wet ingredients, mixing them together and the cooking the pancakes! In the past I would normally have served these pumpkin pie pancakes smothered in maple syrup but more recently I have been liking the pumpkin and caramel flavour combo and since homemade caramel sauce is so easy to make that is the way that I went this time. One of the nice things about caramel sauce is that when it is cool it is nice and thick but if you warm it up a bit it becomes much more fluid, like a syrup, which is perfect for pancakes!

Oh, my! Pumpkin pie pancakes smothered in caramel sauce; it's just like having dessert for breakfast!

If you want to be a bit more decadent you could use a vanilla bourbon caramel sauce !

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Pumpkin Greek Yogurt Banana Bread

Pumpkin Greek Yogurt Banana Bread

Bread Breakfast Food Pumpkin Quick Bread Recipe Vegetarian

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With Halloween coming up I have been thinking about pumpkins a lot more and when I was wondering what to do for breakfasts this week, a pumpkin bread seemed like a great way to go! Although I already have a recipe for a pumpkin bread that I really like I wanted to try to incorporate some of the ideas from the recently successful strawberry Greek yogurt banana bread into it. The Greek yogurt banana bread uses bananas and Greek yogurt to completely replace the oil or butter in an attempt to make it a little healthier while leaving the bread nice and light, fluffy and most importantly, moist. For my pumpkin Greek yogurt banana bread I pretty much took the Greek yogurt banana bread recipe and added pumpkin spices and pumpkin puree while removing some of the bananas to keep the moisture level consistent. In addition I replaced some of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour and since pecan go so well with pumpkin I added some of those as well. The pumpkin Greek yogurt banana bread turned out amazingly well, having one of the best textures that I have ever had in a quick bread! I am looking forward to breakfasts this week especially on Halloween!

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Triple Chocolate Pumpkin Pie

Triple Chocolate Pumpkin Pie

Dessert Food Pie Pumpkin Recipe Vegetarian

Unknown 15:09 Add Comment

The final component of my Thanksgiving dinner was perhaps the most important part, the dessert, and this year I wanted to try something a little new, a chocolate pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie is often the dessert of choice for Thanksgiving and since chocolate and pumpkin go so well together I was thinking that a chocolate pumpkin pie would be amazing! At first I was just planning on simply mixing chocolate into a regular pumpkin pie recipe but a quick search on the web led me to this triple chocolate pumpkin pie recipe and with three kinds of chocolate I was thinking that it would have to be at least three times as good!

This pumpkin pie uses a pretty basic graham cracker crumb crust with some pumpkin spices mixed in, though you could easily add some cocoa powder to the crust to get a fourth form of chocolate into the mix. The first chocolate comes in the form of a layer of bittersweet chocolate on the crust that is topped with the semisweet chocolate pumpkin pie and the final chocolate comes in the form of a milk chocolate drizzle that is added just before serving. This triple chocolate pumpkin pie is pure chocolaty decadence at its best!

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Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting

Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting

Breakfast Food Pumpkin Recipe Vegetarian

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This weekend is the Canadian Thanksgiving and that means that it is time to make something special for breakfast and I knew just what I wanted to make. I have been wanting to try the cinnamon swirl pancakesfrom Recipe Girlever since I saw them and Thanksgiving seemed like the perfect time to try the pumpkin pie version! I mean you really cannot go wrong combining two amazing things like pancakes and cinnamon rolls and throw in a third, pumpkin pie, and you have something that is sure to have every one coming back for seconds or even thirds! (The recipe easily doubles or triples!)

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