Smashing Pumpkins

Pumpkins and all types of squashes abound right now during the fall harvest and in the spirit of  Halloween.  I have tried to tackle squash as a savory dish on multiple occasions, but I have never been crazy about the outcome.  There is just something so sweet about most squash that they beg for sweet applications.  Even wrapping squash cubes in bacon didn't win me over, which is insane because bacon is supposed to make everything better.  Well, I give in.  I'm not trying to fit a round squash into a square hole anymore.  I am going to use it as its sweetness begs: for dessert!

Scrumptious Squash

Squash is very nutritious for obvious reasons: it's a brightly colored vegetable (well, botanically speaking it's a fruit).  Bright color means beta carotene (think carrots), which has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.  As an anti-inflammatory, beta carotene helps reduce the symptoms of asthma and arthritis.  Beta carotene also deters plague formation by keeping cholesterol from oxidizing and building up on the walls of blood vessels; thus, it protects against heart disease.  It also protects us against cancer, especially colon cancer (which is further aided by squash's folate and fiber content).  Furthermore, beta carotene plays a role in blood sugar regulation, thereby protecting against diabetes and insulin resistance.  Squash is also high in fiber, aiding our digestive inner workings.  The Vitamin C, manganese, folate, and potassium content in squash is also quite respectable.  Bottom line, it's nutritious!

Squash is a perfect paleo food for getting sweetness out of your food, not adding it to your food.  According to its single listing on the international table, pumpkin's glycemic index value is 75, which is a little high (higher than 50 is considered high glycemic), but being a watery, fibrous plant, it has a low, low glycemic load of 3 (I have seen various numbers for different winter squash, but all less than 10).  Remember, when we last talked about blood sugar, we defined these terms.  Glycemic index is how fast a food is broken down into glucose, which raises your blood sugar, and since pure glucose is 100, we try to avoid foods higher than 50 on that scale.  However, we can't dismiss glycemic load, which takes into account the percentage of carbohydrate in the food that is responsible for the spike.  In pumpkins, it is low (less than 10 is considered low glycemic load, 20 or more is high).  Squash fall into the same category as watermelons (a relative) that, while sweet, have so much water and/or fiber that their glycemic load is negligible.

This inherent, but not dangerous sweetness is something we can enhance with flavor compliments like apple and banana.  I find it gratifying to add sweeteners that contribute to the flavor, not just add sweetness.  They also add their own host of vitamins and minerals, which trumps honey, agave, and traditional sugars any day.  Period.

Main Reference: The World's Healthiest Foods

Preparation S

First off, you can buy canned pumpkin, but it is really simple to make your own and so much better for you and the environment if you rely less upon processed foods.  When choosing squash, go for the sweetest you can find.  Sweet varieties include the sugar or pie pumpkin (small jack-o-lanturn type), kabocha squash, butternut squash, acorn squash, Hubbard squash, calabaza squash, buttercup squash, or the oddly named sweet potato squash.

Roasting a squash is really easy.  Check out Elana's Pantry's step by step guide for pictures and more details, but here is the gist: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  In the meantime, wash the squash and cut it in half (this is tricky with hard rinds, so be careful and use a big, heavy knife!).  Scoop out the fibrous, seedy innards and try to fish out the seeds to dry and roast, if you are up to the challenge.  Place the cut halves face down in a baking dish with 1/4 inch of water in the bottom.  Roast for 30 minutes and give them a check.  You are looking for fork-tender flesh all the way to the rind.  If you got it, great--allow to cool and then scoop out the roasted squash with a spoon.  Why a spoon?  Because it'll 'urt more.  [sorry, couldn't resist lapsing into my Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves recital :)]

Now you have your roasted squash!  What can you do with it?  Bake muffins!

How about muffins sweetened only by a mere 3 tablespoons of apple juice and 2 bananas?  Is that not awesome?!

Pumpkin Chai Spiced Muffins
Like sipping a steaming, hot mug of chai, these muffins will delight your senses.  
Cooking Time: about 45minutes start to finish
Quantity: more than a dozen, so I have to bake in two batches!

Wet Ingredients:
1 c roasted pumpkin (see above to prepare)
2 over-ripe bananas, break each into 3-4 chunks

1 T vanilla

3 eggs

3 T apple juice

Dry Ingredients:

1.5 c almond flour

1/2 c coconut flour

1 t baking soda
2 t cream of tartar
2 t Ceylon cinnamon
1/2 a nutmeg, grated
3/4 t ground ginger
3/4 t ground cloves
1 t salt

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and prepare your muffin tins/cups.  I have had success with using cut squares of parchment (see pic in my last muffin recipe) in the cups as makeshift (read: cheap) muffin cups, but they are really annoying to keep in place while trying to dish in the batter.  If you are really into baking, you can splurge on silicon muffin cups at $13 for 6, which then need no fussing or even a muffin tin (they can bake on a cookie sheet!).  I just got mine and am so enamored with them!  Or go ahead and trust your nonstick muffin tin one more time.  These things just tend to fail after a few uses, but go ahead and live on the edge if you must.  Just be sure to grease liberally with coconut oil and don't tell me I didn't warn you if they stick.

Okay, now that you have your oven cranking, muffin tins/cups prepped, and ingredients assembled, let's make muffins!  Add the coconut flour and cream of tartar to a sifter (or food processor) and sift into a large bowl (or whirl in your food processor to combine, then add to your bowl).  Sifting the coconut flour and cream of tartar ensures none of those annoying clumps that are so difficult to mix out.  Skip this and you'll be squashing beads of coconut flour and cream of tartar for the next five minutes, seriously.  Next, add the remaining dry ingredients to the bowl and mix throughly.  Then, add all the wet ingredients to a food processor and pulse until you break up the banana and squash.  Scrape down the sides, then, let 'er whirl for a minute to lighten the color a bit and puree everything evenly (you might need another scraping and whirl to accomplish this).  Give your wet ingredients a final whirl to aerate them (you should see bubbles when you lift the lid) and add them to the dry ingredients.  Mix to evenly incorporate.  

Dish your batter into muffin tins/cups and bake for 25 minutes, then check for any wetness on the top, giggliness, or too light a top color--if present, give them 5 more minutes, then retest.  Mine took around 30 minutes and their tops just started to turn a more golden brown with stray spills looking a bit burnt.  After finished, remove and cool on a rack (note: don't try to get muffins out of their cups (parchment or silicone) until after they have cooled).  Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator with some paper towels underneath and above them to soak up excess moisture.  They'll last a good few days if you can resist them!

Apple Crumble Crisp

Can't you just smell the baked apples and cinnamon and taste that delicious, crunchy crumble?


UPDATE 1/28/10: Check out Mark's Daily Apple for his Definitive Guide to Dairy.  I briefly mention dairy at the end of this post, but I agree with Mark on individual preference through trial and error and only consume raw 100% grass-fed dairy if you do go down the dairy path.  


Sugar-slave to Sugar-free

I have been on a sugar-free kick for the past month since my self-intervention.  I had grown lax and with my baking trial and error I was eating more sweetened baked goods than I should.  It came to the point of "needing" chocolate every single night and rushing through dinner sometimes just to get to dessert.  I would buy a new bar at the store nearly every trip just in case I ever ran out.  When the day came that I bought two and started to eat them faster--more than just a couple rows a night, I began to notice a problem.  I also realized that I was on a sugar high that left my heart playing "la kookaracha."  I was having trouble sleeping and felt entirely too obsessed with sugar.  Too much of anything is never a good thing.  


So out with the chocolate.  I threw away the remainder of my snacking chocolate and started a new quest.  Trying to steer clear of even "natural" artificial sweeteners like honey and agave, I am experimenting with sweet fruits and veggies instead.  The results have been surprising and have changed my perception of sweetness from one that needs superfluous amounts of sugar to be deemed sweet, to one that can appreciate the inherent sweetness even in romaine leaves, which I now eat as a snack!  I think we would all be better off reclaiming our perceptions of the subtle natural sweetness of fruit and vegetables instead of relying upon sugar-concentrated sweeteners, even those as seemingly benign as honey and agave.  


What does this mean for my recipes?  I am using the sweetest natural products I can devise to substitute for sweeteners, and the results have surprised all of my taste testers (my husband and fellow CrossFitters).  But taste-test yourself and if you feel the pre-cooked product is not sweet enough, feel free to add a sweetener of your choice.  


Method to My Madness


Apple Crisp is a mountain of adversity to the paleo cook.  Traditionally, it consists of apples, butter, sugar, and flour.  When three of the four main ingredients need paleo substituting, this is a challenge.  For me, I first tackled the apples.  Instead of tart Granny Smiths, let's use a sweet variety to cut out some additional sweetener.  Makes sense.  Then, we need a fat substitute for butter to give it richness (why no butter? see the NOTE below the recipe).  I tried coconut oil, but the outcome was very coconut-y.  Instead, why not use a delicious nut oil, say walnut oil?  Sugar can be found in fruit, and since apples are our main ingredient, let's use apple juice, which is hellasweet on its own (I can't even drink undiluted juices anymore, they are just too sweet!).  Lastly, we have flour.  I tried almond flour, but the graininess of the crumble didn't do it for me.  Coconut flour is textured more like regular flour, so it is a great substitute, but it could use a little more texture, so I used pecan flour (made from roasting pecans and food processing them into flour--see recipe).  Pecans are a naturally sweet nut, so they can dual-task as a sweetener.  Finally, we need a crunchiness that brown sugar clusters usually deliver in the traditional recipes.  What are crunchy and hold up to baking?  Nuts!  Walnuts seemed a great choice to compliment the walnut oil (pecans tend to get a little soft anyway).  


So here is my take on apple crisp, finally, and my recommendations for tweaks to fit your taste!  Don't be afraid to experiment and explore cooking and baking.  Yes, baking is a science, but paleo baking is a virtually undiscovered country just waiting for us to explore!  And, usually, even our failures are damn tasty.  Take this recipe: it took me six scrumptious versions and left me with a delicious breakfast accompaniment to eggs and sausage for many mornings, as well as unfortunately two peeler injuries and a burn.  My husband jokes that I should wear a helmet when I am in the kitchen :)

Apple Crumble Crisp

This is quintessential autumn for me and the best result of apple picking!
Cooking Time: 1/2 hour or less to prepare, 45min baking time
Zone Blockage: let's just say this is a carb and fat dessert dish and leave it at that!  It probably isn't outrageous, though, just look at the ingredients!

1/2 c apple juice (make sure it is 100% juice!)
2 c roasted, chopped walnuts
1/2 c coconut flour
1 c pecan flour (roast raw pecans just like walnuts spread out on a baking sheet while you preheat the oven (watch carefully!  check often for golden browning!), then cool and food process into flour, but be careful not to over-process or you get pecan nut butter!)

1/4 t salt

4 t Ceylon cinnamon (use 2 teaspoons on the cut apples and 2 in the crumble)

about 1/2 nutmeg nut, grated fresh with a microplane

1 T vanilla
1/4 c walnut oil

Sweet apples, like Jonagold or Fuji, peeled, cored, and sliced about 1/4 in thick then cut in half, enough to fill a 9.5 x 13.5 pyrex baking dish most of the way up the sides 

Preheat the oven to 350.  Roast your nuts if you don't already have them from other cooking escapades.  Prepare the apples by peeling, coring, and slicing them.  Toss them into your baking dish and sprinkle on 2t of cinnamon.  Toss the apples slices in cinnamon to coat evenly.  At this point, you need to prepare your nuts by chopping the roasted walnuts (if you haven't already) and food processing your roasted pecans into nut flour (if you haven't already).  


Next, start on the crumble.  Add the 2t cinnamon, nutmeg, pecan flour, walnuts, and salt to a large bowl.  Mix well.  Then, add the wet ingredients: apple juice, vanilla, and walnut oil.  Mix well.  Now, we are going to get fancy and sift on the coconut flour.  If you don't have  sifter, try your best to sprinkle it on without allowing coconut flour balls to form.  Coconut flour is really resilient to mixing evenly--which you probably found out if you made my banana walnut muffins!  Mix well as you sift/sprinkle on the coconut flour to incorporate it evenly--despite its intentions.  At this point, you should have a crumbly, sticky "batter."  


Grab your baking dish filled with cinnamon apples and plop crumble batter over the top, getting even coverage.  Cover in tin foil and whack it in the oven until you see liquid at the bottom bubbling and the apples are a bit soft when pierced with a fork--about 30 minutes, but check at 20-25 minutes to be careful.  One of my batches was mush at 40min in, so check carefully and remember they are going to cook uncovered for a bit, so you don't want really soft apples yet.   Once bubbling, uncover and place back in the oven to allow the crumble to brown (read: NOT burn).  I looked for hardening and a more golden brown since it was all brown to begin with from the cinnamon and nuts.  It should take 10-15 minutes.  Check for browning and fork-tender apples.  


Once done, eat it while hot or reheat (microwave for 30 seconds to a minute depending upon glutinous quantity) to enjoy that warm, apple-y goodness!  And go ahead, indulge and brag to all your friends that this apple crisp is sans butter, sugar, and flour and sweetened only with apples and their juice!


NOTE: Why no butter?  Why no dairy?  Butter is a dairy product, which is a concentrated source of what cows eat plus all the other nourishment meant to help their babies grow.  Since most cows are eating grains like corn, dairy products from these cows are just concentrated grains and antibiotics, which are necessary to keep these cows alive since they are fed toxic grains (and we already know why we avoid grain).  If you can actually find 100% grass fed (NOT grain finished!), raw (the problems with pasteurization is a whole 'nother post) dairy products, then by all means enjoy them if you can tolerate them digestively and as long as you want to get big and strong like a cow.  Cow milk is meant for calves and goat milk is meant for kids, but NOT yours--theirs! (Baby goats are called kids).  Dairy products have growth hormones because they are baby food meant to nourish and help those babies grow big and strong.  Unless you want to grow big and strong and desire those concentrated grains to muck up your digestive system, you might want to avoid factory-farmed dairy products in your day to day meals.  Best bet?  Try going without dairy for at least a couple of weeks and then reintroduce it slowly.  Are you suddenly lactose intolerant?  Can you take some forms and not others?  Give it a try!  Your body is the best evidence for your nutritional journey.  

Five Dollar Muffins

UPDATE 9/30/09: Tried a batch today using hazelnut oil and 1T vanilla instead of 1tsp and made 12 regular sized instead of 6 huge ones, taking between 15-20min to bake.  They are delicious!  So I am changing the recipe below to account for this new tweak.  Enjoy!

When I think of these muffins, I think of the $5 hamburger commercials.  Something has to be a big deal to be worth $5, and these muffins are worth that or more.  Depending upon how you like them, they can be oooey-gooey on the inside and actually improve with refrigeration.  Good luck saving them for long!

The Ultimate Banana Walnut Muffins
Makes 6 huge muffins or 12 regular sized
Cooking Time: 30-45 minutes start to finish
Zone Blocks: 6 blocks of Fat for each muffin when making a batch of 12, 1.5-2 blocks of Carb and 1/4 block of Protein--so basically call each of these a 6 block Fat.  


Dry Ingredients:
2 C almond flour/meal (NOTE: I use Trader Joe's Just Almond Meal brand since it is cheapest.  Other almond flours might turn out differently, so feel free to experiment!)
1/3 C coconut flour (sifted gives the best results since it clumps easily)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg (grated fresh)
1 C walnuts

Wet Ingredients:
2 bananas, the riper the better
1 T vanilla
3 eggs warmed to room temperature
1/3 C honey
3 T oil (olive oil is fine, coconut oil when liquid is excellent, and hazelnut oil or walnut oil hits it out of the park!)
2 T almond butter (unsalted, but if salted, just add 3/4 tsp salt instead of 1 tsp)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place walnuts in preheating oven on a sheet rack to roast.  Watch them carefully--too many times have I let them burn and ruined a whole batch!  Meanwhile, peel bananas and mash them to a liquid (can be chunky) in a medium-sized bowl.

To the bananas, add honey and almond butter and mix well.  Next, prepare the eggs.  I usually crack them in another bowl to avoid stray shells, then mix them there before adding to the other wet ingredients, for better mixing.  Add those eggs, the oil, and vanilla to the banana bowl; mix to incorporate.  (Check walnuts!)

In a separate bowl, add almond flour, coconut flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and baking soda.  Mix to incorporate.  (Check walnuts!) Prepare your muffin tin.  You'll notice that I have a non-stick muffin tin, but the non-stick quality only lasted a few batches before stickage ruined the bottom of enough muffins that I gave up on it.  I need to buy muffin cups! In the meantime, I use homemade (read: lazy) parchment paper "cups" that only stay put once batter is scooped in them.  Not ideal, but they work.  If using a naked muffin tin, grease it with the same oil you used in the batter (or try mixing and matching, what the heck!).

By now your walnuts are either burnt to a crisp or you rescued them once golden brown and fragrant (I always think of the host of Good Eats, Alton Brown, saying "I smell nuts!").  Chop them up into tiny bits, but not dust.  I have found that knives pale in comparison to crunching them with a metal spatula or even a bench scraper.  The bottom of a bowl or cup will also do.  Measure out a cup or so of roasted, chopped walnuts.

If your oven is preheated, you are good to go: add the wet to the dry and scrape the bowl.  Mix well and add walnuts.  Don't worry about mixing so much that you make rocks of your muffins since we don't have to deal with temperamental gluten here, but I still stop when just incorporated evenly, just in case.  Dollop into muffin cups (see pre-muffins pic above) and bake for about 20 minutes if making 6 huge muffins or between 10-15 if smaller.  Check for golden brown color and mostly set tops.  I love oooey-gooey ones, so I never bother with the toothpick test or completely set tops.  Cool on a rack.  Store in an airtight container in the fridge once cooled.  They won't last long due to extreme deliciousness, not spoilage!