Hi, Your Fit Day Friends!
How was your Halloween? Well, mine was great, and it really got me into the pumpkin spirit. Everywhere I go there’s a pumpkin staring me in the eyes. And now at my local food market, The Berkeley Bowl, there are a gazillion bins of pumpkins and gourds, all different sizes and shapes. My favorite is still the Japanese pumpkin, which is also called Kabocha squash. It’s my favorite because if you pick them just right the flesh is usually very creamy and dense when baked, almost like the flesh of a sweet potato. Now’s actually the best time of year to eat them; and up until about March, from my over 20 year experience of noshing.
And the bonus is that pumpkins, along with all the Vitamin A and fiber, have less starch than other winter squashes and sweet potatoes which makes them great for baking into treats, adding a nice texture without all the extra carbs. And it’s all about eating less carbs, right? So no wonder I love it. But a starch is still a starch so I watch how much I’m eating. In fact if I eat too much Kabocha I practically light up at night, my skin becomes such a glow from all the vitamin A!
And what about all those cute little pumpkins. The baby pumpkins.
What do you do with them? I’m assuming they’re for decoration. I’ve never bought one because I tend not to buy food as decoration. I don’t see the point. OK! call me frugal, but I’d rather eat my food, not stare at it! Wouldn’t you? Bottom line…more money for more food. That’s more recipes for you!
So, back to Halloween… I decided to buy a pumpkin, even though I live in an apartment, on the second floor, with no balcony or stoop to put it on. It’s just a small 1920’s style house with five small units that, wow, come to think about it, looks like a gingerbread house! The guy living downstairs is lucky; he has a front porch and nice bay windows that would look swell with a scary glowing pumpkin in the window. But a pumpkin on the porch in this city neighborhood wouldn’t last long anyway.
So, instead of buying and carving up Jack-O, I decided to get creative in the kitchen and roast his cousin, Sugar, and make some Paleo pumpkin pie for my friends. However, since I’m on the Carbnite Solution plan I needed my pie to be low carb, as well as sugar free, grain free, dairy free and gluten free for my Ultra Low Carb days (more about that later). OMG! You’re probably saying aloud ,’will this taste much better than cardboard?’ You betcha. Because I made it with the wholesome goodness of coconut milk, fresh pumpkin, eggs, some stevia and spices, and a lot of love! And the crust was a savory mix of nuts, nut flours, and virgin coconut oil. No kidding, that’s it. A low carb pumpkin pie. Ahhh! And wait til you taste it.
Since this was my first pumpkin pie you’d think that I’d be a bit weary of giving most of it away to my friends as taste testers. But I did. And despite having no sugar or dairy in it they all thought it was yummy. And that’s a good thing. Because nobody wants to be ‘defriended’! One friend even said it reminded her of cheesecake…it was that creamy.
And guess what? I’ve been inspired to start a separate recipe blog. I can’t reveal the details just yet. It’s super secret! But in a couple weeks I’ll have a new website up devoted to gluten free Paleo, low carb, sugar free, grain free and mostly dairy free treats. But since Wo-man can’t live on treats alone (I know, that sucks!) I do plan having other edibles that will be pleasing to your palette while nurturing your soul with good nutrition.
And if you’re in the Oakland, CA area and want to try some of my treats drop me an email at debkaplan@sbcglobal.net, Facebook me, or Tweet me. The plan is to make some goodies each week, and I’m looking for taste testers…
Sorry about the weird box below. I’m using a new format and it’s it’s not formatting correctly. I didn’t know how to fix it without losing my recipe.
Perfect Paleo Pumpkin Pie
- Pie Batter
- 2 cups roasted sugar pumpkin. One small sugar pumpkin will usually yield 2 cups roasted pumpkin (1 15oz canned pumpkin if you really have to!)
- 3 organic eggs
- 1 can full fat organic coconut milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp vanilla cream stevia
- 1/4 cup whey protein powder
- 3 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ginger
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- Pie Crust
- 1 cup walnuts
- 1/2 cup almonds
- 1/2 cup blanched almond flour finely ground
- 1/2 cup hazelnut flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 – 1/2 tsp sea salt (to taste)
- 2 Tbsp virgin coconut oil melted
- Lots of Love!
- Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F
- Roast Pumpkin
- In a blender add all pie crust ingredients.
- Grind until nuts are fine meal. Be careful as to not allow nuts to start forming butter.
- Continue to pulse until mixture forms a crumbly meal and comes together when pinched. Make sure you don’t grind too much so it turns into nut butter! Stop to scrape down sides as needed.
- Scrape out into mound in center of pie pan or dish
- Starting from middle work the pie crust out and up sides of pie tin. This part of pie making reminds me of hand building a bowl or plate out of clay. Allow for thicker crust up the sides. Bottom can be thinner.
- Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until it just starts to brown. Do not over bake!
- Remove and let completely cool before filling
- Pie crust can be made day ahead and stored in refrigerator
- While crust is baking make the pie filling
- Remember to turn up oven to 400 after pie crust is removed from oven
- In a blender or food processor add pumpkin, eggs, spices. Blend until combined. Slowly add coconut milk and continue blending until combined. Recipe makes 5 cups of batter. My pie crust held about 4 cups. I used the rest of the batter in my Pumpkin Pie Tartlets (Will be posted shortly)
- Pour into (cooled) pie crust.
- Do not over fill
- Cover crust with foil or pie crust cover
- You may have extra batter, which you can use to make my Mini Pumpkin Pie Tarts, which will be in my next post. I know, I’m such a tease.
- Place pan on lower third of oven
- Bake for 10 minutes at 400
- Lower temperature to 350
- Bake for additional 40-50 minutes or until center is firm and doesn’t jiggle when you shake the rack it’s sitting on. The edges may be brown. Since it’s a custard you don’t want to over bake it, and the knife in the center trick doesn’t apply here. Go by touch!
- It’s smelling really good right now!
This is my first time using this recipe plugin. I really wanted the picture of my pumpkin pie in the box above but it won’t let me change it. So you’re stuck with the big fat pumpkin on steriods. Looks like I’ll be upgrading my plugin version!
