Vegan Pumpkin Seed Energy Bar

It was the morning that parents of young children dread but I managed to embrace the clock change and made the most of my extra hour this morning. I woke at 6:30 and decided to hop to it and soon the smell of ginger and cinnamon roasted pumpkin seeds was wafting through the house - although the children didn't appreciate it as they were taking part in one major Sunday morning sleep in.

Every year, following our annual pumpkin carving day, I clean, dry out and roast the seeds from the aforementioned large orange vegetable ready for my daughter and I to nibble on over the following days. Today though I decided to use some of the seeds in some baking and having the usual over ripe banana situation going on decided to make some vegan energy bars loosely based on my go to flapjack recipe, but healthier and vegan friendly.

Ingredients:
125g Vitalite
150g soft brown sugar
75g golden syrup
zest of a lemon
1 banana
200g porridge oats
100g pumpkin seeds - I used a mix of my own roasted seeds and the traditional shop bought ones

Line a baking tin with baking paper - my tin measured approx. 19x29cm.
Pre-heat the oven to 160c.
In a saucepan melt the Vitalite, sugar and golden syrup.
Once all melted give it a good stir then add the lemon zest, mashed up banana, porridge oats and pumpkin seeds and stir into the mix.
Spread the mixture into the baking tin and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Once cooled I enjoyed a slice with a cup of cinnamon tea and a handful of extra pumpkin seeds before tacking the garden for it's annual Autumn makeover.

Enjoy and Happy Halloween!

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Ginger & Cinnamon Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Finally.
I've mastered it.
After some trial and errors involving maple sugar and too high temperatures on the oven I have found the perfect mix of spices and crunch to roast your leftover pumpkin seeds.

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Recipe:

seeds from a medium pumpkin - washed and dried.
a glug of olive oil
1 tsp of ground cinnamon
1 tsp of ground ginger
dessert spoon of sugar

In a large bowl mix all of the above.
Pre heat the oven to 150c.
Spread the seeds out on a sheet of baking paper on a baking tray.
Roast for 30 minutes.
Give the seeds and jiggle.
Roast for a further 10 minutes.

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I challenge you to make them last!

 

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Take two pumpkins {carve it, puree it, deseed it, bake it}

Today has been a wet, windy, sunny, altogether a strange mix of Autumn weather kind of day. Perfect for baking. Luckily we escaped the worst of the storm so we dodged the showers and went out to buy pumpkins. Last time we did the whole pumpkin thing we just carved and binned the rest. Completely wasteful I know so this time we were going to do things differently.

I turned to the power of social media. Pumpkin recipe upon pumpkin recipe has been pinned to Pinterest over the past month - the majority calling for cans of pumpkin puree. So I asked good old Twitter for some pumpkin advice and as a result used all of the pumpkin up.

Well, nearly. Not sure what we could have done with the skin of the cut out pieces - any suggestions?

We carved, pureed, deseeded and baked.

Thank you to the lovely Modern Mummy for her Pumpkin Puree Recipe and Over A Cuppa for her Spiced Pumpkin Cake Recipe.

Pinterest is providing me with lots of ideas for roasting the seeds - my heart is going with Cinnamon at the moment - watch this space.

So, do you use all of the pumpkin?!

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