Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins

I've made a lot of sub-par gluten-free pumpkin muffins in the past few years. Most of them taste okay, but they're fairly dense and not my favorite, in the end. Here's a recipe I think I can finally stick with!

Pumpkin Muffins

Dry Ingredients
1 cup gluten free oat flour
1/4 cup arrowroot flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
dash of salt

Wet Ingredients
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 Tbs molasses
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup almond milk at room temperature
1 tsp apple cider vinegar (optional)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl, combine dry ingredients, mix well, and set aside.

In a larger bowl, combine the butter and almond milk until smooth. Add apple cider vinegar, if using, and mix well. The vinegar is optional, but the acid will help make the muffins a little fluffier.

To the butter and milk mixture, then add the pumpkin, eggs, sugar, and molasses, and blend until smooth. Stir in the dry ingredients until combined, and then distribute between 10-12 prepared muffin cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Thai Noodle Bowl

Jalepenos and fall cilantro are the last ones standing in our garden right now, so this Thai-inspired dish couldn't have come at a better time. Once again, this recipe was slightly modified from Bev Cooks, because a lot of her recipes are relatively easy and taste amazing. This was so very different from what we normally eat, in a great way. 

Of course, if you really want a good idea of what you're working with, check out the original recipe here, but this is how we made it. And how we will probably make it next week, too! It was that good.


Thai Noodle Bowl

Ingredients

2 cups rice cellophane noodles

1 pound ground pork or ground beef

2-3 Tbs. Chinese five-spice seasoning

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 Tbs. fresh ginger root, minced

2 Tbs. brown sugar

1 cup plain peanuts, roughly chopped

4 scallions, finely sliced

2 cups loosely packed cilantro, chopped

2 jalepenos, minced (optional: more jalepenos, sliced for garnish)

1 red bell pepper, finely diced

juice of 1 lime

2 Tbs. gluten-free soy sauce

2 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil, divided

1/2 tsp coarse salt

Sriracha sauce for garnish, as desired

Directions

Heat 1 Tbs. oil in a pan over medium-high and start browning the pork. Once almost done, add the five-spice powder. Toss around for a second. Add the garlic, ginger, jalapeno, brown sugar, peanuts, 1 Tbs soy sauce, and a pinch of salt. Stir to combine and take off heat.

Prepare the noodles according to package directions and drain. Combine the noodles, cilantro, scallions, and red bell pepper. Add the browned meat mixture and toss to combine. Squeeze the lime juice over the mixture and drizzle with 1 Tbs soy sauce and remaining olive oil.

Enjoy!

Currently: Change of Seasons

Favorite part of the day: Naptime? We had a busy weekend and I'm craving some down-time. I also worked night shift Monday night and didn't sleep for over 24 hours, so I'm still recovering.

Eating: A gluten-free chocolate crinkle cookie from Dolce Bakery.

Drinking: Decaf coffee. The doctor I saw this spring recommended avoiding caffeine when possible, because it will just continue to stress my adrenals. Even though I only drank it in the morning, it was affecting my sleep at night.

Reading: For fun, I just finished the novel The Highest Tide. It was good, it reminded me of my first love (the ocean), and the character was obsessed with Rachel Carson's work. Which reminds me, I've been wanting to read her books for years! For church small group, we are reading The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living. It's a book about feelings, which sounds weird, but it's really good. For Bible Study Fellowship, I'm reading the book of John. And on top of all of that, I'm slowly working my way through Shauna Niequist's Present Over Perfect.

Listening To: "It is Well" by Kristen DiMarco and Philip Paul Bliss. They sang it a few times at the Women's Conference I went to last week, and I really like it.

Guilty Pleasure: I've been making a lot of trips to Dolce lately since I'm baking less at home.

Wanting: A clean house/no more renovations!

Needing: Umm... same as above?

Loving: Sunshine! The cool mornings are still tolerable because it's t-shirt weather by afternoon. I'm learning that I like fall well enough, but it gets a bad rap in my head because it just means winter is coming.

Thinking: I have so many thoughts in my head right now, and I'm struggling to get them all out in my journal, to my counselor, or on this blog to help me make sense of them.

Feeling: Grateful with a tinge of bittersweet. This time last year, I was pregnant, and right now my arms are empty. It's weird. At the same time, Noah's definitely outgrowing the baby stage, and I miss him needing me so much. It's all emotional!

Missing: Summer! The pool! Our June and July routines!

Exercise: My pain has flared up the past few weeks, but before that I was enjoying the simplicity of the 30 minute workouts via 21-Day Fix. I'm trying to get into Yoga with Adrienne on YouTube even on the days I feel blah, though.

Bane of my Existence: Um... my pain? I'm struggling with some new ways of thinking of it, and the fact that it may indeed be chronic. It's still an overwhelming thought.

Mood: Pensive and anxious.

Link: I'm Pro-Life. And I'm voting for Hillary. Here's Why.

Outfit: It's leggings season!

Looking forward to: This Sunday! We're planning a family day, since things have felt pretty crazy lately.

Crack Slaw

My friend Kim shared this recipe with me, and Ross, Noah, and I inhaled it this week. It's really nice to have a new, easy way to use ground beef because we default to tacos or Bolognese sauce over pasta A LOT.

The first, couldn't-be-simpler version I tried is here, but I may try this fancier version one day, too.


Crack Slaw 

1 lb ground beef
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 green onions, sliced
1 bag of coleslaw mix 
2 Tbs coconut aminos OR gluten-free soy sauce
1 tsp Sriracha sauce
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp coconut sugar OR brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste
optional: sesame seeds or cashew chunks to sprinkle on top

1. Brown the ground beef, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from pan and set aside.

2. Heat the sesame oil and saute the garlic, onion, and cabbage in sesame oil until the cabbage is soft.

3. Stir in the soy sauce, Sriracha, sugar, ginger, and vinegar.

4. Add the ground beef back to the pain and mix everything well before serving!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chips Bars

So our oven finally breathed its last over the weekend. Not the best timing, but it was inevitable. So we got a new one thanks to the Lowe's 30% off sale! I broke it in with this recipe. Super easy, super low-sugar, super fall-ish.

Flourless Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars

1 cup creamy almond butter
2 eggs
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
4 Tbs brown sugar
1 Tbs vanilla extract
1.5 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt
3/4 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Spray an 8x11 baking dish with nonstick spray.

2. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and almond butter until fluffy. Add pumpkin, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt and mix well. Fold in the chocolate chips.

3. Pour into the prepared baking dish and bake for 20-25 minutes until slightly golden and set. Allow to cool before cutting.

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