Say it with Sprinkles: A baking blog filled with recipes & photos of sweet treats & savory eats.

Pumpkin, Please!

Can we talk for a minute about pumpkin?  Everyone’s talking about it this time of year, right?!  But, I don’t mean in the pumpkin spice latte-crazed (although those are yummy!), fall-obsessed, pumpkin “flavored” everything kind of way – I mean in the context of REAL pumpkin and it’s low calorie, high nutrient density profile!  Pumpkin has a lot to offer, and obviously it’s tasty, so it’s understandable why everyone wants a piece of it ( I swear, no pie puns intended! 😉 this time of year.

Beta-Carotene

Pumpkins have beta-carotene to thank for their characteristic, bright orange hue.  Beta-carotene is converted to Vitamin A in the body, which then plays a major functional role in keeping our vision crisp and clear, our immune system fortified, and the repair and health of all the body’s cells  healthy (meaning it’s super important for keeping our skin pretty, too!).

Protein & Fiber

Fiber you may have guessed since most plants contain lots of it, but yes, pumpkins contain protein, too!  Good for digestion, good for pumping up those muscles.

Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, & Potassium

Calcium helps keep your bones and teeth healthy, strong, and fracture free.  Iron promotes the building of blood cells that keep oxygen flowing to your cells for energy and optimal functioning.  Muscle and nerve function, as well as over 300 other biochemical reactions in the human body are dependent upon magnesium.  Energy metabolism, bone strength, and bolstering the immune system are just a few others that rely on this mineral.  Potassium isn’t just a banana thing!  Potassium is also found in pumpkins, and keeps the heart healthy, and is especially important in the diet of athletes and active people since it’s lost through perspiration (sweating!).

Vitamin C & E

It hasn’t been proven, but Vitamin C is suspected to be useful in helping to pull through illness more quickly; it’s also essential for wound healing and collagen synthesis.  Vitamin E is also important to help protect the skin from UV damage and free radicals.  Additionally, there is some evidence to suggest it may help prevent prostate and bladder cancer and the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

How to Use Pumpkin:

Fresh pumpkin is perfect cubed and thrown into stir fries, casseroles, or soups.  My favorite super simple, tasty way to enjoy it is to cube it, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with your seasoning of choice, then roast it on a sheet pan in the oven!

Stir pumpkin puree it in to oatmeal with a dash of pumpkin pie spice and a splash of cold milk, mix it into quick bread and pancake batters, soups, obviously put it in a pie crust, or blend it up into this pumpkin pie-esque smoothie!  Any way you can add the real stuff (not the flavored syrup!) into your meals, you know you’re doing yourself a favor.

Pumpkin Pie Smoothie {Gluten-free, Vegan}

(The awesome thing about smoothies is, you really can’t make a mistake!  Here, you have the option to add in any kind of milk you like, protein powder for a boost (or not, if you’re not feeling it!), and chia seeds, or ground flax for extra nutrition.  I love my smoothies not too sweet, but if you want more sweetness, just up the amount of maple syrup you add a little, or throw in another half banana.  Not exactlyyyyy like pumpkin pie, but you’ll get your fill of the real thing this season, so enjoy the lightened up flavor of pumpkin with this smoothie for awhile!)

Ingredients:

* 1 large banana, frozen

* 1/2 cup pumpkin puree

* 1/4-1/2 cup milk of choice (I used almond)

* 1 Tbsp chia seeds

* 1 Tbsp pure maple syrup

* 1-2 Tbsp vanilla rice protein powder (optional)

* 1-2 Tbsp almond butter

* 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg)

* 3-4 cubes of ice (maybe a few more if your banana wasn’t frozen)

Directions:

Throw everything but the ice in a blender and blend on high until smooth.  Add in ice cubes one at a time until blended – unless you have a fancy Vitamix blender (I’m jealous, if you do!), and then you can probably just throw everything in at once and blend, blend, blend!

LooooooooooooooooVvveee!

Man oh man, I’ve been busy lately!  Not only am I slowly working through molecular formulas and hours worth of organic chemistry labs, I’ve also got my share of to-the-grind work hours and a new internship that I’m super in love with taking lots of my time and energy!  A lot has changed for me in the past several weeks, and while I won’t delve into it that much, I can definitively say it’s really not much of a “loss” to “lose” someone who is unappreciative of who you are and not supportive of life ambitions and endeavors.  It’s so tough to be your true self with someone like that, and life is too short not to be your own, genuine, self with someone who really deserves it.  I believe that you can’t lose the ones who are worth the fight, because they’re the ones who never want to be lost.  Surround yourself with GOOD people, and the others will just sort of filter themselves right on out.  Done and done! 🙂

Now on to what’s REALLY important!  It’s THAT time!…it’s THAT season!…APPLE SEASON!!  I wait patiently for this all year long.  Be still my heart, apple season *flutter, flutter* <3

I know you can pretty much get an apple any time of year these days, but you have to admit, you can’t really GET an apple.  Maybe a mealy, lac-luster, whatever kind of apple, but not a good one.  Good apples can only be found this time of year, kissed gently by just enough cool air as it graces leaf-dusted hillsides.  Lucky for me, I happen to live just a hop, skip, and a jump away from just such a hillside-studded place – a veritable apple mecca…a town actually named after the delicious, crisp, refreshing apple; a charmingly sweet town that’s ready and willing to let everyone know just what time of year it is by offering up warm apple cider, hand-crafted pies, and of course, fresh apples.  It’s unmistakable.  Unapologetic.  Amazing.

Apple Hill is this wondrous, wondrous, magical place (especially if you’re into popcorn or kettle corn, but don’t even get me started on that!) in Northern California where fall has officially taken root.  It’s the town you read about in books because places like it are all but extinct.  If any place in the world could actually give you a hug and grab you by your sensibilities at the same time, it’d be Apple Hill!  Boxes, and crates, and bins of apples, as far as the eye can see, every size, every color, about a million different varieties and names I’d never even heard of!  An apple for every personality, every mood, every thought…every baking endeavor, and then some. (more…)

This is one of those days I promised you would happen…one of the days where I’m reminiscing yet again about summer vacation and hot weather, and sunshine; beaches, good food, and how I want none of those things to fade away with the end of the season!  I may be back at work, and school, and piling on more and more responsibilities, activities, and overflowing my to-do list (which I can’t complain about at all because I’m actually loving every one of those things!), but Labor Day weekend has been a nice little throw-back to summer freedom.

The day I left Los Angeles (my LAST day before re-entering reality, *TEAR!*), I went on a major citrus fruit harvesting spree in attempts to fill the trunk of my car with at least something that would bring me back to my days of lemonade sipping & lounging even just for a moment.  Bright lemons and tangy grapefruit are pretty much my favorite citrus fruits of all time, so it’s lucky for me that’s what I had access to.  The more the merrier, and I’ve been putting them to good use!

I Love Lemons! XOXO (more…)

Oh, August, please don’t go so soon!

You’re a month to be reckoned with – a whirlwind of summer, and back to school time, and all the fuzzy, anxious times in between.  You took me all the way from Sacramento to Los Angeles,  down to Orange County and San Diego, and now you’re about to bring me home again with your wily ways.  I know it may not be something you set out to do, but you’ve been one of the greatest months so far this year, 2nd only to July.

I hope you forgive my resistance to fulfill all your plans for me at this time, but I think you can understand given my penchant for the ocean, Cafe Gratitude, and the freedoms that don’t often accompany a typical school or work schedule.  Just this once, I wish you’d bend the rules a little and bump any of my immediately upcoming obligations out to September instead.  No?  Fine.

So, school and work, it is, I guess.  I think I can forgive you, August, I know it’s not your fault.  Cake!  Coconut!  Coconut always makes things better!

I know coconut is pretty summery and tropical, but the banana is full-on fall, right?  I’ll work on it.  I’m still getting the hang of this September thing!

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As my time spent in Los Angles this summer is coming to an end, I can’t help but get a little teary-eyed, thinking about all of the amazing things I’ve done and seen, and the unforgettable people in my life I’ve had the privilege of reconnecting with and spending time with.  Time has literally flown by, and it feels like just yesterday I over-packed my AC-deprived car and headed southbound in 110 degree heat to the town I left my heart in many years ago.  I remember the promise of freedom, relief, excitement, and a summer to be remembered filling the air, and my wide, happy eyes.  It’s not often I get to up and take off, though my spirit often wants to – I call it wanderlust, and the yearning for a new beginning, new experiences, sights, sounds, etc. rather than being restless and discontent.  Restless, I can be, but I’m often content, so that’s not what I would call it.  And now, here I am wrapping things up, both physically and emotionally; now experiencing that discontent thing a little as I wish for a few more weeks, at the very least.  Instead, I have just a few more days.

Going through my last two months here, I’ve been filtering, revisiting, and questioning, but am happy to have come out realizing I wouldn’t have done anything differently, nor would I trade my time here for anything in the world!  I’m so pleased to say I can go back home with no regrets, knowing that I’ve had the best of intentions and kept my heart big and open,  I’ve learned a lot about myself, and certainly re-confirmed what I already knew about the beach before in that somehow it heals me, soothes me, and always keeps me coming back! The other night, I planned to make a trip to the gym, and instead drove right on by, heading for the ocean instead.  I spent a blissful evening walking in the sand, breathing in the sea breeze, and meandering around the pier in Santa Monica, which is basically a carnival on the water that is brilliantly lit up at dusk.  It’s not the first time I’ve found myself at the beach instead of somewhere else while I’ve been here, that’s for sure, be it Santa Monica, Venice, Laguna, Newport, San Diego….the ocean just does that to me 🙂

No matter where I’ve been, or what I’ve been doing, the common thread in my lovely time here, as I mentioned before, has been the people.  I have some amazing friends that I don’t get to see anywhere near as often as I’d like, and though with some of them it had been months or years, I know they are true friends because everything seems to come right back.  I’ve spent time with friends from high school ( Hi, AP and Brett!), from my days at UC Davis (Love you, Steph!), from years and years back in my Newport Beach days (ahem, TK), and so many more I hope to see and keep in touch with much more often.  I even decided since I’ve been here that I’d love to start writing  hand-written notes or postcards to the people more special in my life so that we can check in with each other and say hi in a much cooler way than with email and Facebook!  The internet is an amazing thing (obviously! haha), but sometimes the most precious and thoughtful means of showing you’re thinking of someone are often lost to quick text messages.  I’ll be getting in touch for your addresses – you know who you are! 😉

I’ve had the summer of my life, in the most cheese-ball sounding, but completely serious way possible!  So many thanks, I love you guys!

I’m positive I’ll be writing more about my time and experiences in LA some more soon, but for now, let’s get into a recipe I tried for the first time while here: gluten free vegan carrot cake…and of course, vegan cream cheese frosting!  It was super awesome, if I do say so myself 🙂

Gluten Free Vegan Carrot Cake Recipe

It’s not often I really really enjoy a gluten free AND vegan cake or bread recipe, since I have yet to fully perfect that art form, but this cake was really delicious.  The flavor was spot-on, from what I remember a good carrot cake to be – a yummy spice-cake with lots of carrot, and the pineapple was a new addition to me, but I think it worked in the crushed form.  It’s pretty dense, and much like a quick bread.  Loved it

Ingredients:

* 1 cup gluten free flour mix (I used Bob’s Redmill)

* 1/2 coconut flour
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