Celebrate Halloween with GF Pumpkin Recipes

Happy Halloween! In the past we’ve written about how careful you need to be on behalf of your little ones to make sure their trick-or-treating ends safely.

For example, double check at home to make sure everything is sealed and gluten-free. While you could argue it is safer with better gluten-free labeling in 2014, never rest on your laurels and assume what has always been gluten-free still is: check all labels for any potential changes!

But instead of talking about safe trick-or-treating, this year we wanted to celebrate Halloween with a more positive approach and talk about three awesome gluten-free pumpkin recipes that the whole family will love – on Halloween and beyond!

Pumpkin is one of our favorite parts of fall: pumpkin lattes, tasty pumpkin pie, and the sweet smell of my Yankee pumpkin spice candle wafting through the house.

But just because there is never enough pumpkin, let’s dig into three delicious gluten-free pumpkin recipes that we consider hidden gems…

Pumpkin Hummus

This is my go-to recipe when I have extra pureed pumpkin lying around after baking. It’s super easy, healthy and so, so good. I’ve also replaced the pumpkin with butternut squash and with sweet potato and they are equally as good. Make sure you don’t forget the toasted seeds! They are the best part. This recipe makes about 3 cups of hummus.

Ingredients:

• 2 cans (15.5 ounces each) garbanzo beans
• ⅓ cup fresh lemon juice
• ¼ cup tahini
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 ¼ tsp coarse or kosher salt
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup fresh pumpkin puree or canned pumpkin
• ½ tsp ground nutmeg
• ½ – 1 tsp ground pepper and cayenne pepper (depending on how spicy you would like it)
• ½ cup hulled pumpkin seeds, raw

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
2. Place pumpkin seeds on a single layer on baking sheet, and bake for 7-10 minutes or until golden brown and toasted. Set aside to cool.
3. Rinse and drain chickpeas, set aside ¼ cup of liquid. Place chickpeas and reserved liquid in the food processor, along with lemon juice, tahini, garlic cloves, pumpkin, nutmeg, cayenne, ground pepper and salt. Process until smooth. Drizzle olive oil into hummus while processing. Add seasoning to taste.
4. Serve with toasted seeds, nutmeg and cayenne sprinkled on top. (Can be refrigerated up to 1 week in an airtight container.)
5. Served best with gluten-free tortilla chips, raw veggie sticks or our favorite, with gluten-free pita!

This gluten-free recipe is originally from Tasty Yummies. Thanks Beth!

The Sweet Pumpkin Smoothie

This is a quick treat for your sweet tooth. It can be made vegan and with either fresh or canned pumpkin. I always try to use cold pumpkin because making this without ice keeps it super creamy, but you can add ice to cool it down if you’d like! Look at how simple this is:

Throw all of this into a blender and blend until smooth, and enjoy!

• ¾ cup pumpkin – either fresh or canned
• 1 ½ cups of milk – use almond milk for a vegan smoothie
• ¼ tsp each of ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon
• 2 tsp date honey (you can use regular honey or maple syrup for this, and add more if you’d like it to be sweeter)
  

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Pumpkin Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

There really couldn’t be a combination more perfect than pumpkin, spices and chocolate. This recipe calls for raisins but i’ve always added chocolate chips as well and they are so yummy. These never stay long around here!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups blanched almond flour
• 2 cups gluten-free rolled oats
• 1 cup pumpkin puree (fresh is best but canned with work)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ cup grapeseed oil (coconut oil or olive oil are also fine)
• ½ cup honey (i usually use date honey, you can also use maple syrup for this)
• 1 large egg
• 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 ½ Tbsp flaxseed (optional)
• ¾ cups raisins (i usually substitute half of the raisins with chocolate chips)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together almond flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil and honey until smooth and well-blended. Mix in the egg, pumpkin and vanilla.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine well, adding the oats, raisins, chocolate chips and flaxseed as you stir until everything is well combined.
5. Drop the batter by rounded tablespoons 2-inches apart on the baking sheets and flatten the dough gently with a fork. Bake the cookies for 18-20 minutes until they are moist and soft but appear to be dull on the outside and are starting to lightly brown. Rotate the baking sheets for even baking halfway through.
6. Remove the cookies from the baking sheet after a few minutes and allow to cool on a wire rack. Once the cookies have cooled, store in an air-tight container at room temperature.

*This gluten-free recipe is originally from Free People Blog. Thanks for sharing guys