Pumpkin Week!

I'm still a little pressed for time so I haven't really had much time to cook, but it felt a little silly to do Pumpkin Week in January so I'm doing the best I can. It might be a little shorter than usual, though.

Pumpkin is a very versatile food on the Nutrisystem program. 1/2 cup counts as a veggie serving and 1 cup counts as a fruit, per the dieticians. This makes it easy to incorporate it into the plan.

You've already seen my Crustless Pumpkin Pie, which can be used as a dairy/protein serving, and here are two more recipes that I've tried.

Pancake Mix (Breakfast):

Pumpkin Roll:

1 pkg Nutrisystem Pancake Mix
1/4 cup Egg Beaters
1/3 cup Splenda
1/4 cup pure pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Icing:

2 tbsp Philadelphia Ultra Low Fat Cream Cheese
1 tsp margarine
1/4 cup Splenda
1 tsp vanilla

Mix all the roll ingredients together and spread the batter thinly on a sheet of wax paper. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Top with a sheet of wax paper and roll up the cake and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Mix icing until smooth, and spread it on top of the cake and reroll (minus that second sheet of wax paper!). Chill for an hour. **Makes 2 servings**

Sorry, no photo because my camera messed up. Honestly, it wasn't all that photogenic anyway because it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I thought the batter would spread itself out in the oven, but it didn't, so I got more of a pumpkin cake than anything else. It wouldn't roll. I just cut it in half and put the icing in between like a sandwich to try and get the roll effect. Unfortunately, I found that I didn't like the icing at all, so I wound up scraping it off and just eating the cake. The cake was really delicious though! This counts as a dessert entree (or breakfast)- as prepared with icing, it has 130 calories, 23g of carbs, 3g of fat, and 10g of protein. Next time, I'd just frost it with plain cream cheese though and not mix anything into it. If you want to eat just the cake, eat the whole thing and count it as a breakfast or dessert entree + 1/2 veggie or free food.


Chocolate Chip Pancake Mix (Breakfast):



Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Pancakes:

1 pkg Nutrisystem Chocolate Chip Pancake Mix (or plain mix plus 1tsp chocolate chips)
1/4 cup pure pumpkin puree
1/4 oz macadamia nuts, crushed
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Mix all the ingredients together and cook either as pancakes or pancake puffs (my preference!). Enjoy with sugar free maple syrup, if desired.

I got this recipe from Kompukat on the Nutrisystem boards and it is delicious! Even the name makes it sound decadent. Definitely try this one when you need a pumpkin fix. It counts as your entree, fat serving, and either 1/2 veggie or a free food. I made ten puffs (this batch got a little deformed, sorry!).