Chickpeas & Spice

October has been unseasonably warm (and smoky) here in the Pacific Northwest but that hasn’t stopped our minds from moving toward cozy fall foods like pumpkin bread and hot apple cider. Anne loves this recipe for pumpkin bread and makes it every fall. It has a delicately crisp crust when fresh from the oven and is deliciously soft the following days.

Anne likes to make the pumpkin puree from scratch, but mostly just to make roasted pumpkin seeds and fill the house with pumpkin scented steam. If you don’t want to make the pumpkin puree from scratch you can use canned pumpkin. We recommend you make sure you are getting canned pumpkin or canned squash and not pumpkin pie filling. The cans can look similar, but pumpkin pie filling usually has spices and sugar in the can which would change the taste of the end product.

Anne always makes this in a bundt pan. If you don’t have this, feel free to use a different pan but know the timing will likely be slightly different. If you try it in another pan and it goes well feel free to share in the comments what timing you used and any tips for your pan.

We are planning to take November and December off from posting to get in a little recharge. We are excited to get back to sharing recipes with you again January 3rd.

Pans required: bundt pan

Serves: 8-12

Time: 1 1/2 hours (1/2 hour active)

Ingredients

1 cup oat flour

2 cups white flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

4 eggs

1 cup neutral oil, like sunflower, safflower, or vegetable

1 cup coconut sugar

2 cups winter squash puree

1 cup plus a sprinkle chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Mix the oat flour, white flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. Mix the remaining ingredients other than the (optional) chocolate chips in a large bowl. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until mostly combined. Add the chocolate chips and stir until the white powder of the flour just disappears. Don’t overmix or your gluten can get very chewy. Pour into an oiled Bundt pan and bake 1 hour.

Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before carefully inverting the cake onto a serving plate. Delicious hot or cooled completely.

Anne was seven when they were first told that dairy and sugar were making them sick. This meant that many birthday parties were full of food they couldn’t eat and parents complaining that Anne was too difficult. In some cases they were even un-invited from the birthday party because the parents didn’t know how to provide food in a way that would be inclusive (or even allow Anne to bring their own food).

Camille’s mom was the first of Anne’s friend’s parents to cook food with Anne’s food needs in mind. If you have food allergies, you know the sheer joy of arriving to a party finding there is food you can eat because someone thought of you specifically. There is so much joy in a meal that was created with you in mind. It’s receiving love on so many levels.

Apple crumble was the first dessert that Camille’s mom made for us after Anne’s food allergies were identified and we still love it to this day. Cooking the recipe brings up warm loving feelings of home and the joy of not being a burden, but just being loved by family. Eating it is bliss, because, well, it’s a very good recipe.

Serves: 4-6

Time: 1 1/2 hrs, 45 min active

Ingredients

Filling

4 apples, peeled and sliced

3 T maple syrup

1 T cinnamon

2 T cornstarch

Topping

3/4 cup almond pulp (can use almond flour here)

3/4 steel cut oats (gluten-free option)

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp salt

2 T coconut sugar

1 T maple syrup

1/2 cup pecans or walnuts (optional candied nuts if you have them)

1/2 c vegan butter, cold

Pre-heat the oven to 375 F.

Peel and slice the apples into thin wedges. Toss them in a bowl with all the filling ingredients until evenly coated. Put in the bottom of a casserole dish or a deep pie pan around the size of 8X8. Using the same bowl, put the almond pulp, oats, cardamom, cloves, salt, and coconut sugar together and mix until fully incorporated. Next you cut the butter into by using your hands to quickly pinch the butter with the other ingredients until you have evenish small chunks of butter throughout the crumble topping. These chunks should be about the size of a pea or slightly larger. Drizzle the maple syrup onto the mixture and add the pecans. Use a fork to quickly toss this together being careful not to overmix or melt the butter. Spread the topping out over the apple filling and bake for about 40 minutes. After 40 minutes the topping should have become more solid and less like individual bits of oats as well as being slightly browned and crispy at this point bring the crisp out. It is done cooking now so you can try to eat it hot, although we recommend cooling it slightly to avoid burning yourself. Enjoy!