Can't get enough Pumpkin Pie!

I wanted to share my pumpkin pie recipe with you, not because we celebrate Thanksgiving here in Australia, but after seeing so many pumpkin recipes on the internet at this time of the I was craving one! I've made this recipe twice already and I'm ready to make another!  I do love my pumpkin :-) 

I am always thankful for my loving and supportive family, amazing friends, fur kids, home, and all mother nature has provided me with.  Now I'm at the beginning of a new journey, through healing foods, it's the first time in my life I can begin to feel grateful for my glimpses of health, it's still early days, but I'm truly thankful for the small blessings in daily living.

Yummy and Healthy Pumpkin Pie!

Biscuit Base
Gluten free, dairy free

1/3 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup cashew meal
Pinch of Himalayan salt
1/2 cup melted coconut oil
1/4 cup maple syrup

Mix all these ingredients together, and press into 25 cm pie dish

Pre bake base for approximately 20 mins at 180C or until it's just stating to brown up.

Leave to cool

Pumpkin filling
Gluten free, dairy free

1/2 a butternut pumpkin, baked and puréed, approx 2 cups pumpkin.
1 TSP cinnamon
1/2 TSP nutmeg
1/4 TSP ground cloves
2 eggs
1/4 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup coconut cream
Pinch salt
1tsp vanilla essence

Blend all this together with an electric mixer.  Pour into pie base, and bake at 160C for approx 40 minutes. Make sure filling is cooked through, it will have risen a little and be fully set.

Yum!  Enjoy!

easy to make almond milk

Almond milk, its delicious, and a great alternative to cows milk. It taste great on its own, and I also use it in tea, coffee, cereal, recipes...ice cream, the list goes on.  Considering store bought is quite expensive, it is full of additives, the taste is quite bad in comparison to home made, and the biggie, they usually only use 2% almonds! I weighed this out, and it turned out to be a very very small amount of real almonds in each store bought litre!  In Australia the usual cost is about $4 a litre! Mine costs about $1 a litre and has much more almond in it, is tastier, more nutritious and is so easy to make!

My hands are quite bad from arthritis, so, I can't do the usual cheesecloth squeeze required in many almond milk recipes.  So, I came up with this easy method.

1 cup almonds
Water

Step 1 measure out 1 scant cup of almonds and soak them for 24 hours or so.

Step 2 blend them up with a cup of water for 2 minutes 

Step 3 strain through a sieve and collect milk in a bowl

Step 4 soak out even more milk from almond meal in a separate bowl and pour through sieve again.

You can repeat this several times, depending on how thin you like your milk.  I keep going until I get two and a half litres.

Step 5 squeeze as much liquid out of the meal as you can and let it dry for a couple of days.  You can use your clean hands if you like and squueze, I can't make my hand into a fist, so I use my spatula, then the back of my hand to mix about and press down into the sieve. It still dries up nicely even if its a little wet...just takes a little longer.  I do ask for help with this part generally, to get the meal drier, but I can do it on my own if need be.

Step 6 yummy almond milk!  

Thank you Linda Benson for the original recipe and inspiration to make my own :-)