Pumpkin Overload!

With the fall weather on its way (at least in the South), we are all looking forward to fall foods. Some of my favorite fall foods involve butternut squash and sweet potatoes. Lately there has been a HUGE craze about pumpkin. Don't get me wrong, I love pumpkin pie but I haven't ever put much thought into using it in other ways.

Today, when I was planning my weekly meals, I remembered I need to make a dessert for next Sunday's Sweets post. I asked my hubby what dessert he loved most and his answer? Cheesecake. Of course I wasn't just going to make plain cheesecake, I needed to give it a kick! I decided to make little pumpkin cheesecakes bites. I promise I am not trying to be a tease, because this recipe will be posted Sunday, but I wanted to at least explain why I am writing about pumpkins today!

With all of the wild pumpkin talk going on, I figured I should find out what is so great about them. First of all (and sometimes most important) they are super tasty! Now I don't mean fresh pumpkin, a la the leftovers from your Halloween carving! I mean the yummy puree that comes in a can!

I used the Libby's Pumpkin puree today...and may or may not have licked the can :) It was DELICIOUS! I really think I may start adding it to other things like oatmeal and maybe make one of those awesome sandwiches Caitlin has made.

What are some of your favorite pumpkin recipes?

Now why is pumpkin so awesome? Well it tastes yummy, and has some pretty great nutritional info!

One cup of Libby's puree had:

80 calories

0g fat

10g fiber

And how about the awesome Vitamin A and C that pumpkin provides?! (obviously I have jumped on the pumpkin bandwagon)

That is a lot of fiber from one delicious squash! Do you want to know some other awesome things? While researching pumpkin recipes, I came across these fun pictures and world records.

The world's largest pumpkin pie was 20 feet in diameter and weighed 3,699 pounds! That is a lot of fiber!

The world's largest pumpkin? It was grown by Chris Stevens and yes the record was set YESTERDAY!!! The giant pumpkin weighed in at 1810.5 pounds! Whoa!

On the note of carving here are some cool carved pumpkins from ExtremePumpkins.com to get your creative juices flowing this season.

On a closing note, check out the pumpkin preserving page. Apparently you can use Clorox Cleaner with Bleach to help your pumpkin friends stay fresh for the trick-o-treating season.

Happy Pumpkining!