Tasty Tuesday: Pumpkin Patch Pancakes

Before I tell you about today's recipe, I wanted to give you a few pumpkin pointers! Pumpkins are a great vegetable from the winter squash family, packing many great nutrients like Vitamin A and Beta Carotene. The smaller the pumpkin, the better (sweeter) it will be for cooking. If you just want the pumpkin for the seeds, the bigger the better. To cook the pumpkin you will want to scoop out the seeds, cut the pumpkin into five or six pieces, then bake on 350 for about an hour. Just check tenderness with a fork to tell if it's done. While you can eat any pumpkin from our patch, we have smaller pumpkins inside the Barn for baking purposes. For a great list of pumpkin recipes, see Real Mom Kitchen's list here.

Pumpkin Patch Pancakes

Mix up your favorite pancake mix according to package directions. For every cup of dry mix used, mix in the following:
¼ cup canned pumpkin
½ tsp. pumpkin pie spice (If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice on hand you can make your own. See recipe below.) Cook pancakes as you normally would.

Apple Cider Syrup

1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
4 cups Red Barn apple juice

In a sauce pan mix together, sugar, cornstarch, and pumpkin spice. Stir in apple juice. Bring to a boil, remembering to stir occasionally. Boil until desired thickness. Remove from heat and serve over Pumpkin Patch Pancakes or give it a try over regular pancakes.

Pumpkin Pie Spice

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Mix and store.