Pumpkin Honey Scrub

Although this blog is about food, I've decided to share the occasional skin care recipe with you. As you may or may not remember from school, your skin is the largest organ of your body & it absorbs nutrients. I love the idea of making my own lotions & scrubs; I control what goes into the finished product & it costs much less than buying a commercial product. I'm not a complete "crunchy mama", but since I have oily skin, making some products to alleviate excess oils & acne saves me money, plus, I just plain enjoy the process! I'm not militant about using organic ingredients, although I do purchase them if they're not much more expensive than regular ingredients & I figure if you're going to be slathering food on your body, you should probably use the highest quality you can afford. 

I love baking soda for facial exfoliation. It's gentle but effective & I really like how I can get right into the crease between my nose & cheek. Anyway, pumpkin is full of pro-vitamin A which is another name for beta carotene & your body converts that pro-vitamin to Retinol which is great for your skin! Ground cinnamon, besides adding a yummy scent & a little extra scrubbing action, is a source of anti-inflammatory properties. And finally, raw honey. Honey has been used in traditional medicine & food preservation from the beginning of time & it smells incredible. It's also has hygroscopic properties which is the scientific way of saying that honey, like sugar & salt, has the ability to attract moisture directly from the air. Adding honey to the mix increases the amount of moisture in the scrub which is excellent for your skin.

Ingredients:

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 cup baking soda

1/4 cup raw honey

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Mix all ingredients together in a medium bowl. Transfer to clean storage containers, label, & store in fridge between uses.

Yields approximately 2 cups.

Cook's Notes:

1. You probably don't need to be told how to use an exfoliating scrub--get wet, gently scrub, & rinse with tepid water. This scrub is gentle enough to use on your face & you can also use it on other body parts: on your legs before shaving, under your arms (which you should exfoliate to remove dead skin & deodorant residue), on your elbows, & of course your hands.

2. Honey attracts water (as we just discussed) & diluting honey can cause fermentation which will ruin the scrub. I highly recommend storing the scrub in the fridge to retard spoilage & just scooping some into a smaller container to use in the bathroom.

3. As delicious as Pumpkin Honey scrub smells, do not eat it. Baking soda is not tasty.

I have to admit, this is another exception to my "anti-pumpkin flavored everything" issue, mainly because I'm not ingesting it. Drop me a line if you make & use the scrub; I'd love to hear what you think about it.

Tawny Pumpkin Pie

You know how I was ranting about not liking pumpkin flavored everything? Well, pumpkin pie is the exception and so were some muffins from Albertson's that had cream cheese in them--yum! I generally don't buy baked goods, except for doughnuts and Danishes, but those muffins were amazing. 

Thanksgiving is early for me this year; it's this coming Sunday, the 15th. As my siblings have plans for the actual day with their in-laws, it's become our tradition to gather together either on a weekend before or after Thanksgiving Thursday. I don't mind celebrating on a different day because all that matters is family and food. And Scrabble. And coffee. 

Anyway, I called my grandma to see if she was willing to host and the first thing she asked was if I would make the pies because she loves my pies. And that's a great thing to hear from anyone but especially from a grandma! We call my grandma, Nana (pronounced Naah-naah) and she has cooked family dinners for years. Decades actually. So, we told Nana that us grand-kids would do all the cooking and provide all the food this year. She's still making her scalloped corn because she is constitutionally incapable of not making one or more dishes for a gathering, but we're providing every thing else.

As for this recipe, I'm not entirely sure why it's called "tawny" other than the fact that most pumpkin pies bake up a nice tawny brown. Which is silly because it's like calling broccoli, "emerald broccoli" or white rice, "ivory rice". At any rate, I received a copy of the recipe from a former co-worker who had found it in a community cookbook from 1977. 

Ingredients:

One unbaked pie crust (at least 9 inch) in a glass dish

1 1/4 cup pumpkin puree

1 cup evaporated milk

2 eggs

3/4 cup white sugar

2 tablespoons water

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Whisk all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Place the pie plate on a baking sheet for stability and carefully pour the mixture into the unbaked crust.

Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until the middle just barely jiggles and is no longer wet.

Cook's Notes:

1. It is perfectly acceptable to use frozen pie crust. Lightening will not strike you down. I like the Marie Callender pie crusts when I don't have the time (or the energy) to make my own from scratch.

2. Some of the ingredients might seem odd, like flour and water. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why it calls for water unless the creator of the recipe needed more liquid and didn't have any more evaporated milk. The flour, even the small amount called for, contributes some starch to the filling which helps it set. I haven't messed with any of the proportions because baking requires more precision than cooking does as far as swapping ingredients. If you or a loved one needs the filling to be gluten-free, you could use arrowroot powder instead or omit it all together and it'll probably be just fine.

3. The absolute best topping ever for a pumpkin pie is whipped cream, ideally, freshly made whipped cream. Although, you really can't go wrong with classic Cool Whip or even the canned stuff.