Pumpkin power bites and soup of the week

So I woke up with Pumpkin puree on the brain.  I can't really have something sitting in my fridge without a plan for it.  So the extra pumpkin for the pancakes we made on Saturday, I found this recipe from Pinterest.

I simply mixed all the ingredients as directed and then felt it needed a bit more bulk.

After all was said and done; I used 1/2 cup of homemade almond butter as the nut butter, 1/2 cup of chopped 90% dark chocolate as the chips, 1/4  cup of chopped almonds as the nuts,  and to the recipe I added 1/2 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder and 1/2 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut to bulk up the recipe.  I rolled these and put them in the fridge, after one bite I decided the texture was too soft and so I put them in the freezer.  Boy, was I right I will be keeping these in my freezer. I've already gone into the container 4 times since lunch; they are perfect with a cup of herbal chocolate chai tea.

Now for the soup of the week!  I decided to make a farmers sausage, spinach and chick pea soup.  My soups pretty much start the same way every time.  Onion and  celery sauteed with grapeseed oil and salt and pepper.

I decided to add diced carrot to this recipe, so my sous-chef helped me peel carrots from my friends garden. 

Then to the pot I added chopped farmer's sausage.

I added in a brick of thawed diced spinach leaves and stirred that all up. (This is a great time saver and money saver!)

Lastly I added in 2 litres of homemade chicken stock, a packet of onion soup mix, 2 cans of rinsed chickpeas and 8 cups of water.

I let this simmer for an hour or so and then served it up to my biggest critics.

They absolutely loved it.  I put the soup in jars while it was hot so they would seal.  I got 8 1-litre jars of soup and that was after we ate our fill!

Now for another pumpkin ball!