People who want to eat as correctly as possible study and introduce into their diet new, previously untested foods. Among them, pumpkin flour has recently been of particular interest. The unusual shade that she gives to the dishes, the original taste - all this makes people take a closer look at the offered goods.
Pumpkin flour: benefits and harms
A lot of good things have been said about the vegetable itself for a long time. But the flour from it is something new and unfamiliar. First of all, flour is made from pumpkin seeds, and not at all from the pulp or peel, as many people think. Accordingly, all the benefits that the seeds can bring go to the product from them. And there are a lot of it.
- Flour contains a rather rare amino acid arginine. In addition to the fact that it is used in sports nutrition, since it contributes to the rapid build-up of muscle mass, arginine establishes circulation in the small pelvis of blood, which, in turn, enhances potency.
- Pumpkin flour also contains glutamine, glycine, valine, phenylalanine, isoleucine - amino acids that strengthen memory, restore immunity and strengthen the nervous system.
- In general, the complex of minerals and vitamins included in flour is a powerful and effective prophylactic against diabetes and anemia.
- Pumpkin seeds and flour from them have a strong antiparasitic effect.
- The therapeutic effect is not the only thing pumpkin flour is valued for. Its use in cosmetology is simply invaluable: it strengthens nails and hair, rejuvenates the skin, and successfully resists the appearance of facial wrinkles. Pumpkin flour masks are among the best in the fight against age.
And this is not the whole list of areas in which pumpkin flour can have a supportive, if not healing, effect. Heart disease, atherosclerosis, kidney and liver diseases - with all these problems, it will provide significant assistance.
With caution, pumpkin flour should be treated only to people with individual intolerance to vegetables and bowel obstruction.
Note that everyone who has already tried pumpkin flour, reviews are left exclusively favorable. Moreover, they relate to both its beneficial effects and the taste of dishes with her participation.
Healthy porridge
It uses almost one pumpkin flour. Most recipes advise combining it with other types of flour, but not in this case. Such porridge is very good for weakened children or people recovering from abdominal operations or serious illnesses: the proteins contained in the flour break down almost completely and are absorbed with ease.
Preparing porridge is extremely simple: boiling water or milk, flour is poured into the liquid in half volume and, with vigorous stirring, boil for no more than two minutes. To increase the seductiveness of the dish, you can add cocoa, dried fruits (dried apricots, raisins, prunes), honey or yogurt.
Fancy meatballs
Lenten menus often baffle even experienced housewives: family members usually refuse to eat meat with difficulty. And here pumpkin flour will greatly help. Fun fact: in combination with carrots, it gives the dish a well-expressed aroma of smoked meats. It will take two large root vegetables. They are minced with a meat grinder; if the carrots are too juicy, it is better to squeeze the juice out of the puree slightly so that the cutlets do not break up. It is mixed with two glasses of pumpkin flour, a bunch of finely chopped herbs, crushed garlic clove and favorite spices. Further actions are traditional: cutlets are molded and fried until a pleasant golden color. Since they are quite dense, it’s tastier to eat with some sauce or juicy vegetables.
Delicious casserole
Pumpkin flour is also very useful to caring mothers: with it you can prepare a delicious and very useful dessert. He will need low-fat cottage cheese (or even fat-free) in the amount of half a kilogram, egg white and pumpkin flour to make a kind of dough. Apples crumble into the mass, you can pour steamed raisins on it, add cinnamon or vanilla to the taste - it all depends on personal tastes and culinary imagination. The mass is distributed in a baking dish, greased on top with whipped yolk, ghee or sour cream - and into the oven. The casserole is dense, but not dry, and is eaten by children almost at the exit of the oven.
Austrian Cupcake
To get a natural delicacy, and not its imitation, you need pumpkin flour, you can not replace it with anything. The squirrels of four eggs with a mixer are brought to persistent peaks with half a glass of sugar. The yolks are rubbed with half its amount. Flour (two cups), a spoonful of baking powder, cinnamon (if you like it) and vanillin are sifted into a bowl. If desired, you can pour a spoonful of rum. The dry components are first mixed with the yolks, then the protein foam is carefully introduced into them. The dough is not too impressive: neither much fluffiness, nor evenness with respect to proteins. But this should not be embarrassing: this fact does not affect the taste and appearance of the cake. The dough is laid out in a greased form, leveled and baked for about half an hour, until the top is covered with a smooth golden crust. The cupcake should cool right in the form. Before calling people to try, the treat should be crushed with icing sugar or doused with icing.
Delicious cookies
Even when creating more familiar types of baking, wheat flour is advised to mix with a small amount of pumpkin. So the goodies are stored longer, not stale, and are more magnificent. In this case, we will need equal volumes - a glass of both. Half a pack (85 g) of butter is softened, and then rubbed with sugar (3/4 cup). Then pumpkin flour is added, plus 75 ml of water, and the components are mixed. Next is wheat, combined with a pinch of vanillin, a little cinnamon and a third spoonful of soda. Everything is kneading again, peeled pumpkin seeds are poured , the dough is rolled into a layer, from which circles are cut out with a glass. They are laid out on a sheet covered with parchment and put into the oven for a quarter of an hour.
Banana buns
For them, in one bowl you need to combine an egg, a glass of low-fat milk, a stack of vegetable oil, vanilla, half a glass of sugar and mashed bananas (about a third of a kilogram). In another bowl, pumpkin flour (a glass), wheat flour (two glasses, the grinding should be coarse), a spoon of soda and a large spoon of baking powder are mixed. Then both masses are combined, kneaded, and the dough is poured into molds. Depending on their size, buns will be baked from 15 to 30 minutes.