Happy October!

I can’t believe September is already over. Time flies.

Bring on the cold-weather! Please?

Anyways, I thought the perfect way to start this month off was to break into a can of pumpkin. After all, it’s almost Halloween!
[A can of pumpkin. Doesn't that sound appetizing?...]

I found 2 cans of pumpkin in my pantry last week, from last year I guess (don’t worry – I checked the expiration date. Doesn’t expire til 2013!) and decided to take one with me to Hong Kong.

So on my first morning here, I decided I would like it with my breakfast.

Quinoa + Apples + Cinnamon + Pumpkin + Pumpkin Pie Spice

Sounds promising right?

I was thinking it would be somewhere along the lines of my apple oats with nut butter.

So first I cooked up some quinoa.

This was my first time trying red quinoa.

I’m pretty sure it taste just like regular ole yellow-looking quinoa.

Then, I heated up a diced apple in a pot with a splash of almond milk, sprinkle of cinnamon + pumpkin pie spice, and about 3 heaping tablespoons of pumpkin.

Mixed it up with the quinoa and added a dash more pumpkin pie spice.

And finished it off by pouring on some heated unsweetened almond milk.

In my mind, this was going to be an amazing breakfast.

But it was the complete opposite.

I took a couple bites and ended trashing the rest of it.

**Light-bulb flashes over my head**
I suddenly remembered why I still had two cans of pumpkin in my pantry from last year.

I don’t like canned pumpkin.

I mean, I love pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread and all that, but there’s something about the raw taste of canned pumpkin that irks me. It’s not tasty.

I do however love japanese pumpkin.

Just not plain canned pumpkin I guess.

So breakfast may have been a bit of a fail, but nothing lunch couldn’t undo.

Since I barely had any quinoa for breakfast, I thought I’d use it as my base again.

And topped it with a can of Amys soup.

Split pea soup + Quinoa

Simple and delicious.
Okay okay, so maybe the photo isn’t so delicious looking, but you can’t really go wrong with soup and a grain.

It was the perfect lunch on a gloomy day.

The weather here in Hong Kong has been cloudy and rainy since I got here. It may be due to the fact that they just had a typhoon the day before I arrived, but I don’t mind at all. I actually love cloudy days.

I especially love it when the sun peaks through the clouds and reflects off the ocean.

It makes for good photos too.

And now I have to get back to work.

I haven’t been blogging as much lately because I somehow all of a sudden became swamped with school stuff. I wonder how that happened…

I’m sure the fact that I watched 5 movies and 6 or so tv shows on my 17 hour plane ride over here may play a tiny part in my mammoth workload.

So now I’m paying the price by sitting in front of the computer all day playing catch up.

At least I get to look out at the ocean every time I look up from my laptop screen.

And whenever the clouds roll out the mountains in the back are visible and so pretty to see.

Oddly enough, the gloominess puts me in a more studious mood.

Study time.

Here’s to an amazing October everyone!

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Do you like pumpkin? And in what form?