The Food Lover's Challenge: Pumpkin for Life

When I suggested a challenge involving eating as much pumpkin as possible, I had no idea how intense it would get. Apparently Kate loves pumpkin as much as I do, which I wasn't sure was possible. She came into work every day telling me that I was going down. And that fueled my fire to want to win this competition even more. We both cooked a ton and, when we didn't have the time to make things from scratch, just threw canned pumpkin in everything.

On Monday, Kate and I went through our phones and counted up the pictures we'd taken of all our recipes. My pumpkin consumption had dwindled over the weekend and I hadn't made some much anticipated recipes, so I had accepted the fact that I'd likely lose. Somehow,  though, despite all of our hard work and our trash talk, we ended up each consuming 21 pumpkin dishes. At first, we called it a tie but, after all of our hard cooking and our excitement, a tie just wouldn't cut it. I told Kate I'd rather lose to her than settle on a boring tie.

So we are leaving it up to you, loyal readers of the weekly Food Lover's Challenge posts, to vote for the winner. Take a look at all of our tasty pumpkin dishes pictured and listed below and then leave a comment with your unbiased opinion of which assortment of dishes you would rather eat in a week.

1. Pumpkin and steak hash with an egg beater
2. Pumpkin chili
3. Pumpkin cheesecake
4. Pumpkin beer
5. Pumpkin cheddar crackers with cheese and pumpkin butter
6. Pumpkin cream cheese muffins
7. Pumpkin crusted steak
8. Pumpkin granola with greek yogurt
9. Pumpkin incense (pictured). Mozerella balls dipped in pumpkin butter (not pictured).
10. Spinach salad with baked pumpkin
11. Pumpkin martini
12. Pumpkin pancakes with pomegranate seeds
13. Pumpkin butter, mozerella, and grilled pumpkin pizza
14. Pumpkin muffin
15. Pumpkin seeds
16. Pumpkin ravioli
17. Pumpkin spice latte
18. Savory Spanish pumpkin dish
19. Pumpkin ice cream
20. Pumpkin soup
21. Pumpkin, cucumber, and leek juice (remains in juicer pictured).

1. Pumpkin applesauce
2. Baguette with pumpkin butter and goat cheese
3. Pumpkin beer
4. Pumpkin bread
5. Kashi cereal with pumpkin vanilla soymilk
6. Pumpkin chicken salad on sesame kaiser roll
7. Everything bagel with pumpkin butter
8. Pumpkin and honey oatmeal
9. Pumpkin rice crispy treat
10. Pumpkin seeds
11. Pumpkin souffle
12. Pumpkin butter glazed pork chop
13. Pumpkin crumble cake
14. Pumpkin cream cheese muffin
15. Pumpkin pancakes with greek yogurt and pumpkin butter
16. Rosemary turkey, chevre, and pumpkin butter sandwich
17. Peanut butter, banana, apple, and pumpkin butter sandwich
18. Pumpkin and ricotta pasta casserole with green beans
19. Pumpkin mashed potatoes
20. Pumpkin gingersnap milkshake
21. Chicken and penne pasta in pumpkin cream sauce

So... what do you think? Be honest!

Thanks for your input and don't forget to enter my Sparkly Soul giveaway!