31 Days of October: Day 3... Low Carb Maple Pumpkin Snowsquall

**ALERT!** This is a seriously delicious dessert.  Be warned!

What's this low carb girl with a sweet tooth to do when that old familiar craving for a "Snowsquall" from "Milky Majesty" hits her?  Create her own, reduced carb version, that's what!
I should've seen it coming, really. Two separate occurrences converged into one irresistible urge!

One: A few nights ago I had checked what is the "Snowsquall of the Month" at "Milky Majesty" for this month  just so, you know, I could torture myself see if it was even something worth craving. I should have guessed the flavor since October must mean "all things pumpkin" in another language.

Two:  Today is unseasonably warm and terribly muggy!  The sky was overcast, masking the real story, so when I went out for my morning walk I was surprised by the temperature.  We had turned the air conditioning back on, you see, because it was excessively humid in the house last night so I was easily fooled by the lack of sunshine.   I was hot and wanted something cold! 

So, when I got home from my walk, I decided that today is the day I would create a recipe for a pumpkin smoothie.  Easy as that!  I took stock of all the ingredients that I thought I might need for such a creation and found that I lacked only one thing... PUMPKIN!  I made a quick trip to the grocery store then set myself up for a morning of blending.

I knew I didn't want to add much, if any ice.  My blender isn't very powerful so when I make smoothies there tends to be larger chunks of ice so the less ice, the better.  To make sure that the smoothie was sufficiently cold enough to mimic a "Snowsquall" I froze the pumpkin in small blobs for a couple of hours.  This gave me plenty of time to eat my breakfast, read my devotional, write down all the carb counts of everything I might use as an ingredient, decide which ingredients to use for the first try, have a light-hearted conversation with my son, hold one baby while my daughter-in-law fed the other, have a text conversation with my daughter about her test anxiety and write down a few blog ideas!  I'm not usually a morning person but I'm feeling a bit manic today so I'm going with it!  Oh, yeah, and I learned how to watermark my photos earlier this morning.  But I digress...

I have been such a woman on a mission all morning about this smoothie that I even forgot to eat breakfast before going to the grocery store and now it is way past my lunchtime and I haven't even thought about what to eat!  You who know me personally have GOT to be impressed by that!  For those of you who don't, let me tell you... this woman never forgets to eat!  Then to top it all off (and this sort of thing almost never happens to me) but... I GOT IT RIGHT ON THE FIRST TRY!!!

I really hope you make this recipe.  It is seriously delicious!  And using frozen pumpkin made all the difference.  The icy chunks that were left softened quickly after they left the glass and added to the "Snowsquall" feel of it anyway so I found it to be pleasing.  I plan to make plenty of these in the coming months and years! 



LOW CARB MAPLE PUMPKIN SNOWSQUALL
Serves 1

1/2 C pumpkin puree (plain!)
1/4 C sugar-free pancake syrup
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 oz cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 C very cold water
1/4 C light cream

Put blobs of pumpkin in freezer for at least 2 hours before blending. Put all ingredients except for light cream in a blender.  Blend until almost smooth, add cream and pulse to incorporate.  Pour into a glass. Enjoy!

Carb count varies according to brand so keep that in mind when purchasing your ingredients!

Total Carbs:  23g
Fiber:  5g
Sugar Alcohol: 11g
Net Carbs:  7g