FTC Disclosure: Delicious Obsessions may receive comissions from purchases made through links in this article. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.Read our full terms and conditions here.
{Note from Jessica: Today’s post is shared by my sweet friend, Raia, author of Raia’s Recipes. Raia is a homeschooling, stay-at-home mom of five crazy kids. After the birth of her third child, she was diagnosed with celiac disease. This discovery turned her bread and pasta-filled life upside down and set her on a mission to find out what healthy meant for her family. Aspiring to encourage other moms, she started her blog filled with simple, easy, healthy dishes. Stop by Raia’s Recipes to get plenty of real food, gluten-free recipes and much more!}
It’s that time of year again – the leaves begin to fall, the days get a little longer, and pumpkin everything makes it’s appearance once again. What better way to celebrate than with this delicious and easy to make Herbal Pumpkin Mocha?
If you’re anything like me, pumpkin everything never really went away. Pumpkin just happens to be one of my favorite flavors, and I feast on it any time I get the chance. I don’t need a traditional pie to satisfy my pumpkin needs. My tastes run as wide as gummies, brownies, muffins, scones, donuts, smoothies, granola. Since I live in the south, where it’s still in the 80s-90s F, I’m currently trying pumpkin pie creamsicles (we’ll see how they turn out!).
My pumpkin love isn’t an unhealthy thing at all since pumpkins are actually very healthy. They’re rich in antioxidants like lutein, xanthin, ß carotenes, and vitamins A, C, E, and K. Pumpkins are also a good source of B-complex vitamins like folate, niacin, vitamin B-6, thiamin, and pantothenic acid. Add in their copper, calcium, iron, potassium, phosphorus, and zinc content, and they’re bursting with minerals, too!
As an added bonus, pumpkins also contain L tryptophan, a chemical compound that naturally boosts your mood.
That’s a lot of goodness packed into these fruits!
That’s right, pumpkins are actually a fruit. Maybe I’m a little behind, but I always thought that gourds were a vegetable, since they’re usually eaten as such. I guess you really do learn something new every day!
This herbal mocha is a delicious way to sneak the benefits of pumpkins into a tasty drink. While I’m not a huge coffee fan, I do enjoy what my friends call “a little coffee with your cream.” And a mocha fits that nicely.
Traditionally, mochas are made up of 1/3 espresso, 1/6 cocoa, 1/3 milk, and 1/6 foam. But I’m not all about math, and I haven’t quite figured out how to foam coconut milk yet (if you know, feel free to comment on how-to!), so I pretty much just pour equal parts herbal coffee and my homemade coconut milk with lesser equal parts chocolate and pumpkin into a saucepan and heat it up. Easy peasy and SO delicious!
I used Jessica’s Happy Liver Herbal “Coffee” blend for this drink, and it was a perfect fit. You can find her hand-crafted herbal coffee recipes, as well as delicious recipes in her ebook, DIY Herbal Coffee Substitutes.
The health benefits of herbal coffee + coconut milk + nutritious pumpkin + chocolate = definite win. That’s my kind of math. I’m pretty sure you’ll agree it’s the most delicious kind!
Coupons for Herbal Pumpkin Mocha Ingredients
I am always asked about my favorite ingredients and what I use in my own kitchen. I have linked to the products from my affiliate partners that I personally use and recommend. And now, here are the special coupon offers that select affiliate partners are currently offering:
- Thrive Market: If you sign up through this link, you will get 15% OFF your first order.
- Amazon, of course, has everything you need for this recipe. Their prices are often very good, though I love to shop around and sometimes find that Thrive Market has better deals. If you like saving money, it’s good to shop around! 🙂
If you happen to live in the south, or somewhere that never really gets very cold, this herbal pumpkin mocha is also delicious served cold over ice. And thankfully, the level of your whipped cream swirling expertise doesn’t affect the taste.
Herbal Pumpkin Mocha :: Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Dairy-Free, Caffeine-Free
If you're anything like me, pumpkin everything season never really goes away. Pumpkin just happens to be one of my favorite flavors, and I feast on it anytime I get the chance.
Ingredients
- 1 cup Happy Liver Herbal Coffee (or herbal coffee of choice) Get Jessica's proprietary herbal coffee formulas in her new eBook here
- 1 cup coconut milk
- 1/3 c. dairy-free chocolate, grated or chopped
- 1/3 c. pumpkin puree
Instructions
- Put all ingredients in a small saucepan and heat over medium until
chocolate is melted. - Serve hot or over ice with whipped coconut cream and a sprinkling of cocoa powder.
Recommended Products
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 2 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 118Total Fat: 5gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 394mgSodium: 56mgCarbohydrates: 1gFiber: 0gSugar: 0gProtein: 17g
This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered from Nutritionix and we often find their calculations to be slightly inaccurate based on the whole food ingredients we use on this site. Nutrition information can vary for a recipe based on many factors. We strive to keep the information as accurate as possible, but make no warranties regarding its accuracy. We encourage readers to make their own calculations based on the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Support Your Stress Response, Adrenals, Thyroid, and Whole Body Through Herbs
When it comes to supporting overall wellness, herbs are a great tool to have in your toolkit, especially those who may be dealing with chronic illness of some type. Since 2009, when I started this site, I have met thousands upon thousands of people through my work and by far, the #1 health complaints are:
- adrenal fatigue (or adrenal dysfunction of some sort) (click here to read all of my adrenal health articles)
- thyroid disorders (hypo-, hyper-, or autoimmune) (click here to read all of my thyroid health articles)
Because of this, I wanted to add in a section into this post about the benefit of using herbs with chronic illness. Adaptogens are by far one of the most used herbs when it comes to working with people who have low energy, fatigue, and overall imbalance in the endocrine system (thyroid, adrenals, and blood sugar).
While the benefits of adaptogenic herbs extend far beyond just supporting that one system, this tends to be one of the main reasons people turn to adaptogenic herbs in the first place. That said there are a lot of other herbs out there that offer amazing support for the body, especially those dealing with chronic illness which is why I wanted to share this section today.
If you are dealing with any type of chronic illness, I’m sorry to break it to you, but caffeine may not be your best friend. 🙁 While you can find lots of info online in both the pro- and the anti-coffee camps, the fact of the matter comes down to the fact that are a lot of people dealing with chronic illness, especially thyroid and adrenal problems, that simply cannot tolerate coffee and caffeine.
While those with sluggish adrenal glands tend to feel run down and in need of a regular pick-me-up (like coffee and other caffeinated beverages), in the long run, caffeine can do more harm than good while you are healing. I go into the “whys” around caffeine and your adrenals in this detailed post here. In addition to the caffeine, there are other constituents, molds, and mycotoxins that can show up in coffee that some people find they react to and can further exacerbate the toxic load on the body.
When I was diagnosed with autoimmune disease and adrenal fatigue, one of the first things that had to go was coffee. In addition to dealing with these issues, we suspected that I was having some detox pathway sluggishness so we wanted to also focus on supporting the liver and lymph systems. Most people who are dealing with chronic illness are also going to have issues with detoxification of the body, which is why herbs can play such an important role.
To be honest, I never drank coffee because of the caffeine. I drank coffee for the taste and aroma, as well as the emotional experience I felt to my morning cup of joe. For me, it was a ritual that I looked forward to every day (and sometimes multiple times a day). Whether I was brewing it at home or going to my local coffee shops, the experience was one that I clung to tightly.
But, when I was faced with new health struggles, I knew I had to do whatever I could to support my body and give it the tools it needed to heal. Giving up coffee and caffeine was one step in this direction.
And it sucked.
I turned to the coffee substitutes on the market in a desperate attempt to recreate the ritual I had grown so fond of, but nothing ever tasted the way I wanted it to. Nothing ever gave me that same experience that my cup of “real” coffee did. I knew there had to be something better, but I simply could not find it on my health food store’s shelves.
Necessity is the mother of invention so that is why I created my own coffee substitutes. They were made with organic, sustainably harvested herbs with zero grains, zero gluten, and zero caffeine. Just herbs.
Herbs that not only tasted delicious but supported my body’s function, like liver detox, bile production, digestion, etc. All of the herbs used in my “coffee” blends have been used for thousands of years to support the body’s normal functions and help everything work a little better — something we all need in today’s toxic world! (psst, dandelion is one of the herbs!)
When it came to creating these blends, if I could get something to not only tasted amazing (and helped me recreate my dearly loved ritual), but also did amazingly supportive things for my body, then it’s a no brainer!
I sold these pre-made blends on Etsy for awhile and the demand was more than I could keep up with. People literally LOVED these blends and were stunned at how much like coffee they actually tasted. Customers who had been dealing with a variety of chronic illnesses had given up coffee to heal their bodies, but like me were deeply missing their morning cup of joe ritual.
After careful consideration and work with some highly experienced advisors, I decided to stop selling the pre-made blends and instead share my proprietary recipes in the form of an eBook. That way I could arm people with the knowledge and recipes they needed to make their own caffeine-free, gluten-free, grain-free blends in the comfort of their own home.
That is why I created the best-selling DIY Herbal Coffees eBook: A Complete Guide To Making Delicious Herbal Coffees to Support Healing & Stress Relief.
Now in its second edition, this ebook features:
- All of my proprietary herbal blend recipes to you can craft a homemade herbal cup of “coffee” at home.
- A ton of researched information about coffee’s impact on the health of those dealing with issues like adrenal fatigue, blood sugar dysregulation, autoimmune disease, thyroid disease, and any other chronic illness.
- Information about all of the herbs used, why I selected them, how to source them, how to prepare and store you “coffees”, and much more.
- Access to your own personal coffee shop where I show you how to recreate your favorite coffee shop drinks and pastries with wholesome, nourishing real food ingredients. No junk here. Only real food.
This book truly is a comprehensive guide to supporting your health, reducing your stress, and bringing a little something special back into your healing journey. You can learn more and download your own copy of this revolutionary wellness guide here, or simply click on the image below.
Sources on pumpkin goodness:
Delicious Obsessions is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.Read our full terms and conditions here.
2 Comments