Oh my goodness!  It's Fall!  It's Autumn!  Officially...at 5:18 p.m.  It's sad that I know that...

I have a confession.  Wal-Mart is out of pumpkin.  How in the world that happened two days before the first day of Fall is beyond me!  I  checked more than one store and nada!  Nothing.  I plan to track it down over the phone.  If I do nothing else, we're going to eat some scrumptious Pumpkin Pecan Pancakes and Chocolate Gravy today...I hope!

I thought I would share the recipe I've adapted over time.  Everyone eats these up like a horse, getting seconds and thirds, and I always double up the batch to freeze some for the future.

My little kitchen helper, complete with her chef's hat and all!

Pumpkin Pecan Pancakes

4 cups flour ( Most times I use oat flour or half whole wheat half white.  To me, they are far too dense if you use 100% whole wheat, but they're very fluffy if you use oat flour.)
4 T. brown sugar or Sucanat (Seriously, if you've never tried Sucanat, it's very good and you can't tell a difference between it and brown sugar in this recipe.)
4 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. salt
cinnamon to taste
nutmeg to taste

3-4 eggs

1 cup of pure pureed pumpkin (I use canned.)
4 cups buttermilk (or regular milk 'soured' with vinegar)
1/2 cup melted butter (You can use canola or olive oil, as well.)
3/4 to 1 cup chopped pecans

Whisk together your dry ingredients.  Stir in your eggs.  Fold in the remainder of your ingredients.  And you're good to go!  Use a 1/4 cup or 1/2 cup measuring cup for pouring on your griddle.  They'll be similar size and take a similar amount of time to cook.

Chocolate Gravy

3T Cocoa

3T All purpose flour

1 1/2 cups of sugar (Don't use Sucanat here!)

3 cups of water

1 t. vanilla

Whisk all your ingredients together and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook for about 10 to 15 minutes, and remove from the heat.  It will thicken.

The chocolate gravy is just homemade chocolate sauce.  It's amazing on those pumpkin pancakes!  Enjoy!