Pumpkin, Pumpkin and more Pumpkin: Recipes 3

5 min Pumpkin Coffee Cake – in a mug

I came across this recipe here. I absolutely love the idea of the single serving coffee cake. I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights I’ve sat up reading wishing I had a small treat to warm my bones. Plus, since this is all made in one coffee cup there is minimal clean up – Bonus!

This is my adaptation using pumpkin. If you don't want to use pumpkin, you could substitute apple sauce, sour cream, yoghurt or mashed berries.

Cake Ingredients:

1 Tbsp Butter
2 Tbsp Sugar
1 Egg
2 Tbsp pumpkin puree
¼ cup plus 1 Tbsp Flour
1/8 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp pumpkin pie spice (or a combo of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger)
Sprinkle of salt


Crumb Topping:
1 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

In your microwave proof coffee mug, add the Tbsp of butter and microwave for 5 seconds to soften it. With a fork, add in the sugar and stir until completely integrated and slightly fluffy. Add the egg and pumpkin, mix until combined. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until everything is incorporated.

In a separate small bowl, combine the crumb topping ingredients and mix with your fingers until combined and crumbly. Add to the coffee cup.

Microwave for 1 min, stop, then at 10 seconds at a time, microwave for 3-4 more times until a fork stuck into it comes out clean.

I really loved this concept. The cake needs a bit of tweaking, mine came out a bit more like bread pudding than coffee cake but tasted delish! I’m thinking of a ton of possibilities including chocolate coffee cake, coffee flavored coffee cake and one with cream cheese in it instead of the pumpkin.

Yum!

Pumpkin, Pumpkin and more Pumpkin: Recipes 2

Pumpkin Brown Sugar Body Scrub

Ok, I assume by this point you’ve followed directions in my first pumpkin post. So, grab a bag of the mashed pumpkin out of the fridge and lets get started on one recipe.

Pumpkin Brown Sugar Body Scrub

Ingredients:

2 cups Pumpkin puree

2 cups Brown Sugar

1 cup White Sugar

2 tbsp Salt (Sea Salt is best but table salt will work as well)

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp ground ginger

1 cup oil*

* I prefer ¾ cup Neutrogena unscented body oil and ¼ cup unscented baby oil. I always have these on hand as I use the Neutrogena for massages and the baby oil after a shower. The combo of the two, unscented, gives a nice glide, leaves your skin soft but not greasy. You can use Olive Oil, Walnut Oil, Grape Seed Oil or all Baby Oil, or an experiment of any blend you prefer. Remember the smell of the oil will be mixed with what ever seasonings you add in so be sure they combine well.

In a large glass or metal bowl, combine the ingredients and mix with a metal or plastic utensil.

Although it may be tempting to add more of the seasonings to enhance the smell, I would not recommend it as they all can have a burning effect on the skin when used in large quantities.

Dish out the mix into glass or disposable plastic containers, approximately ¼ cup per container. Because this mix has food in it, you need to store it in the fridge and use it with in 3 days. When I make a batch I either share with friends and family or, dish into freezer zip top bags, well labeled, and freeze for use later.

To thaw, just set on the counter or run under warm water until a reasonable temperature. Because of the oil, the mixture shouldn’t freeze fully so thawing time will be short.  

This mix is great to use before you shave as it removes all the dead skin cells around your follicles and creates a closer shave. I don’t even use any shave cream when I shave after a scrub as the oil is a great moisturizer.

Do Not use after you shave since the mix has salt in it! It will burn and ruin the whole relaxing experience!

Pumpkin, Pumpkin and more Pumpkin - Recipes

Pick a Pumpkin…Any Pumpkin.

Safeway has large (ugly) pumpkins on sale this week for $5.99 or if you’re heading out to the pumpkin patch this weekend grab an extra pumpkin. We’re not making pumpkin pie, although you won’t miss it when we’re done, so you don’t need a “pie” pumpkin. Any ‘ol ugly big pumpkin will do.

Start by scooping out the seeds. Then hack the pumpkin up into manageable pieces. Using a melon baller or just a good spoon, scrape out all the stringy bits and toss them. Rub the Pumpkin skin with a bit of olive oil or a sprits of Pam spray.

Arrange on to several cookie sheets and roast at 400 for 20 min’s. Turn off the oven and leave the pumpkins in for another hour.

Meanwhile, rinse the seeds in a colander several times picking out all the orange bits left clinging on for dear life. Scrub dry on a towel, this helps remove some of the slime and will help the seasoning adhere. Once dry, place in a roasting pan.

Mix the following:

2 tbsp melted butter

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp ground cloves

¼ tsp chili powder

Sprinkle of salt

Combine the mix with the pumpkin seeds and roast at 375 for 10-15 min’s. Watch them closely because of the sugar they can burn easily.

(Sorry, no picture of these, I forgot before we devowered them all!)

Once the pumpkin is cool enough to work with, you can peel off the skins, they should come off very easily but a little nudge with a knife can help if needed. Smash up the pumpkin pulp and toss it into a few zip top bags for use later.

If you kiddo’s are like mine and were helping with each step they could and were chomping at the bit to get to the pumpkin, cut it into long rectangles, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar or drizzle with agave nectar and then cinnamon, stick a popsicle stick in it and let them go to town on a Pumpkin pop.

I froze several of these the same way on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and they’ll have them as desert popsicles another time.

Yum!

Later we’re making:

Pumpkin Brown Sugar Body Scrub

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Mashed Pumpkin for a side dish

Pumpkin cookies/whoopee pies

5 min. Pumpkin coffee cake

Pumpkin pie ice cream.

All of that from just our one big pumpkin. Did you get yours yet? Come on, Can’t wait! Trust me, I’ve already been using the body scrub and had a coffee cake yesterday. They’re both divine in their own way. Here’s a sneek preview of the coffee cake:

You make it in a coffee mug in the microwave! How great is that!

Kitty Litter Cake and Brains in a Cup Recipes

I wish I could do my whole Halloween party over again this weekend. Ok, well, maybe not because of all the prep but still, I’ve gotten so many new great food ideas I just want to host a Halloween buffets. Oh, there’s an idea…maybe Halloween night, after school, before Trick-or-Treating. Hum, something to mull over. I’ll definitely be making some bloodied worms, bloody eyeballs and maybe mice meatloaf’s the rest of this week.

As promised, here are the recipes for Kitty Litter Cake and Brains in a cup. Yum!

Kitty Litter Cake

1 Box spice cake mix

1 Box white cake mix

1 Box instant vanilla pudding

1 Container white sandwich cookies

Tootsie rolls in various sizes

Green and Blue food coloring

Bake the cake mixes according to the directions in any pan. Mix the vanilla pudding and chill. Once the cakes have cooled, crumble the cakes together into a large bowl, add the vanilla pudding and mix to combine.

It’s best if you go to the dollar store and buy a new kitty litter pan but a disposable pan will work in a pinch. The scoop is a must in my opinion, it sells the whole thing as a kitty litter pan, plus it really creeps people out to have to serve with it.

In a zip top bag, dump all the sandwich cookies and crush up. This is a great time to get out any buried aggression, not that I have any, just saying. Once they’re pretty pulverized, not into a powder but little chunks, start adding drops of the blue and green food coloring. I usually add 10 or so drops, spread around inside the bag, then reseal it and mix around. Keep adding 10 at a time until the mix is mostly colored. The goal is to get it to look like kitty litter so, some pieces will be darker than others and some will be the sandy color of the white cookies. Dump over the top of the cake spreading evenly.

Now comes the fun part. Unwrap the tootsie rolls, microwave one at a time for 10 seconds then let your imagination run. Twist them into turds, flatten them into piles of diarrhea or dice into little balls like rabbit poop. Use various sizes, combine them, put them next to each other etc. I sometimes mix in one of the green tootsie rolls with one of the brown ones because for some reason, every now and then, cats eat something that causes them to poop something semi-green.

Yum!

Brains in a Cup

2 Box White Cake Mix

2 can’s white frosting

2 cups grape, cherry or strawberry seedless jam

Food Coloring

Clear cocktail cups – disposable or real – or any other clear jar of your choice, jar’s would make a cool specimen looking brain.

Mix the cake mix according to the directions and pour in two 8x11 pans. Drop a few drops of red food coloring onto the surface and swirl a knife in the mix to unevenly distribute.

Bake, then cool.

In a squeeze bottle, heat the jam with 2 tbsp water for 30 seconds. Squeeze a dollop into the bottom of 8 cups.

In a bowl, combine both the white frostings and enough drops of red food coloring to make it pink. Then, scoop a big dollop out into a separate bowl and add two drops of all the food coloring colors. This should produce a black or brown bit of frosting. Mix this back into the pink to produce the delicious brain color.

Using a round cookie cutter slightly larger than the base of the cups, cut out 8 circles, place them on top of the jam dollop in the glasses and drizzle more jam around the edges and onto the top just for taste. Using the top of a spare cup, cut out 8 more circles from the other cake and set aside.

Using a piping bag loaded with your frosting and a #5 round tip, (Walmart, JoAnns or Michales all have these) pipe random swirls, squiggles and lines onto the side of the cup. It doesn’t have to be completely covered. Add in your second circle of cake and then cover it with more brain squiggles.

As the final touch, using a toothpick, drag a line down the center of the frosting then fill the line with a squeeze of your red jam.

Yum!

Halloween

I absolutely love Halloween! I love decorating for it, coming up with creepy food and costumes. This week I hosted BUNCO on Wednesday and a party last night so my house is totally decked out.








My creepy apothecary center piece.



These specimen jars are all over my kitchen and fridge.



One of my favorite things to decorate with is black cut-out's. They're extremely budget friendly, super cute and reusable. The only potential downside is that they're time consuming to cut. Several years back I spent an entire weekend at the kitchen table with my cutting mat, an exact-o knife and several sheets of black and purple poster board cutting out all new decorations. I cut over 100 each of bats, rats and ghosts. I even cut haunted houses with open windows that I backed in yellow so they "glowed." (OCD remember?) I love the rats, they are running all around the baseboards in my house.


Anyone hungry?
Kitty litter cake...








Brains in a cup?


Yum!


I'll share more pictures, some gross recipes and party games in another post soon. For now, after the hospital last weekend, cleaning and cooking for BUNCO and the party, plus Anthony's school festival on Friday night I'm exhausted. I even canceled on going to the pumpkin patch today because I just couldn't muster up the energy. Considering the girls carved pumpkins for the party last night and Anthony loathes carving them it's not a tragedy to cancel but I've always wanted to take them and we were going with another family. Sometimes though, I just can't do it all. I needed today off.

Well, sort of off. I still have a bit of party clean up and I have to show a CL item tonight plus finish the laundry that Glenda the Good witch started for me yesterday. Oh well, sort of an off day.

The slowest time, the loudest sound

I'll never understand why a clock ticks louder when you don't want to hear it. So much of my life flys by with the sounds of my kids, my husbands comforting voice, family, friends and the whirl of an espresso machine. Never, in those moments do I hear the clock.

My G-ma is in the hospital right now and I swear I can hear every tick of every clock in perfect synchrony as if I were listening to it through headphones.

We don't know for sure what's wrong with her or if she'll be released soon. We're playing the waiting game and no one seems to be in a hurry. Last night shortly after midnight when I was racing the paramedics to G-ma's door I swear I could hear the digital clock in my car switching over; 12:41....click, 12:42....click, 12:43....click. Then, after the paramedics evaluated her and had her loaded in the ambulance, they were walking, normal paced walking, back to the fire truck, back to close the ambulance doors and back to the driver seat. The clock wouldn't move, everything was at the same slow pace as the paramedics foot falls. The logical side of my brain reminded me that their lack of hustle meant it wasn't an emergency to race the clock against. Good, right? Except that's my G-ma. Run damn it! Race to the hospital, make her comfortable, fix her and do it fast! But life doesn't work that way.

Now, tonight, she's seemingly better but we're waiting on one Dr. for an evaluation. Run damn it! Race to get her evaluated, make her comfortable, find what's wrong so we can fix it and get out of this clock ticking, machine beeping, sterile smelling prison. Again, logically, I know that the lack of rush means the situation is not an emergency that can be fixed better with quick action. Except that's my G-ma!

I remember being in this same hospital for births, near deaths, surgeries and other life changing events and every time I feel haunted by the damn clocks. The hustle and bustle going on outside the door somehow pails to the tick tock. The t.v volume never gets louder than the clock. Even the cafeteria with its comfort inducing grease food and tables full of people still has over a hundred clocks ticking away.

I remember walking these halls belly first in a hospital gown leaning on my husband and any nearby pillar for support as contractions slowly brought Anthony closer and closer into my arms. I remember counting my toe-socks shuffle down the halls. Counting in time to the clock. Tick, tick, tick. Loathing and relishing every time I wouldn't make it to the next minute before a contraction hit.

To be fair, I have to admit the tick has haunted me outside of these hospital walls. Pappy's wrist watch was hooked up to a megaphone that blasted next to my head each and every tick for each and every hour I laid there with him as he was dying. The comfort of my Papa's house was marred by the same clock so loud I could feel each jarring tick deep with in my bones as we watched the cancer force his good bye.

I wonder, when my time comes, God willing many, many years from now, if I will relish each second I still have surrounded by family or once again loath the tock for each moment it's robbing me of? Or making me wait? Or making my family suffer the sound?

Snickerdoodle cookies

I was on the phone with Brad today when one of his co-workers yelled "Cookies!" from somewhere in the background. Brad said he had mentioned my mega cooking day and the boys asked for: Cookies! Usually they request monkey bread or soup. I often bring in food the day before Brad has a day off. I tell the office they can help themselves to the food only if they don't bother Brad on his day off. Sometimes it works. Sometimes.
Tonight, after being forced into slave yard labor today, I wanted to make something yummy, quick and that I had all the ingredients on hand for. Snickerdoodles it was. Typically they call for baking soda and cream of tartar but my soda was flat ( you can tell if you put a tsp into water and it doesn't bubble right away) and I'm pretty sure my cream of tartar has seen 10 years inside my cabinet. This recipe came from Joy if Baking and used baking powder instead. Great cookie, but tastes more like a sugar cookie rolled in cinnamon-sugar than a true snickerdoodle. Oh well, I'm betting the guys at work won't complain.





Snickerdoodles:

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla

Coating:
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugar until smooth (about 2 to 3 minutes). Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat until you have a smooth dough.

Shape the dough into 1 inch round balls.

Coating: In a large shallow bowl mix together the sugar and cinnamon. I use a paper plate to roll the dough in the cinnamon sugar but a bowl works too.

Roll the balls of dough in the cinnamon sugar and place on a parchment paper lined pan, (or buttered piece of foil if you're out of parchment - like me) spacing about 2 inches apart.




I put the pans into the freezer for a few min's to keep them from spreading too much when cooked.

Bake the cookies for about 6-8 minutes, or until they are light golden brown and firm around the edges. The centers of the cookies will still be a little soft. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.


Yum!

(Yes, there's a hand in my jar of popcorn, isn't it creepy? I love Halloween!)

Letting my inner lazy out.

“Today I don’t feel like doing anything

I just wanna lay in my bed.”

(Lyrics from Bruno Mars: The Lazy Song)

Yea, that’s me today, not gonna do any thing, well, I’m going to download a new book and if my day goes to plan, I’m going to read the entire thing today. Yesterday’s mega cooking day was exhausting both physically and mentally for oh so many reasons that I am giving up on today and just going to let my inner lazy out. Thankfully I cleaned up the entire house, did all the laundry and micro-scrubbed the kitchen on Monday so the damage from one lazy day isn’t going to be massive. I still have a million and one things to do before next week but I just can’t muster up the enthusiasm to care today. I’m going to curl up in my reading chair and let my kids vegg out with Sponge Bob.

It actually takes mental effort for me to be lazy. I’m sitting on the sofa right now and there are three pieces of trash on the floor, the mixer is still out from when I unloaded last night and I think the breakfast dishes are still on the counter. I actually need to distract myself in order to not focus on cleaning up, hence the book for today. A good ‘ol trashy, sappy, girly romance ought to be a perfect source of distraction. Lets hope the house doesn’t fall apart from one day of laziness…

Mega cooking day

Tomorrow’s another mega cooking day. It feels like it has been forever since we’ve done one and my freezer definitely needs it. I’ve been so lax on cooking lately because so much of my attention has been on homework with Anthony and furniture for flipping. We had a yard sale this weekend to try and weed out our furniture inventory but most of our large items weren’t priced to move at a yard sale. People were looking for the type of deal we first purchased the items for not the price we’re now charging.

Anyways, tomorrow there is three of us cooking so hopefully we’ll get a lot done. The plan is:

Banana Bread/Muffins

Apple Bread/Muffins

6 Apple Crisps

Apple Sauce

White Chicken Chili

Chili (beef and bean)

Chicken Tortilla Soup

6 Lasagnas

12 Mini-Pizzas

18 Chicken pot pies

Shredded BBQ pork

Shredded taco pork

6 Enchilada pies

I’m going to try to take some pictures as we go to show our madness, or method, how ever you choose to view it.

Earning my Keep

This flipping business is hard work. Ok, well maybe not hard work, but harder than I thought. I’m on Craigslist (CL for short – and trust me I type it so many time a day I need a shortcut somewhere in my life) all the time and have gone into so many disgusting homes my skin is dried out from the gallons of sanitizer and extra showers. Ironically I’m not a hand sanitizer person, just don’t believe in the hype of it, but I actually now carry some in my car for when I leave a house. I went into one yesterday or the day before, looking at a solid wood toy chest advertised as “good” condition. Their idea of “good” condition included a cat pee stain(s) inside the toy chest leaving it smelling of a litter box. Can you just imagine what the house looked like if that’s what they considered “good?”

Yea, I used sanitizer after that one.

Not all of them are bad, most are nice houses and nice people. Occasionally we get a weirdo or two but that’s why we use our safety precautions. But, not all nice houses or nice people equate to clean furniture. I bought a sofa sectional from a really nice guy and his wife. They listed the sofa on CL, plus listed a yard sale. I contacted them immediately. It was a beautiful curved microfiber sectional sofa, less than 3 years old, used in a ‘fancy’ living room only. They had the price low (not so low that we questioned the quality or circumstances – trust me, those are factors) so I set up to go see it first thing. Long story short, after multiple conversations with the couple, multiple visits to their clean house, I bought the sofa for even less than advertised. We moved it, staged it with beautiful pillows, a colorful blanket and a crisp background, and then moved it again. Before the person came to see it, it was my job to set it back up, clean it up in any way it needed. Mostly just combing the fabric, it was a microfiber so the direction of the fibers dictates the color; they all have to be the combed the same way. Plus there were a few water spots and one spot I had to scrub. Now, keep in mind, I had picked this up and moved it three times before this person was coming to see it: once when I bought it, once to stage it and once to set it up prior to sale.  I wasn’t there for the final sale and I’m so glad I wasn’t, I think I would have puked! When the person came to see it, she had the smart idea to move the cushions. (Um, why didn’t I think of that? I assumed since I’d moved it 3 times, flipped it over about as many times and there was never a twitch in the cushions that they didn’t come off) Guess what she found? Food and used Q-tips. Bleh!!! So, not only did we (not me thank goodness) have to play cool about the gunk but had to pick up the Q-tips as if they belonged to one of us. Bleh!!! Thankfully, the person had a good sense of humor about it and still purchased the sofa for more than double what we paid. But, seriously, Bleh!

Most of the work is in the staging of the photos. We firmly believe that a good, clean, crisp background is the key to a good sale. If it’s a decent piece of furniture but the house is a disaster and there’s junk all over it, no one’s going to pay more than $20. Clean it up, stage it with nice accents, make the house look nice in the background and the same piece of furniture can go for $100-$200. I kid you not! All of that means though, that I have to have a place to put all these tables, sofas, hutches, book cases, etc…And, a place that has a good, clean background and polished accents. The accents aren’t such a task but, moving my furniture out of the way, setting up the new one, wrangling up the kids out of the picture, moving the toys, making sure the dog is out of the way, the floors are vacuumed, the counter in the back is clear, the mirror doesn’t have hand prints on it…its exhausting! Plus, after all that, I have to take back down the piece and put back my things, then do it all again when a potential buyer shows up. None of that includes the pieces that need work. Some need cleaning – real cleaning- some need polishing, sanding and or re-covering. Yea, we’ve made good money but I’m earning my keep for sure!

On a completely separate side note, Anthony has started receiving prank calls from girls. Yep, my little innocent 10 year old boy is getting prank calls from girls at school. They’re calling my number (it’s listed as the primary contact in the school directory) pretending to be another boy in Anthony’s class and then giggling like only a pre-teen girl can. It would be cute if it wasn’t annoying. It would be endearing if it wasn’t the beginning of the end. Right around the corner is the crying girls wanting to know why my son broke their heart, and my son’s heart getting broken. Oh joy!