Pumpkin, Pumpkin and more Pumpkin: Recipes 5

This is my mom’s recipe and one of my favorite applications for pumpkin. Sadly, there are no pictures because if I made these I’d be too tempted to eat two with coffee in the morning, one after lunch, maybe one for snack, a few after dinner…see, bad things happen when I make these. Plus add in the temptation of all the Halloween candies around my house and I’m sure you’ll understand why I am only sharing the recipe and not making the cookies for pictures.

If you have more self control than I do, by all means, go, right now, make these yummy cookies!

Pumpkin Cookies

1 Cup Sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup pumpkin

1 Tsp baking soda

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp cloves (or 1/2 tsp cinnamon)

1 cup nuts (pecan or walnut)

Cream the sugar and the shortening together until light and fluffy. Add in the egg, then the pumpkin. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, soda, salt and spices. With the mixer on low, add the flour to the wet ingredients until incorporated. Using a wooden spoon, mix in the nuts.

Drop by spoonfuls onto a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 15-18 min.’s

These are great as they are but are even better with a light powder sugar glaze over top. Just mix ½ cup powder sugar with enough water (1 tsp at a time) until a thin runny consistency. Drizzle over top of the cookies and serve with a good cup of coffee.

Yum!

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!

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!

Lemon-licious!

Yesterday I mustered up the courage to tackle the girls room and actually accomplished the task. (Somewhere in there I forgot to start the lemon curd so we had stirfry last night instead.) I cleaned it all out and took out a whole box of donation toys. Seriously, I don’t know where these toys came from, I swear I just cleaned it all out a month or two ago and yet there was still an entire box full of things to donate. I haven’t figured out a storage solution for their stuff yet, its still too easy for them to make a mess. I need something for their million baby dolls and something else for their toys. Either way, I got it all cleaned up and semi organized into some bins in the closet. I did have a bit of motivation considering someone was coming at 7p to look at the bunk beds. What ever works right? The person liked the beds and will be back to pick them up on Sunday since it was pouring down rain last night. I sold it for double what I bought them for. Yea! Now I’m searching for new, new, bunk beds for them.

Today, I started the lemon curd (yea for remembering!) and worked in Anthony’s room all day finishing the painting. The only thing left is to sew his curtains and that’s first on my list tomorrow. After that I’ll post some pictures, I think it looks pretty awesome and he’s super proud of it.

With the lemon curd I made lemon chicken for dinner and a lemon and dark chocolate tart as a sweet treat. I really need to stop cooking. Every time I find a new recipe, like this one, I cook myself out of a dinner out. Brad’s theory is why go out to dinner when I can make it so much better at home. I really need to be a bad cook, then we’d go out to dinner more often and I’d get a break. Oh well, regardless, it was a delish dinner. One I guarantee I’ll be making again and tweeking, like maybe orange curd into orange chicken. Yum!

Luscious Lemon Curd in the Crock Pot

(Curd is not as gross as it sounds, its basically a lemon jam/jelly)

3 Large Lemons

6 tbsp butter room temperature (or nuked for 10 seconds)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 egg yoks

Zest all the lemons.

If you don’t have a zester, use a very sharp knife and take off just the yellow part, the white is bitter. (Get a zester, totally worth it) Juice the lemons. In your mixing bowl, or with a hand held mixer, blend the butter until soft, add the sugar and blend for 2 min’s. Add the eggs and egg yokes, mix until incorporated, being sure to scrape the sides of the bowl so everything gets mixed. Next add 2/3 cup lemon juice. Reserve the rest for use later – like lemon chicken! The mixture will curdle, don’t stress, it’s suppose to. Pour the entire mixture into your crock pot and put on warm or low.

This is not something you can “set it and forget it” but it’s not nearly as intensive as regular lemon curd. Just stir every hour or so until it’s thick enough to coat the back of a spoon or 175 degrease. Mine took a little over 5 hours on warm. Transfer to an air tight container, mix in 2 tbsp zest and cool. It will keep for a few weeks in the fridge.

It’s perfect over toast, great swirled into cheesecake, wonderful with shortbread or perfect with a spoon. J

Lemon Chicken (adopted from a Rachel Ray recipe) No fancy pictures - sorry

3-4 large chicken breast diced

¼ cup flour

2 tsp powder ginger

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

Vegetable oil

1 tbsp rice wine vinegar

½ cup chicken broth (1 Knorr broth cube and ½ cup water)

1 cup lemon curd

2 tsp lemon zest

2 tsp lemon juice

1 lemon sliced into rings (I used the left over lemon from juicing)

3 green onions diced

In a zip lock bag combine the flour, ginger, salt and pepper. Add the chicken, seal the bag and shake to coat. In a wok or large pan, heat the oil, add the chicken and cook until brown. Remove the chicken. Add the vinegar and broth. Mix in the lemon curd, juice, rings and zest. Add back in the chicken, stir to coat and cook for 5 min’s. Serve over rice with the diced green onions.

Shortbread

2 cups flour

½ cup powder sugar

2 sticks butter softened

Dash of salt

1 tsp vanilla or almond extract

In your mixer bowl add the softened butter, mix until fluffy. Add the sugar, (slowly!), mix until combined. Add the salt and vanilla. Scrape down the sides and mix for 1 min. Pour out onto a strip of saran wrap.

Using your hands compress into a disk and cover with more saran wrap.

Refrigerate for at least hour.

Roll flat and cut out cookies or press into a buttered tart pan. Bake at 375 until just starting to brown on the edge.

Dip in chocolate or serve with lemon curd….or both! I made a tart, spread the remaining lemon curd over it and drizzled it with dark chocolate. Yum!