Pumpkin Butt Muffins – A lesson in substitution

This past spring I learned a valuable lesson is substitution. Maybe I didn’t read the directions just right but man did our experiment go majorly wrong. My sister came to visit and we often cook together. As my son took his nap we went exploring in my pantry to see what we could whip up with the ingredients on hand. I had a can of pumpkin left over from the fall that I was dying to get rid of. It was real pumpkin not the pumpkin pie mix (which is something you don’t realize is different until you get the can home from the store.) We went online looking for a few recipes, but nothing was working out for real pumpkin with the ingredients I had. We finally found a recipe (on the can- Duh!) for a streusel pumpkin muffin that sounded yummy. The only problem was that is called for bisquick and the stuff I had in the back of my fridge could have been from God knows when. My sister had the brilliant idea to go online to see if we could find a substitute for bisquick. This is when things went horrible wrong. We found a posting for a mixture of shorting and flour. Sounded easy enough so we dove in, made our “bisquick” replacement and continued to make the muffins. They can out looking great....until we ate them. They tasted like butt (or what I image butt to taste like). Needless to say the muffins took a one way trip to garbage can land but all was not lost. The streusel topping was still edible so we managed to strip all the muffin tops of this. Just a lesson learned in the kitchen. When in doubt, make PB cookies (I always seem to have the ingredients for this on hand!)

Thanksmas Baklava

Sunday afternoon after Thanksgiving..I feel like I can begin to talk about food again (but still in sugar detox). This past week my family celebrated what my family started calling Thankmas (or Chrisgiving) a one two holiday punch of Thanksgiving on Thursday and Christmas on Friday since we alternate holidays among families. Among the great traditional feast of the usual trimmings, one of my sisters planned a baking activity of making baklava. I have eaten this treat many times but have never made it before. Some of the things I learned: 1. Plan a lot of time. We had 4 people working and it took about 2 hours start to finish. 2. You don't have to put just walnuts in it. We used a combination of walnuts, almonds, and pistachios. 3. It is true. You do have to keep the filo dough moist. 4. The time and effort is so worth it! Here is the baklava recipe we used. Happy Thankmas!!

Cookbook Review - Betty Crocker Cookie Book

My Thanksgiving baking is done so I have decided to do my first cookbook review. My family is celebrating Christmas early this year so I had to do some early Christmas shopping. Luckily my family has gotten wise - we exchange lists and names making Christmas shopping easy. My lucky person wanted the Betty Crocker Cookie Cookbook - so I snuck a peak before I wrapped it. This looks like an awesome book, I was so jealous that I had to give it away. I guess that it was on my favorite baking item also helped. It had lots of basic cooking information, explanation of terms, Ingredient measurements, How to cures for common problems, ingredient substitutions, and much more to begin the book. Then it was filled with chapters like Drop cookies, Bars & Brownies, Kid kookies, Fix them with a Mix, Special Diet and Celebration cookies. I won't spoil it but it had a lot of both tradition and out of the box cookies. In this day of age when a recipe is only a click away, it is still nice to have a traditional book to explore.

Pumpkin Brownies with Cream Cheese Frosting

I love Thanksgiving..Family, Friends, Food and no presents to worry about! The perfect holiday. Plus it showcases one of my favorite flavors, pumpkin. I love a good pumpkin pie but also love to experiment with other ways to serve this up. In preparing for Thanksgiving this year I decided to try this recipe that is in an old church cookbook. I think it is one of the best places to get recipes because it is a collection of every one's favorite and you know that they have been tested and tried so no surprises. At first I was a little nervous when the pan came out of the oven. I was expecting cake like brownies and instead got something that resembled more like fudge but the combination taste of the pumpkin and cream cheese is to die for. This dish is being divided for upcoming Thanksgiving, the dessert for a get together tonight and I may bring some to staff at work. That is if I can stop eating them myself : ) Enjoy!

Pumpkin Brownies

2 cups sugar
1 15oz can pumpkin
3/4 cup margarine
4 eggs
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1tsp baking powder

Cream Cheese Frosting
3 oz cream cheese
3 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tablespoon milk
6 Tablespoons margarine
Mix in order listed with mixer. Pour into lightly greased jelly roil pan and Bake for 25 mins at 325 degrees. Cool and then frost. Beat all the frosting ingredients well.

Happy Fall - Easy Apple Crisp

Baker babe is on a (semi) diet this week in preparation for Thanksgiving so here is something I did earlier this Fall. Enjoy !

Ok, along with pumpkin flavored bakery items I also can never wait for apple session to arrive. This year I took my son picking for the first time and it was great fun (although now that I think about it he wasn’t much help). Unfortunately and Fortunately when you pick apples you have to buy like a 15 lb bag which is A LOT of apples in a family of 1 ½ apple eaters (Me and my son. You should know that my husband is anti-vegetarian – No fruits or vegetables. I am slowly working on correcting this.) So back in the kitchen I am always looking for new ways to bake these up. This week I will share one of my standard recipes. I love this because I always seem to have the ingredients on hand and you can change the amount to be a big dish (for company) or small. My friend Rebecca gave this to me – so thanks Rebecca! Plus you can whip it up ahead of time and then bake it during dinner so it fits my multi-tasking personality.

Easy Apple Crisp
4 large apples
3 Tablespoons Butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 packet instant oatmeal (choose a flavor)
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
Pinch of salt
Maple syrup
Heat oven to 350º. Slice apples and place in 9x9 pan. Combine melted butter and brown sugar. Add flour, oatmeal, cinnamon and salt in bowl until it resembles a crumble. Place crumble over apples. Drizzle syrup over mixture. Bake for 1 hour.

Chicken Crepes

This is a great recipe that my dad claims he made a long time ago and has always been a family favorite. Since you bake the final dish I am considering it a baking project although making the crepes was a little too involved for me (but it is worth the extra time) . I have been meaning to make these for a while, but had the great opportunity this weekend when we had half a chicken left from a store bought one and I was feeling a little creative : )
Ps. If you have extra crepes just wrap them up in Saran wrap and put them in the fridge. They make a great breakfast the next day with fruit roll-up inside.


CREPES INGREDIENTS
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 rounded tablespoon of sugar

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and the eggs. Gradually add in the milk and water, stirring to combine. Add the salt, butter and sugar; beat with mixer or blender to make batter smooth. Heat a lightly oiled frying pan over medium high heat. Scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each crepe. Tilt the pan with a circular motion so that the batter coats the surface evenly. Cook the crepe for about 2 minutes, until the bottom is light brown. Loosen with a spatula, turn and cook the other side.

FILLING
You need the meat off one chicken. You can either boil a chicken or bake a cut up fryer till done (approx 1 hr). Let cool and manually strip all the meat off the bones. Cut into small pieces.
1 stick butter or margarine
1 can Campbells Golden Mushroom Soup
1 cup white wine (your choice)
1/2 cup sour cream
Seasonings (rosemary, thyme, etc..)
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese.

In a large saucepan melt the butter, add the soup, wine, seasonings. Blend all with a whisk and simmer a short time. Add sour cream, blend in again with whisk. Add chicken meat and stir well. Simmer about 15 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to fill the crepes with the chicken meat and roll up. Place all the filled crepes in a std 11 x 9 sprayed cake pan. Pour remaining sauce over the crepes. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes. For the last 10 minutes sprinkle the top with a mixture of bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. Usually 1 recipe equals 12 filled crepes in one cake pan.

Recycle Cookies

It is the best of times and the worst of times - Halloween. While I love the costumes (on little kids, not me) and eating some candy I also hate having a ton of left overs. A person can only eat so much (and trust me I have had my fair share over the past week along with my son). And for some reason I can't just throw it away. All that talk about the starving children in Africa (which I am pretty sure probably don't need starburst or M&Ms either). So as I sat with the bright orange pumpkin container staring me in the face I decided to recycle the candy and use them as an ingredient in your basic cookie recipe. That way I can feel good about reusing the candy and I have something to write about this week.

Never doing this before I was a little nervous in how it will turn out. I looked up a basic toll house cookie recipe online and then cut up a Snickers bar, Hershey bar and 2 PB cups. I passed on the Kit Kats. The results....not bad. The cookies baked a little flat ( I think it was the margarine I used) but they tasted pretty good. The only problem I ran into was that if a snicker piece baked on the bottom of the cookie it tended to stick a little to the pan and create some holes, but the melted caramel, chocolate peanut combo made up for this minor flaw. What am I going to do with these now...give them to whoever I can that isn't still in sugar shock. And maybe I will mail some to Africa.

Sunday Breakfast - Egg Casserole Recipe

I am taking a break this weekend from the traditional sugar infused treats (I am in Halloween candy detox) and making an egg casserole treat for my prego friend that is bed bound. I grew up with a recipe my mom made that was good, but a little too runny for my taste (sorry mom). When I got married I inherited another recipe from my mother-in-law that meets my husband’s picky eating habits and that I have come to love. It requires a little planning since it needs to be made the night before (so the bread can soak up the eggs) but it is worth it and still very easy. You can customize if you prefer bacon or sausage (I am a bacon gal). Happy Sunday!

Egg Casserole
4 ½ cups cubed day old French Bread
2 cups (8oz) shredded cheddar cheese
10 eggs lightly beaten
4 ½ cups milk
1 tsp dry mustard
¼ tsp Onion powder
Dash of pepper & salt
12 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
½ cup chopped tomato

Arrange bread cubes in greased 9x13 baking dish and sprinkle with cheese. Beat together next 7 ingredients. Pour evenly over cheese and bread. Cover and chill up to 24 hours. Before baking sprinkle bacon and tomato on top. Bake uncovered until set about 1 hour.

Pumpkin Whoopee Pies – A fall tradition

Ahhh Fall, the leaves are changing, the air is crisp and it is time for all things pumpkin to appear. I LOVE pumpkin flavored items and plan to petition restaurants to carry these things year round, but until then it will have to be up to me to keep these great dishes alive. One of my favorite is this recipe for Pumpkin whoopee pies. They make great gifts for people and are so easy to make. They do take a little bit of time (cooking then frosting) but the result is worth it and they can be frozen.

One of the tricks to making the cookies all the same size is to use a scoop. I have a great small size one from Pampered Chef that I thought I would never use (I can just use a spoon right???) but quickly fell in love with. Also parchment paper is great for easy clean up.

These bad boys are being mailed out to my sisters ( I have 3) and shared with a few other friends. I made these the past two years and I had people asking me to make them again. I guess you can say I have a whoopee pie fan club. Here is the recipe I use.
Happy Fall!

Click here to see my Pumpkin Whoopee Pies Recipe Cards!

Pumpkin Whoopee Pies

Cookies
2 eggs
2 cups light brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (15 ounce can) pumpkin
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon each of Baking powder, Baking soda and salt
Cinnamon to taste

Frosting
4oz cream cheese, softened
½ cup butter softened
2 teaspoons vanillas extract
4-5 cups confectioners sugar

Cookies: Heat oven to 350º. Beat eggs, brown sugar, oil and vanilla extract in a bowl until smooth. Stir in pumpkin. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salts. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture a little at a time blending until smooth. Drop a heaping tablespoon of batter on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12 minutes and cool on rack.

Frosting: Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla extract in a bowl. Mix in the confectioners sugar a little at a time until frosting spreads easily.