Pumpkin Spice Muffins

We've all been there...you've got a meeting to go to and realize at the last minute that it's a potluck. Here's a super easy recipe for Pumpkin Spice Muffins. They are delicious and low fat, too.

1 can pumpkin (14.5 oz)
1 box spice cake mix

Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Combine the two ingredients in a large bowl, stirring until smooth. Spoon batter into a greased muffin tin. (I use those little cupcake papers.) Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Enjoy...everyone at the meeting will, too!

Pumpkin Pie (from scratch)

It is both a blessing and a challenge when your children believe that you can do anything in the kitchen. From the time that our pumpkins were tiny green babies on the vine, my daughter has been asking me to make "her" pumpkin into a pie. That presents a bit of a challenge because I've always made my pies from the can. (Psst....sometimes I even buy it at the grocery store, remove it from the tin, and pass it off as my own. Don't tell.)

Those days are in the past, because this pie from scratch tasted completely different than a pie made from canned pumpkin. The flavor exploded in my mouth. I could taste every spice and there was nothing bland or boring about it.

So yesterday...I popped two small pumpkins in the oven to give this whole pumpkin pie from real pumpkins the old college try.

While those pumpkins are roasting, let's talk pumpkins. "Pie pumpkins" are not the huge Jack O Lantern pumpkins you carve at Halloween. Although you can use those, too if you forgot to carve yours, just add about 25% more sugar. You want a smaller sweeter pumpkin. They are sometimes called sugar pumpkins and are usually sold in the grocery stores from October through December.

Honestly, making pumpkin puree was the hardest part of this project. (See the blog entry called Pumpkin Puree, it's under the "how to" label on the right side of the screen.) This time around I tried something a little different. Instead of running my pumpkin through the blender (this process requires me to add a little water to get the pumpkin mushy) I put all of the pumpkin in a bowl and pureed it with my handheld electric mixer. I didn't want to add any water to the pumpkin since the pie filling is so runny to begin with.

The rest of the recipe was super easy. The ingredients needed are:

1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground all spice
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs
3 cups pumpkin puree
1 1/2 cans evaporated milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Note: In a pinch (like if you are stationed overseas and the Commissary has been out of cloves since October) you can substitute 4 tsp of pumpkin pie spice for the cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and ginger; but I think you get better results when you use the separate spices.

Mix all your ingredients together. Pour into the pie crust. This is enough pie filling for two pumpkin pies. Don't worry, the filling is supposed to be that runny. It will firm up nicely as it bakes. I cover the top of the pie crust with aluminium foil to prevent it from burning.

Bake at (a preheated) 425˚F for the first fifteen minutes. Then turn down the temperature to 350˚F and bake another 60-90 minutes...until a clean knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the pie cool and enjoy!

Pumpkin Pancakes

It's that time of year again...when the pumpkins are in season and all the trees are lovely shades of yellow, orange, and red. I love this time of year. It's the time of year that I start putting pumpkin in everything!!!

2 1/2c Bisquick
1c milk
2 eggs
1c pumpkin puree (or canned pumpkin)
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp cinnamno
1/2 tsp nutmeg

In a bowl, mix together the milk, pumpkin, and eggs. Mix in the spices. Add the bisquick. The consistence of your batter is going to vary depending on how "wet" your pumpkin puree is. Don't be afraid to add a bit more bisquick to get your batter to a good consistency for pancakes.

Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the pan, using about 1/8-1/4 of a cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides. Serve hot with syrup.

Pumpkin Chai Cheesecake

Do you know what I'm thankful for this year? I'm thankful that the holiday health food trend is losing popularity. I watch what I eat (for the most part) all year long. I don't want to eat Weight Watchers crust-less 2 point pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. I don't want to eat a low fat, dry, tasteless turkey stuffing. I want flavor. I want the real thing.

This year, I found a Pumpkin Chai Cheesecake with Caramel-Rum sauce. It's far from health food, but I'm making it to take to my friend Laura's house for Thanksgiving. That lessens the chances that I'll be eating it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner the next few days. Now, I'm stepping a little out of my comfort zone here, I've never made a real cheesecake. But this just looked too good to pass up.

Ingredients:

Crust
2c crushed cinnamon Teddy Grahams
1/4c butter, melted

Filling:
4 packages (8oz each) cream cheese, softened
1 1/2c white sugar
4 eggs
1c pumpkin puree
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
3/4 tsp ground cardamom

Sauce:
1/3c packed brown sugar
1/3c light or dark corn syrup
2 Tbsp butter
1/3 cool whip
1 Tbsp rum extract

Garnish:
Cool Whip

Preheat the oven to 300˚F, Spray a 9 inch spring form pan with cooking spray. In a small bowl, mix the crust ingredients. Press mixture in bottom and about 1 inch up the side of the pan. Bake for 8-10 minutes. To minimize cracking, place a shallow, half full, pan of water on the lower oven rack.

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and white sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until blended. Spoon about three cups of mixture into crust. Spread evenly. To the remaining mixture, add pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, and cardamom. Mix until smooth. Spoon mixture smoothly into the pan.

Bake for about 1 hour and 25 minutes. The edge of the cheesecake should be set at least 2 inches into the cheesecake, but the center will still be jiggley. Is that a real word? Turn the oven off and open the oven door at least 4 inches. Let the cheesecake remain in the oven for 30 minutes. Then let the pan cool an additional 30minutes before refrigerating. Refrigerate cheesecake for at least 6 hours, but no more than 24 hours.

Before serving:

In a small saucepan, heat brown sugar, corn syrup, and 2 Tbsp butter to boiling over a medium-low heat, stirring constantly. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in cool whip. Heat to boiling. Remove sauce from heat and stir in the rum extract. Cool until warm.

Just before serving, run small spatula around the edge of the cheesecake to separate from the pan. Carefully remove side of pan. Top individual slices of cheesecake with warm sauce and a dollop of cool whip. Refrigerate remaining cheesecake.

(Cook's preference: The caramel sauce is pretty yummy and it looks really cool when you serve it up, but this cheesecake holds its own. If you want to skip the sauce it's still a spectacular dessert...very rich, would be awesome with coffee...if I drank coffee.)

Cinnamon Rolls for Autumn

These cinnamon rolls have been calling to me for weeks, months maybe, ever since Jen shared the recipe. Ironically, I'm trying to watch my weight right now so I'll be sending most of these to work with Roger to endear myself to his new co-workers.

I've adapted this recipe from a website called Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk. Good advice, but do you think she takes the five second rule into consideration?

Now that I'm more comfortable cooking, I've started looking at a recipe and automatically making substitutions for things I have in the house. This recipe was originally vegan, but I don't keep soy milk in the fridge, so I'm substituting skim milk. Also, the original recipe calls for 3/4 c pumpkin, but I froze my pumpkin in
1 c increments, so I'm tossing it that last 1/4 cup because I'm too lazy to re-measure it out.

Dough:

1 package dry yeast
1/4 c warm water
1 c pumpkin puree
1/4 c milk
1/4 c margarine, melted
1 Tbsp white sugar

2 1/2 flour
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger

3/4 cup flour
1 Tbsp oil

Filling:
3 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 cinnamon
2 Tbsp chilled margarine, cut into small peices

Glaze:

3/4 c powdered sugar
1 Tbsp water
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

In a large bowl, combine the warm water with the yeast and whisk together. Let stand for five minutes. Add the pumpkin, milk, margarine, and sugar to the yeast. Lightly mix. Add 2 1/2 cups flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Beat together until smooth.

Turn dough out onto your floured kitchen counter. Take the remaining flour and use it to flour the top of the dough and your counter as your kneed the dough (about 10 minutes). The dough will be elastic, but soft and still a little sticky to the touch without being floured. This was the part that Kaitlyn liked the best. I let her pull her stool up to the counter and let her knead the dough with me. Of course, then she wouldn't leave the dough alone while it was rising so I had to shoo her out of the kitchen while the dough was trying to rise.

Place the dough in a large bowl coated with oil, turning the dough to coat the top of the dough as well. Cover and let rise until dough doubles in size.

Punch down the dough, cover and let rise for five minutes.

Combine the sugar, brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut in the margarine with fork until mixture resembles coarse little balls.

Roll the dough into a 12X10 inch rectangle on your floured counter. Sprinkle with brown sugar mixture. Roll up the rectangle tightly, from the long side, pinch seam, and ends to seal the dough. Cut roll into 12 (1 inch) slices. Place into a 9 inch square baking pan coated with cooking oil.* Cover and let rise until it doubles in size (about 25 minutes).

Bake the rolls for 20 minutes or until golden brown in a pre-heated (375 degrees) oven.

In a small bowl, combine the powdered sugar, water, and vanilla. Whisk together until smooth. Drizzle over the cinnamon rolls.

*If you want to eat these hot and fresh in the morning (Saturday morning, maybe?)without having to get up before first light to start them; you can cover them with plastic wrap at this point and store them in the fridge. In the morning take them out and continue with the recipe (they will take a little longer to rise, probably an hour or so, because they are chilled). Take this time to shower, enjoy a cup of tea, dig out your fat pants, and call your sister to wake her up on the one morning her baby actually let her sleep in.

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

This is my favorite time of year. I love baking in the autumn...and if you've been following my blog you'll notice a slight favoritism for cooking with Pumpkin. This morning Kaitlyn asked where her baby pumpkin went. I told her we were going to make her baby pumpkin into cookies today. She was on board.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter or shortening, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 cups canned pumpkin puree*
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

*I used some of the puree that I made yesterday. It tasted the same as the stuff I buy at the grocery store.

For the Icing

2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt. In a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and white sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to butter mixture. Beat until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients. Drop on cookie sheet with a spoon. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool cookies, then drizzle glaze with fork.

To Make Glaze combine confectioners' sugar, milk, melted butter, and vanilla. Add a little more milk as needed, to achieve your desired drizzling consistency. I made half the cookies with icing and half without. Kaitlyn prefered them without, but I liked both. If there are any left when Roger gets home....I'll ask which one he prefers.

Pumpkin Soup

When we were in Germany we went to a Pumpkin Festival. We had some Pumpkin Soup that was AMAZING! I've been searching for a good Pumpkin Soup recipe ever since. This is the first Pumpkin Soup recipe that has brought back memories of Autumn in Germany. This soup is amazing. I really love the flavor of the pumpkin and onions. I think I can taste the mace, too. I think this soup would well complimented with some cheesy or buttery dinner rolls.

3 cups fresh pumpkin, peeled and diced
5 cups chicken broth or 5 cups of water with 5 bouillon cubes
1 onion
1 Tbsp butter
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp mace
1 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp syrup
1/2 cup half and half
salt and pepper to taste

Bring broth to a boil. Add pumpkin and simmer until tender. Saute the onion in the butter until soft. Add onion to pumpkin mixture. Move soup to blender and puree it. Return soup to pot and add salt and black pepper. Add the honey, syrup, mace, and nutmeg. Stir in the cream for a richer flavor.

Puree Pumpkin

I woke up on yesterday and realized that we'd forgotten to carve pumpkins for Halloween. So what am I going to do with these pumpkins that have been decorating my front porch for the last few weeks? Then it occurred to me that it's silly to throw out three perfectly good pumpkins and then run to the grocery store to get Pumpkin for baking Thanksgiving goodies.

So here's how to make your own Pumpkin Puree. Preheat oven to 350˚F. You don’t need to cut the pumpkin open before you roast it. I’m not kidding. Just jab it with a knife four or five times to vent the steam. (Is it weird that I think of the movie Psycho when I do this? Never mind, don't answer that.) Put the whole darned thing on a baking sheet, and pop it in the oven for an hour or so, until you can easily stick a knife into it. Cool, then scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff with a spoon. It is SO MUCH EASIER than when it is raw. Skin the pumpkin with a paring knife. Cut it up into chunks. If you cut it up and realize the pumpkins not quite done...pop it back in the oven for 15 or so more minutes. Run the pumpkin chunks through a blender or food processor. I add a little bit of water to the blender to make it easier to puree.

Freeze the pumpkin in Ziploc freezer bags for future use in baking pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup...whatever makes your skirt fly up.

Halloween Pumpkin Cookies

This is a pretty easy recipe to make. I acquired this recipe when Roger and I were first married. It came in the monthly newsletter that our apartment complex distributed...along with safety tips and a reminder that it was, in fact, illegal to sell drugs out of your apartment. Ahhh the memories of being newlywed and broke...

1 stick butter or margarine (Crisco is a good substitute, too)
1/2 c sugar
1 egg
1/2 c pumpkin
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 c flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl. Add egg, pumpkin, and vanilla. Sift dry ingredients together and add to bowl. Drop by tablespoon onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

It's fall. The temperature is a little more barable. The leaves are turning. One of my favorite things about autumn is cooking "fall food". I love cooking with pumpkin. It smells so amazing. This is a recipe that my friend Jen shared with me. It's a vegan recipe so it's great if your kids are allergic to eggs.

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 1/3 cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons molasses
1 cup canned pumpkin, or cooked pureed pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon ground flax seeds*

Directions
Preheat oven to 350.

Mix together flour, oats, baking soda, salt and spices.

In a seperate bowl, mix together sugar, oil, molasses, pumpkin and vanilla (and flax seeds if using) until very well combined. Add dry ingredients to wet, folding to combine.

Drop onto greased cookie sheets about a tablespoon at a time. They don't spread very much so they can be placed only an inch apart. Flatten the tops of the cookies with a fork or with your fingers, to press into cookie shape. Bake for 16 minutes at 350. If you are using two sheets of cookies on 2 levels of your oven, rotate the sheets halfway through for even baking. Makes about four dozen.

Remove from oven and let set before serving.

*Ground flax seed will add a chewy texture to the cookie, but is optional. I found the ground flax seed on the "health food" aisle, but I've also seen it with the flour.

**Variation: Fold in 1 cup walnuts (finely chopped) and 1/2 cup raisins right before dropping batter onto cookie sheet.