Pumpkin Loaf Cookies with Brown Butter Frosting

If you've read my blog for awhile, you know I love the fall - and this fall seems to be flying by in rapid speed! 

With baby Jackson due in just FOUR short weeks - yes you read that right - four weeks... I feel like I'm having to wrap up fall and start getting ready for Christmas early. 

I usually  have a very steadfast rule in my house - no Christmas music, no Christmas movies, no decorations, not even eggnog until after Thanksgiving. But when I was grocery shopping last week and saw that the Christmas colored M&M's were out, I BARELY contained myself to not pick them up. :) I feel like I'm running out of time! I'm determined to celebrate Thanksgiving though and be thankful for every blessing from God this year - especially Baby Jackson! 

As his due date is getting closer, for the first time in the whole pregnancy, I'm really feeling the effects of being pregnant. For the most part, I did't really have any major side effects that effected daily life for me. I did have an IT band injury related to body changes that made me have to stop running at 7 months, but really, I made it to 7 months still running- that's really not bad. I just switched the routine to elliptical workouts and swimming, and it's been great. However, between having an attack of tachycardia, the overall 3rd trimester tiredness, and showing small signs of pregnancy induced hypertension, it's starting to feel pretty real and I have to say that I'm really looking forward to meeting him! 

Somehow, I found time to savor the fall for just a bit and make some yummy cookies that exploded with fall flavor. :) These are originally called pumpkin cookies - but I renamed them pumpkin loaf cookies because of their texture. They are soft and light, and literally remind me of biting into a piece of pumpkin loaf in the shape of a cookie. Add the browned butter buttercream frosting on top, and it's pure fall-flavored perfection. 

What's your favorite way to make fall last? 

                                      

Pumpkin Loaf Cookies with Brown Butter Frosting (From Martha Stewart)

Ingredients:

• For The Cookies
  
  • 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
  • 3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 1/4 cups packed light-brown sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups canned solid-pack pumpkin (14 ounces)
  • 3/4 cup evaporated milk
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  For The Icing
  • 4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
  • 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
  • 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon evaporated milk
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preparation: 

For the Cookies: 

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix together dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg and set mixture aside. 

2. Beat butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed for approximately 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Mix in eggs and then reduce the speed to low. Add in the rest of the wet ingredients - pumpkin, evaporated milk, and vanilla and mix until well combined. Slowly add in the flour mixture, mixing until combined. Dough will be pretty wet. 

3. Transfer dough to a cookie piper or ziplog bag with the end cut off. Pipe 1 1/2" rounds on a baking sheet spread with parchment paper or silpat. Bake for 12 minutes or until cookies are cooked through. Allow to cool on a wire rack. 

For Frosting:

1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan until golden brown, foam disappears, and a slight nutty smell emerges - approximately 3-5 minutes. Pull off heat and allow to cool for a few minutes. 

2. In a large bowl, mix confectioner's sugar, browned butter (making sure to scrape all the browned bits from the pan), evaporated milk and vanilla. Stir until smooth. When cookies are cool, spread frosting on tops. 

Read more...

The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2012

Yep, that's right... I just signed up for the 2012 Cookie Swap. Last year was so much fun that I had to do it again. CAN'T WAIT!!

Basically, you sign up, make a few batches of cookies, ship them to some amazing bloggers, and get THREE amazing batches from other bloggers. And this year, they're doing something amazing and donating money to Cookies for Kid's Cancer.

If you want you can sign up too!

Read more...

Red Velvet Puppy Chow

Hello there.

I know it's been quite a while.

Unfortunately for you, but fortunately for me, I haven't gotten rid of my sweet tooth.

So you're going to have to endure some sweet recipes. I actually have a pile of them lined up.

I promise eventually I'll get back to posting other things... like fruit... and veggies!! I do finally have a taste for some of that stuff again thank goodness. However, I hate going grocery shopping, because I still just want to buy ice cream, potato chips, and cookies. Oh, and don't forget chicken nuggets.

I'm posting a new belly picture, but I'm warning you, it's got great. I actually took it of myself (hence me holding the cell phone! :) ) to show my out of town husband that my belly had LITERALLY grown overnight. A friend of mine used to say that she would go to bed and wake up with her stomach bigger - and I totally believer her! I didn't grow so much for several weeks - maybe even about a month and a half, and then all of a sudden - there was my little baby poking out!



I've still been running on most days of the week, and my running partner Laura and I started incorporating some weight training which has been a nice change of pace to the running - and always feeling out of breath! :)

I looked in the kids section of H&M this weekend, and decided that my little guy must always be dressed in H&M clothes... they are so cute! I mean seriously! And they are super cheap too!

 

Okay, enough about babies and bellies... here's a yummy recipe. And a great way to make your own red lipstick! :) Puppy chow was one of my favorite treats when I was a kid, and now there are so many adaptions to this recipe now. I just found a new one for one using cake mix in the recipe for cake batter puppy chow. And then.... there was another using red velvet cake mix, and cream cheese frosting! YUM! The only downfall.... when your fingers get wet from licking them, it turns your lips and fingers red! haha. Oh well, it's totally worth it. 

 

Red Velvet Puppy Chow (adapted from Unbearably Good)

Print Recipe

Ingredients: 

1 cup cream cheese frosting

5 cups Chex cereal

1 cup boxed red velvet cake mix

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Preparation: 

1. Melt frosting in a small bowl in the microwave for 15 seconds. 

 

2. Place Chex cereal in a large mixing bowl. Pour frosting over Chex cereal and combine until well blended. 

 

3. In a separate small bowl, combine the 1 cup red velvet cake mix and powdered sugar until combined.

 

4. Pour in small batches into the Chex and frosting mixture, combining often with a spatula until all sugar mixture is incorporated. 

 

5. Refrigerate ~10-15 minutes or until frosting is hardened.  

 

Read more...

Have you noticed an absence lately?

If you have read my blog for any amount of time, you know that I haven't been keeping up with it lately.


 I usually don't let so much time go in between posts and just completely neglect it without explanation. So, I'm sorry to my readers out there! :)


BUT I promise... I have an excuse! If you follow me on Facebook, then you already know the news...


But if you don't....



Yep! It's true! After almost 9 years of marriage, we're expecting!! We are so excited and feel beyond blessed to be welcoming this little one into the world.



Isn't he cute... he put up with MULTIPLE picture tries since we "self-took" this picture..haha

So, I'm currently 17 weeks - this picture was taken at 16 weeks (sorry for the VERY poor quality - it was taken on a cell phone. I'll get better - I promise!) And if all goes well, we'll find out if we're having a boy or girl on Friday!! 

So as you can imagine, food hasn't really been all that enjoyable the last few months - and that, my friends, is why I've been away. :)

I've rarely been cooking, frozen meals are my friends, and any kind of Asian food is completely out of the question. Honestly though, I couldn't feel more blessed! I have not thrown up once!! I have felt tired, but have been continuing to run, work, and play - so I will take tired over sick ANY day of the week. Cooking just hasn't really been a top priority lately. But I'm starting to come back around. I'll keep you posted on the progress, and post some bump pictures every now and then! 

So far, I've really only craved sweets.. unfortunately! So, in honor of my sweet tooth, and my husband's LOVE of chocolate covered pretzels - I have a yummy new recipe for you! 

Peanut butter, crushed pretzels mixed together with powdered sugar and dipped in chocolate. Pure heaven in a bite! 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites (Adapted from Tasty Kitchen)

Print Page

Ingredients:

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 cup pretzels, chopped

5 tablespoons powdered sugar

1 tablespoon butter

8 oz milk chocolate

Preparation: 

In a bowl, stir together the peanut butter, powdered sugar, butter, and crushed pretzels. 

 

Roll into balls and put them on a parchment paper lined tray. Freeze for 30 minutes or until firm. 

In a small saucepan, melt chocolate over low heat (if your burner heats really hot like mine, you may want to do a double boiler so the chocolate doesn't seize). Dip the balls in the chocolate until covered and refrigerate until set. 

Will make approximately 18-20 pretzel balls. 

 

Read more...

Homemade Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola

Happy Memorial Day! I am so thankful for our freedom today and for our soldiers fighting for us to be free! 

Today I thought a healthy little afternoon snack would be a nice addition to a Memorial Day gathering. Since everyone is always so busy prepping food for the afternoon cookouts, it's common to skip over a meal and be famished! But this is a quick easy and healthy recipe that will tide you over till dinner time without filling you up too much! 

I adapted the recipe from Dashing Dish, making just a few minor adjustments. She calls for all Splenda in the recipe, but I would just rather add a quarter of the amount of sweetener using real sugar than an artificial sweetener - I've tried it in baked goods, and just really don't like the taste. I'll use it in my coffee, but not my cookies and brownies! :) 

This granola tastes great over milk, just eating a handful as a snack, or mixed with some nuts, etc. Enjoy! 

Homemade Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola (Adapted from Dashing Dish)

Print Recipe

Ingredients: 

2 1/2 cups oats

2 tbsp. light butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/8 honey

1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

1/4 cup egg whites

1/2 cup Better N' Peanut Butter (the best peanut butter ever! It's made with half peanut flour so it's 85%   less fat than regular peanut butter. It's found at Trader Joe's. 

If you can't find that or you don't want to use it - use an all natural peanut butter)

1 tsp. baking powder

Preparation: 

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and line a baking pan with a silpat or parchment paper. 

2. Microwave peanut butter and light butter in microwave safe bowl for approximately 30 seconds or until the mixture is smooth. 

 

3. Combine all other ingredients into a bowl and mix together, adding the peanut butter mixture until fully mixed. 

 

 

4. Spread evenly onto your baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven for approximately 20 minutes. Pull out and stir mixture, spreading back out flat across the pan. 

5. Bake for another 20 minutes or until golden brown and crisp - granola will harden slightly as it cools, so don't overcook. After granola cools, break apart into bite-sized pieces. Store in an airtight container. 

Read more...

Guest Blog

Hi there,

Vanilla Bean Can Cakes with Whipped Red Wine Ganache

I'm guest blogging today over at Everyday Desserts. Yay! First ever guest blog! :)

Over there, you will find out wonderful new things.... like how to make cakes in cans!

And how to whip ganache in order to make frosting! Oh yeah, and it has red wine in it!

And the secret to weight loss - okay I made that one up - I mean really, we're talking about cake here.

Hop on over and check out Angelyn's awesome blog and check out my post today.

Read more...

Balsamic Risotto

Once upon a time (okay, so it wasn't really all that long ago - last October to be precise)

I went to a land far far away (okay it was Italy - not exactly real far, but far enough! :) )

I had some of the best food of my entire life (No, I'm not exaggerating anything).

I learned how to make a some of it in a cooking class....

But some, I had to sit and let each taste linger.... savoring every bite in order to decipher the flavors and figure out how it might be made.

Okay, so I know I sound ridiculous! But seriously, some of the food was so good, that I needed to know how to make it. And when you come home and put "Italian Pizza" into a google recipe search, it just doesn't quite capture the amazingness of the meal you had there.

This Balsamic Risotto is one of those dishes. We had it in a small quaint little restaurant tucked around the corner from the Duomo in Florence. At first we looked at the menu outside and almost walked away because nothing popped out at everyone. But then, I saw it sitting on the bottom of the menu - Balsamic Risotto. MUST TRY!! It was heaven on my plate. I did some google searches when coming home, and really didn't come up with much that I thought looked like it would taste like what I had. So a few weeks ago when a few friends got together to have "Italian night" for our dinner party, I told them they would be the guinea pigs. They were okay with that. Luckily, it turned out amazing! A recipe that I'll come back to many times for sure. Just tasting the sweet and salty of the balsamic reminds me of Italy instantly!

You know when you have an experience, whether it's on a trip or a particular day or whatever the memory might be from, there's sometimes a smell or taste associated with it (I know that's a whole psychology lesson, but we're not going there today.). There is a certain laundry detergent that reminds me immediately of my summer in Mexico because so many of the people there used that detergent. To this day, walking in a Starbucks reminds me of the year I worked there in college (even though I've been there a thousand times since then). Well, this balsamic risotto is the same way - one bite and I'm instantly brought back to the candlelit table in a charming corner alley in Florence. Hopefully you have really good memories about food like that too!

Balsamic Risotto (Inspired by a yummy recipe in Italy at a quaint little restaurant :) )

Print Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup arborio rice

drizzle olive oil

1 onion, diced

1 cup dry sherry

1 quart chicken stock

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar + 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1 cup parmesan cheese shredded + a few pieces shaved

3 tablespoons butter, separated.

Preparation:

1. In a large saucepan heat the stock to warm.

2. In a large skillet, place the olive oil and heat, adding in the onions when hot. Cook the onions till soft and translucent then add in the rice. Cook the rice until toasted.

3. Add the dry sherry to the skillet and stir in with rice until thoroughly absorbed.

4. Stir in the balsamic vinegar and continue to stir until completely absorbed.

5. Then add in chicken stock one ladle-full at a time, stirring until thoroughly absorbed and pan is slightly sticky before adding in the next ladle.

6. Continue to add in the stock until rice is al dente (slight crunch to the rice, or there is a small tiny speck of white in the middle of the rice and the rest is cooked clear). Stir in 2 tablespoons butter and shredded parmesan cheese.

7. In a separate small sauce pan (probably about 15 minutes from rice being done) place the 1/4 cup balsamic and 1 tablespoon of butter. Allow to simmer until mixture thickens, creating a reduction.

8. Pour reduction over finished risotto and top with shaved parmesan.

Read more...