pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

These are probably in my top 3 favorite cookies. Absolutely love them. I am always looking for a better recipe though. I have one recipe that I love and use as a base recipe and then I try and tweak the spices and ingredients until it's just right. I don't think I've quite got it to where I want, but I'm getting close. Here's the recipe that I use:

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup shortening (I use 1/2 shortening, 1/2 butter)
  
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch ground nutmeg
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I use Guitard's Giant Milk Chocolate Chips)
  
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional. I usually leave nuts out unless a recipe calls for pecans)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease cookie sheets.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and white sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Stir in the vanilla and pumpkin until well blended. Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg; stir into the pumpkin mixture. Mix in the chocolate chips. Stir in the walnuts if desired. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until edges begin to brown. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheets before removing to wire racks to cool completely.

Pop's Biscuits

I love biscuits. Especially just simple, baking powder biscuits. There are so many varieties out there that I've tried, but I keep coming back to this old family recipe. Pop would be my great-grandfather. He was from Arkansas and apparently loved to cook. We have a family cookbook that is chalk full of his recipes and old black and white photos of the family eating together. Food has always been a big part of my family. Not just something you do everyday, but really, making it beautiful and coming together to enjoy it, but mostly, to enjoy each other.

Pop's biscuits are great for strawberry shortcake, biscuits and gravy, as a side with soup, or just plain great by themselves. When I eat them by themselves, I like to put butter and honey on them. You can knead and roll them out, but I just make them as drop-biscuits.


Pop's Biscuits

3 cups flour
4 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3-4 tsp. sugar (can be left out)
1/3 cup shortening
1 1/2 cup milk

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto lightly greased baking sheet. Place them closely to each other and Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes or until lightly browned on top and firm to the touch. Depending on the size of your biscuits, you will need to cook them longer than 10 minutes.

Spinach and pasta salad with grilled chicken

I know salads are considered chick food, but this is a salad that even the manliest of men could eat. At least I think so. HF loves it and he's pretty manly. This is a versatile dish. Ingredients can be added or removed to make it to your liking.






1 small package of fresh spinach

1 – 8 oz package of bowtie pasta – cooked, drained and cooled

2-4 TBLS sesame seeds

½ cup sliced almonds (I used the toasted and unsalted)

3 chicken breasts – seasoned heavily with lemon pepper seasoning, grilled and cut into bite sizes.

1 cup bean sprouts

Mix all ingredients and toss with the dressing just before serving.

Dressing:

½ cup oil

½ cup sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sesame seeds

3 TBLS soy sauce

2 TBLS rice vinegar

½ tsp sesame seed oil

1 tsp grated fresh garlic (about 2 cloves)

Stir ingredients well to dissolve sugar, store in refrigerator. Let dressing warm to room temperature before tossing into salad.

To keep the leftovers from getting soggy, we usually keep the spinach and bean sprouts seperate from the rest of the salad and when serving, make a bed of spinach and bean sprouts and then spoon the chicken and dressing mixture on top. This is always a hit at get togethers. There are no leftovers usually.

toad in the hole, sort of

I know this isn't the most appetizing looking dish, but this is my spin on the English recipe for Yorkshire Pudding or Toad in the Hole. It's essentially what we call German pancakes. We Americans call this a number of things. German pancakes, Dutch pancakes, Puffy Oven pancakes, or Hootenanny pancakes to name a few. I think I prefer Hootenanny. That sounds American, donit.

We've been eating this breakfast dish for years, and then I received a British magazine in a package one day and saw that a traditional and popular dish in England was Yorkshire pudding which is the same recipe as this "pancake" recipe, except it is usually made with beef drippings from a roast instead of butter, and it uses less eggs. It is a savory dish, usually eaten for dinner along with a roast and potatoes and an onion gravy. Toad in the Hole is when you add the sausages, or bangers, before placing it in the oven. They are called bangers because they split or "bang" open when cooked.

For Brinner (breakfast for dinner) tonight, I decided to make Toad in the Hole minis for the kids. I guess technically I can't call them that because I'm not using beef drippings or onion gravy, but this is my spin, right? Here's a typical recipe for Yorkshire pudding and a recipe for Toad in the Hole. Here is my Hootenanny Pancake recipe:

6 eggs
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp. salt (i always leave it out. I'm bland like that)
1/2 tsp. vanilla (optional)
1/4 cup butter (1/2 a cube)

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place butter in 9x13 pan (i distributed the butter evenly throughout the muffin pan) and place in oven to melt. Take out before it browns. Blend remaining ingredients until smooth and pour into pan (I filled each cup about 3/4 full) and bake 20-25 minutes. I cooked the breakfast sausages in a frying pan and then put one in each muffin cup after the butter was melted. If you want to eat it American style, serve immediately with syrup, jams, powdered sugar, or honey.

Once these were done cooking, I served them immediately with maple syrup, since we Americans pour syrup over our entire breakfast. Eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, you name it. It tastes better with maple syrup! British people everywhere are rolling their eyes or reaching for the nearest garbage bin. From what I've seen online, the English see our version of this dish as the equivalent of putting whipped cream and sugar and strawberries on top of a pot roast. But I'm not brave enough to make this dish using meat drippings. It would totally change the flavor, and I'm used to it tasting sweet. So if any British people read this, I dare you to try it sweet. Maybe someday I'll try it with the gravy. I am of mostly English descent after all. Daisy called this, "Toads on a log".

edible igloos and tacky penguins

Okay. I'll admit it. I am NOT a fan of winter. I do not like the snow. I do not like the cold. I do not like the ice. I do not like months of gray. I am STILL not used to it after all these years. Eight to be precise. There. I said it.

Having said that, I am always trying to come up with wintertime fun. Since we are not outside for very long periods of time, I am trying to keep things creative inside so it doesn't turn into the Shining around here. One of the ways I do this, is with books and food. I like taking a book the kids like and relating it to the activities we do throughout the day, even with our food.

Today we read Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester. She is one of my favorite children's authors. I found a book called Princess Penelope's Parrot, which is hilarious. Another well-known book of hers is Hooway For Wodney the Wat. The books are very funny and Lynn Munsinger's illustrations are darling. Anyway, here's what we did after reading Tacky the Penguin: We made edible igloos.

All you need to make these is small apples (we used gala), miniature marshmallows, peanut butter, or honey. When looking online, I saw that most people were making their igloos entirely out of marshmallows and using frosting or marshmallow cream to stick them together. I wanted this to be mostly healthy, so we are using natural peanut butter, or honey.
To make our igloo shape, you cut an apple in half and core it. Place it flat side down on a plate. See, there's even a hole for the igloo's entrance.
Then the fun part for the kids. Smearing on the goo of choice to cover the entire surface of the apple. Daisy used peanut butter. Luke had honey because of a minor peanut allergy. The honey worked great. We just used our finger to spread it evenly around the apple. That worked great.

Press the marshmallows on in a design of your liking to make your igloo. Consume.
I think it turned out pretty cute. What do you think?

Luke refused to make his igloo, but he loved the apple, which I cut into pieces. The added honey made it taste extra sweet and he happily stuffed his mouth full of marshmallows.

This was definitely a fun activity. It helped pass the time, the kids got to be creative, and it was a mostly healthy snack/treat to tide them over until dinnertime. Tomorrow we will learn about real igloos and the people that built them and lived in them. Do people still build them and live in them? I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

menu plan monday

Monday:
chicken noodle soup with homemade biscuits. For the soup, I sauteed celery and an onion and added it to the soup. I think I also added oregano and basil, but found I didn't need to.

Tuesday:
sauteed mushroom cream soup and a baguette. Her recipe for sauteed mushrooms is fabulous as well.

Wednesday: Christmas Eve
Chinese food- kung pao chicken, lettuce wraps, rice, fortune cookies. Later that night after our festivities, we will have hot chocolate with peppermint whip cream magic and scones. I LOVED when my mom made scones. We did them just like this except my mom always made her own dough. This is much easier with the rhodes rolls!

Thursday: Christmas Day
breakfast: My dad always made amazing omelettes with everything in them. I was thinking about fly off the plate pancakes, but now I'm liking this Breakfast casserole idea found at Simply Recipes and also featured on Make and Takes. I like that I can prepare this the night before. Of course, breakfast will be served with our Christmas oranges that are in the bottom of our stockings.

Dinner: Ham, funeral potatoes, 3-layer jello, rolls, punch, this is what my family usually had on Christmas Day.

Friday:
leftovers

Saturday:
more leftovers I'm sure

Sunday:
pioneer woman's tostadas

treats we have made or are making this week:
Oreo Truffles
Ghiradelli Chocolate Chip cookies
Mom's Fudge
Caramel Pecan Logs
Sugar cookies
Muddy Buddies

mpm

This baby could be here any day or any minute for that matter, so I'm not sure how this week will actually turn out menu planning-wise. Boring, boring, boring except for Friday, Halloween.

monday
b: cold cereal, bananas, and milk
l: ham or pb and j sandwiches, yogurt, and carrot sticks
d: green chili chicken enchiladas, rice, and black beans

tuesday
b: cold cereal, milk, and oj
l: cup o noodles, fruit, chocolate milk
d: leftover enchiladas, rice, and beans

Wednesday
b: oatmeal with milk and bananas
l: quesadillas, salsa, and milk
d: kung pao chicken with rice, and steamed brocoli

Thursday
b: cold cereal and milk
l: pb and j sandwiches, bananas, and yogurt
d: BLTs

Friday (Halloween)
b: oatmeal with milk, oj
L: hot dog mummies, monster eyeballs, apple bites, and cheese fingers
d: pizza night- Papa Murphy's jack o'lantern pizza, and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

Saturday
b: french toast, fruit, and sausage
L; leftovers
d: potato and carrot soup in pumpkin-shaped bread bowls

Sunday
b: waffles and juice
l: more leftovers
d: crockpot chicken curry, rice, and naan

More great Halloween food ideas here

menu monday

This week for MPM I am going to try and use up what we already have and eat all our leftovers. Go see what everyone else is doing this week.

Monday
B: french toast and apricot jam (i use a loaf of french bread cut diagonally into 16 1-inch slices)
L: crackers and cheese, apple slices, chocolate milk, and marshmallows
D: Italian pasta and garlic bread

Tuesday
B: cracked wheat cereal and orange juice
L: leftover Italian pasta and apple slices
D: brown sugar chicken, rice, and broccoli

Wednesday
B: cold cereal and milk
L: peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and orange julius's
D: leftover brown sugar chicken and rice, vegies

Thursday
B: cold cereal and milk
L: turkey and cheese sandwiches, apple slices, and milk
D: White Chili with tortilla chips, guacamole, and pico de gallo

Friday
B: cold cereal and milk
L: leftover white chili
D: pizza night

Saturday
B: Fly off the Plate pancakes with maple syrup and orange juice
L: leftover pizza, vegies and fruit
D: leftovers, vegies, and fruit in the fridge

Sunday
B: waffles, jam, and orange juice
L: leftovers, fruit, and chocolate milk
D: Chipotle Grilled Chicken with Avocado Sandwich and elote (except we use parmesan cheese and sprinkle on cayenne pepper)

menu plan monday

I'm a little late for this week, but I'm joining the organizing junkie along with over 200+ other women who post their menu for the week. I have been awful this entire pregnancy with planning food and now I'm obsessed with being prepared for when the baby is here. I found some great menu ideas while browsing through the other posts on here. Hopefully this will keep me organized and within my budget. For my menu, the breakfasts and lunches are geared towards the kids and the dinners are for everyone. Join me in menu planning if you'd like and help give each other idears.

Monday:

b: cereal and milk

l: quesadillas, apple juice, and carrots

d: rotisserie chicken and pasta. homemade samoas for dessert

Tuesday:

b: cereal and milk

l: ham or pb sandwiches, yogurt, and grapes

d: eggplant parmesan, and salad

Wednesday:

b: cereal and milk

l: egg burritos and juice

d: homemade hamburgers with all the trimmings

Thursday:

b: cereal and milk

l: mixed fresh fruit, tortilla wheels (you can do cucumbers, olives, etc.)

d: brinner (breakfast for dinner) o.j., pancakes, eggs, sausage or bacon

Friday:

b: cereal and milk

l: smorgasbord of assorted fruits and vegies, crackers, and chocolate milk

d: pizza night

Saturday:

b: cereal and milk

l: pb sandwiches, juice, and popcorn

d: green chile chicken enchiladas

Sunday:

b: the usual cereal and milk

l: tortilla wheels, yogurt, and apples

d: leftovers!

menu monday

Another attempt to stick to a weekly dinner menu. This is soup week. Here's the plan. I will be making soup everyday, and freezing half of each recipe for after the baby is here Just 4 more weeks! And I feel like a lightbulb has turned on above my head because I just figured out that you can freeze the ziploc bags flat so you can stack them on top of each other. DUH. I always just stuffed whatever in the bag and shoved in the freezer so it ends up being like a bulky blob. Anyway, I'm probably the only person that didn't think to store them flat. Tell me what you've had success in freezing. I'm addicted to freezing dinner now. For the last few months the only things we've had in our freezer has been frozen juice, waffles, peas, broccoli, and the ocassional ice cream. That's it! It's been a barren wasteland.

M- Chicken Noodle Soup

T- Potato Soup

W- Zuppa Toscana from the Olive Garden

Th- Tomato Soup

F- We always do pizza and a movie

S- Corn Chowder from Mimi's Cafe

Su- Slow-cooked BBQ pork ribs, salad, crusty bread (2 ingredients. 1-2 bottles of favorite BBQ sauce and ribs. Cook in the crockpot for a few hours. I might even freeze half of this)

I have to say that I love making soup. The kids are pretty good about eating it because they get to make up their own names for it and put things in it like baby goldfish to swim. They call the Zuppa Toscana, "dinosaur soup" because the Kale reminded Daisy of something a plant-eating dinosaur would eat. I love it. The last time we made tomato soup, Daisy was coming up with all kinds of cool names for it, but then ended up getting upset and not wanting to call it anything because I gave it a scary Halloween name like, "bat gut stew" or something like that. She's so sensitive sometimes. Geez.

thursday's menu

The purpose of posting my menu for the day is more of my attempt to stick to a menu plan by "writing" it down.

B: Waffles with homemade raspberry jam and orange juice
L: Leftover pizza, milk, and sliced cucumbers and baby carrots
D: Grilled Lime Chicken with Black Bean Sauce, rice, and red grapes

Daily dessert desire: Concord Grape Sorbet at The Kitchen Sink. Doesn't that look so good?!

Matilda

A couple of months ago, I saw that Marie at Make & Takes had read the book How To Eat Fried Worms with her 5 year old and then they watched the movie and ate gummy worms. Some of the comments left on her post were ideas of other worm-related activities or treats. This gave me an idea. There are quite a few children's books that have been turned into movies and knew this would be something that Daisy would really enjoy doing. We started with "How To Eat Fried Worms" and Daisy liked it a lot and surprisingly didn't eat very many gummy worms during the movie. I wonder if it's because it grossed her out. . .

The next movie/book combo we did was Matilda by Roald Dahl. We read this book together, and even though a lot of it might've gone over her head, she really enjoyed it and was blown away by the awful things that Miss Trunchbull did to little children. We borrowed the movie version with Danny Devito from the library, and decided to make the Chocolate Cake from Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook, Deceptively Delicious. Incase you haven't read the book, there's a part where a young boy, Bruce Bogtrotter, is forced to eat an entire giant chocolate cake. This recipe is much healthier than regular chocolate cake recipes. It uses pureed beets for added nutrition. It's still not perfectly healthy, but it makes me feel a little better about myself and what I'm feeding my kid, okay?

Anyway, Daisy and I enjoyed reading, watching, and eating "Bruce Bogtrotter's" chocolate cake. We're having computer/camera issues, but perhaps I'll post some photos later.

food links

Inside-out S'mores at Clumbsy Cookie

Toasted Coconut Shortbread at Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

Wonton Soup at Rasa Malaysia

Kate's Indian Grilled Chicken at Pioneer Woman Cooks

I love making the kids bento meals and I love collecting bento boxes. Here is a great American style bento blog with preschool age meal ideas. Wendolonia.

2 cool new links you will love and/or find interesting:

Cake Wrecks. "When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong." That should explain it all right there.

Food Timeline-- a very interesting history of the beginnings of food from the "beginning" of time until today. You can click on many of the foods listed and it will tell you the history of that specific food. Very, very cool. At least I think so. Just check it out and you'll see what I mean. There are some cool links on this website as well.

take 5

Hershey's TAKE 5 is my favorite candybar right now. It's got everything. Pretzels, caramel, peanuts, peanut butter, and milk chocolate. YUM. Sweet and salty, nothing overpowering any of the other ingredients.

Candy Blog gave it a 5 out of 10 rating. She said it was one of her favorite candy bars at first, but she thought that they quickly stale and that they would be much better and get a much higher rating if it were made out of real chocolate once again instead of Hershey's new mockolate.

I still enjoy it, but then again I don't taste candy for a living and haven't a distinguished or refined taste for fancy cacoa, or whatever all those new chocolate products are.

eat your vegetables

I'm usually willing to try something different. I had brussel sprouts for the first time. YUCK. I tried to like them. I ate a bunch. But YUCK. But of course being the good mother I am, I said, "MMmmmm" with every bite. Just for my kids. I don't think it worked anyway. They look like little cabbages, but they taste like pungent, nutty, rottenness. Maybe they would taste good if they were prepared in another way. What is it with my family and their Belgian cooking?! I feel healthy as a horse since being here though.

strawberry project I

I LOVE smores. But chocolate right now gives me major heartburn. Even though chocolate usually makes the heartburn worth it, I've been experimenting with what else to put in a smore. My sister does pineapple slices with marshmallow. Today we did yummy strawberry slices and "roasted" marshmallows squished in between 2 graham cracker squares. It was so tasty!
First we placed the desired amount of marshmallows on a broiler pan and placed in the broiler for a few seconds until nice and toasty brown. There's no picture of what they looked like when they came out, because I don't like to take my time when something's ready, I like to eat.
We sliced up fresh strawberries and placed a few slices on a graham cracker half and then topped with a toasted marshmallow and squished it down nice and firm with the remaining graham cracker half. Doesn't that look good?

Then I ate it. And then I ate a few more. We were thinking about other healthier alternatives to chocolate. You can do banana, pineapple, mixed berries. Marie at Make and Takes suggests substitiuting fudge stripe cookies or kit kats in place of the usual chocolate bar. She also has other fun roasting ideas for the outdoors that I would like to try sometime. Now I really want to try a smore with a kit kat. I even thought about doing chocolate covered cinnamon bears, but decided I rather liked them the way they are by themselves and ate them all. I waited until the kids were in bed. What would you put in a smore?

a few of baby #3's favorite things

This pregnancy has been pretty bad as far as cravings go. Here are a few of Cletus the Fetus's favorite things:

homemade smoothies, trail mix, Goodwood BBQ restaurant, Simply Lemonade (it's worth it even if I get acid reflux), nectarines, dairy products, Kneaders Bakery & Cafe, grapes, bagels and cream cheese, watermelon (any fruit for that matter), haagen dazs ice cream (especially chocolate and peanut butter even though it gives me heartburn), honey roasted cashews, gyros (any greek, mediterranean, or Indian food actually), Breyers ice cream, chocolate covered cinnamon bears (heartburn city), pf chang's lettuce wraps, raspberry and cream cheese-filled croissants (any fine pastry will do actually), Cheetos Natural White Cheddar Cheese Puffs, and See's Candies.