Pumpkin Muffins with Brown Sugar Whipped Cream

Yesterday, as I drove home from HEB in the scalding 100 degree heat and lamented the weight of my very pregnant belly that pulled me forward in my seat, I reminded myself that the blazing days of summer in Texas will come to an end, as will this joy ride of a pregnancy, and that by the time the first cold front blows in, I will have another sweet baby nestled in my arms (instead of punching me in the bladder).

Naturally, this made me crave pumpkin.

There is nothing that signifies the arrival of fall to me more than the smell of pumpkin bread baking in the oven. Pumpkin bread is one of my mother's specialties and as soon I unpacked my melting 2 year old and groceries from the car, I called her for suggestions on a lighter pumpkin bread recipe. I found a quick and easy recipe on Cooking Light, but I adapted it a bit for my family's tastes and what we had on hand. Because there was no way I was venturing back outside in the heat to buy egg substitutes. Here is the revised recipe.

Pumpkin Muffins with Whole Wheat Flour and Brown Sugar Whipped Cream 

(to balance out the whole wheatiness)

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 & 1/3 cup white whole wheat flour (I always use King Arthur)

1 tablespoon baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup mashed or pureed banana (get all the clumps mashed out!)

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk (or same amount of low-fat milk with dash of vinegar added)

2 large eggs

2/3 cup water

1-15 oz. can of pumpkin puree

cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Mix the first eight ingredients (flour through allspice) in a large bowl.

3. In a second bowl, mix both types of sugar, pureed banana, oil, buttermilk or milk, and eggs with a hand mixer on medium-high speed until well blended. Add the water and pumpkin and mix again on medium-high speed until well blended. 

4. Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture and blend on low speed or hand stir with a rubber spatula until well blended. 

5. Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray. Fill each muffin cup almost to the top with the batter and bake for 20-22 minutes, depending on your oven. Remove the muffins when they are golden brown and the tops are firm. Let cool on a cooling rack.

Optional: Add 1 cup of cold heavy cream with 1 tablespoon of brown sugar to a metal mixing bowl. Mix on high speed for 3-5 minutes, until the desired consistency. Spoon over your pumpkin muffin for a significantly less healthy but fantabulous dessert.

A Delicious Green Smoothie

I have a thing for smoothies. The smoothie recipe I make most often for my family is here in this old post, but I have a new favorite. So does William.

Meet Carey. Meet Carey's recipe for a delicious toddler and pregnant mama approved smoothie. Did I mention Carey is a chef? She knows her stuff.

 William thinks there is ice cream in this smoothie. He is mistaken. He had just woken up from his nap and was thrilled that there was a smoothie waiting for him.

 Straws are hard.

 But worth the effort.

I love this smoothie because it isn't thick and so it feels lighter, more like a snack instead of a meal. I mistakenly read Carey's recipe as containing coconut milk instead of almond milk, and so I have been making it with the coconut milk and coconut water (and no almond milk) and it still tastes delicious. The coconut milk is naturally sweet so I don't need to add the honey.

Here's a little tip: I slice fresh bananas and flash freeze them for 30 minutes on a baking sheet. Then I snap the frozen banana slices off the baking sheet and keep them in a ziploc bag in the freezer until I need them. You can also stick a whole banana in the freezer but peeling frozen bananas kills my fingers.

Thanks for sharing this great recipe, Carey! It's a new staple in our house.

Whole Grain Milk Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

Sometimes I want to bake, but I want to bake something that has at least some redeeming nutritional qualities. I adapted this recipe from the Old Fashioned Quaker Oats "vanishing oatmeal raisin cookies" recipe found on the inside of the oats lid. These cookies are slightly crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and are made with whole wheat flour and dried fruit. They also have nearly two sticks of butter...not that anyone is counting.

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Whole Grain Milk Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 6 tbsp. butter, softened

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 and 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (I prefer King Arthur Flour)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 and 1/2 cups Quaker Oats (the old-fashioned kind)

1 cup milk chocolate chips

1 cup dried cranberries

1. Heat oven to 350. In large bowl, beat butter and sugars on medium speed until creamy.

2. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.

3. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Mix well.

4. Add oats, chocolate chips, and cranberries. Mix well with a spatula.

5. Drop dough onto ungreased cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.

6. Bake 10-12 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool on wire rack. Store tightly covered.

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I use a medium size ice cream scoop to dole out the cookie dough, and I get about 18 cookies per batch.

If you don't like cranberries, this recipe is easily adaptable to many combinations. I've made it with dried chopped apricots and dark chocolate chunks, or dried apples and pecans. You can also remove the fruit entirely and just enjoy an oat and chocolate cookie. 

These cookies freeze well, baked or raw. If you bake them first, let them cool completely and then store in a ziploc bag in the freezer. If you want to freeze them unbaked so that you can have fresh cookies at a moment's notice, scoop the cookie dough into balls on a baking sheet, but stick them in the freezer instead of the oven. Freeze for 30 minutes or until firm; then wiggle the cookies off the sheet pan and store them in a ziploc baggie in the freezer. Remove them from the freezer ten minutes before you plan on baking them.

Making Your Place a Home: Cook in Your Kitchen

Nothing makes a place feel more like a home than the smell of something yummy wafting from the kitchen.

When I lived in a dorm room with only a toaster over (down the hall), or a tiny apartment in another country with a stove I couldn't figure out, or an ugly and lonely apartment with neighbors yelling downstairs, the smell of something warm drifting from the oven has always made me feel like I'm at home.

Even if it's just chicken nuggets in the oven, cooking something can help you feel settled in a new place.

I've had morning sickness and fatigue for the last 14 weeks or so, and have just found myself rounding the corner and feeling better, more like my normal self. The first thing I noticed was that our house was in need of some tender loving care. I left our messy house and went to the market to find something special to make.

Some glossy black eggplants sang to me. I found this recipe for eggplant parmesan that was easy and tasty. We had almost no mozzarella cheese when I made it, so I grated the little that we had on the tiniest holes of the box grater and sprinkled them between the layers of eggplant; the dish was lighter and perfectly delicious, even without all the cheese.

Do you cook your way back to a well-tended home, too?

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Baby Cakes

I don't like it when people use abbreviations or acronyms when they're speaking, but earlier today when I pulled these concoctions from heaven out of the oven and tasted one, the only thing I could mutter was OH EM GEE. I handed a steaming morsel to Don and he shared my sentiment.

Let me first say that today is my birthday (I am officially 30), and I wanted to make something special for us tonight. In my entire adult life, I have never baked anything from a box. I am a baking snob, it's true. All my clothes come from Target and I can scarf Velveeta cheese with the best of them, so I feel like snobbery in this one area is acceptable.

But today, I wanted to try something different. I found a recipe that uses packaged devil's food cake mix and instant pudding, and I added some saltiness in the form of my BFF, peanut butter, and chocolate covered pretzels, and the result was, well: OH EM GEE.

I am not kidding. These are the kind of thing you should only eat once a year, but when you do, you should savor every bite. I am torn between making the peanut butter icing I'd planned on piping over these baby cakes and decorating them with a single perfect chocolate pretzel, but I almost think it would be overkill. They are so good as they are. They aren't cupcakes. They're baby cakes. You should make these today.

William was in agony; I set the cakes on the table to cool and wouldn't let him have one.

Here is the original recipe, without the chocolate pretzels and peanut butter cups. Below is the way I made them.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Baby Cakes
yields about 18 cup cakes

Ingredients:
1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup warm water (I accidentally omitted this, but I think it would make the cakes even more moist.)
1 cup chopped up mini Reese's peanut butter cups (the very tiny ones seen in the first photo)
1 cup chopped up chocolate covered pretzels

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners.

2. In large bowl, mix together the cake and pudding mixes. Whisk together so that the mixes are fully blended and any large clumps have been broken down. Add the sour cream, oil, 4 beaten eggs, and water and mix well. This is a thick batter, so make sure to check the bottom of the bowl so that all of the dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed into the wet. Stir in the chopped pretzels and peanut butter cups.

3. Bake for 20 minutes, or until tops are springy and a dry spaghetti noodle inserted into muffin center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack and top with peanut butter icing or leave plain.

Black Bean Soup & Jalapeno Cornbread

Are you ready to eat healthier now that the holidays are over? I know we are. I've made this soup three times in the last two weeks, mostly because the littlest member of our family devours it like nothing else.

My friend Sunee copied this black bean recipe from America's Test Kitchen cook book for me, but I found this recipe from allrecipes.com that's very similar, if you subtract the carrots and corn. The original recipe doesn't call for it, but I added a finely diced carrot to the onions and jalapeno. You can't really taste the flavor of the cooked carrot, but it makes the soup even more nutritious. 

And I can't say enough about this corn meal. It's from close to here, and I've been using it since I started cooking about five years ago. The recipe is on the back of the package of corn meal.

 I used to hate cornbread. I'm not a fan of the crumbly texture, but this brand is delicious. I do something that would make corn bread aficionados angry.

 I add 1/4 cup of full-fat Greek yogurt to the recipe to help it stay moist and fluffy instead of crumbly.

 And I add a finely diced jalapeno. If you really want the jalapeno to be noticeable, you should use 2 whole jalapenos. I always cut out the white ribs, and sometimes I even rinse the jalapeno's insides under cold water, if I know lots of kiddos are going to be eating with us.

This is one of the cheapest and most delicious meals I know how to make. Do you have any cheap and wholesome meals you rely on? 

Banana Pudding for Carpentry

Prior to Saturday, I had neither made nor tasted a banana pudding in my entire life. It's true. And now that I have both made and tasted (or devoured, more like it) banana pudding, it makes me sad to know what I've been missing. 

My perfectly imperfect pudding. It needs a little sign that says, "Made With Love."

 There isn't a humbler dessert, other than jello, but as far as I'm concerned, jello doesn't count. Anyway, I am a convert. I will gladly make banana pudding from here on out. It was GOOD. It was easy. I used this recipe, using only 2 cups of whole milk rather than 3. And make sure your cream cheese is really and truly at room temperature, or you'll get lumpy pudding.

I wouldn't have even made the banana pudding if my father in law hadn't indicated that it was his favorite dessert. I made it for him because he built custom shelves for William's room, with help from Don. I'm so excited about them it's a little hard to sleep. Now we have storage for all of the toys that have been slowly multiplying throughout our house. The shelves are built and waiting for a coat of primer and paint. I plan on finishing them this week. Finally, things are coming together around here.

And all because of some banana pudding.

Cheap Thrills: Make-up, Best Fall Breakfast, and Flying Pigs

Sometimes I buy something and I think it works so wonderfully well that I need to tell you about it.

Like this.

It's part of my personal routine to always, always, always do my hair and make-up, come hell or high water. I was raised by a southern woman, and this is how we roll. This Clinique lid smoothie goes on a little shiny, but your eye shadow can either tone that down or play it up. My eye make-up stays on from 6 am until 9 pm, really and truly. This is hands down the best eye primer I have ever used, and a little goes a long way.

Cheap thrill number 2: quick cooking five grains. This is a cheap thrill if you like eating whole grains for breakfast. I love these things! Italian farro, barley, brown rice, kamut wheat, and oats. These are nutty and chewy, and I sprinkle them with cinnamon, a tiny bit of sugar and salt, a splash of half and half, slivered almonds, and dried cranberries, and it makes a warm steamy breakfast bowl fit for a Charles Dickens novel. Seriously. William eats it up. I think this comes out to less than 50 cents per bowlful.

Finally, last night I went to Hobby Lobby to buy some gold craft paint, and I ended up coming home with these guys.

I am a little bit scared of the pigs in the middle.

They're Christmas ornaments and were half off. These little guys were less than $2 each, and I grabbed them! I can't really see them gracing our Christmas tree, but I've wanted to make tiny flying pigs to hang in William's room forever. Is it just me or does the pig on the far left look like he's pleading with me to save him from the three creepy pigs in the middle?

Have you found anything cheap and wonderful lately?

Recipe Sharing: Vegetarian Korma

Last week, on the day that we learned things weren't looking hopeful for the little baby I'm carrying, Brandi showed up on my front porch with a pitcher of ice cold sweet tea and a massive container of herbed basmati rice and vegetarian korma. "I made you something healthy," she said. It was so encouraging to me. 

It was delicious. It's a little hard to photograph since it's composed of tiny diced veggies, but it has so much flavor. She shared the recipe with me and I made it for our dinner (supper, if you live in the south and talk like it) tonight. I chopped the veggies during William's morning nap and then put everything on to simmer about 30 minutes before it was time to eat. This is my new favorite. 

The recipe is from allrecipes.com and can be found here.  Per Brandi's recommendation, I used olive oil instead of vegetable oil and half and half instead of heavy cream. I also needed to use a full 8 oz. of tomato sauce to get the consistency I wanted, and I am pretty sure this is a big leap, but I added a bay leaf to the simmering sauce (don't forget to remove it before serving). Yum.

Leftover Summer Veggie Pizza

I am not a fan of veggie pizza because the steaming chunks of onion, pepper, and black canned-tasting olives tend to fall off the pizza in chunks, leaving big cheeseless craters behind. And a cheeseless crater is not my idea of a good time. But tonight, I made pizza and realized we had some extra fresh sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, and broccoli we needed to use.

This combo of veggies was delicious. Even William approved.

The veggies were small enough not to weigh down the pizza, and the addition of basil pesto gave the pizza a richer and fuller taste.

I started with one ball of freshly made whole wheat pizza dough.

Then I layered it with tomato-basil pasta sauce, herb-marinated mozzarella, parmesan cheese, tiny broccoli florets, fresh sweet corn straight off the cob, and halved cherry tomatoes. I drizzled lightly some basil pesto over the top.

I always assemble my pizza on a flat sheet pan covered with heaps of corn meal, which allows me to slide the prepared pizza straight from the pan onto the hot pizza stone in the oven without tearing the dough or spilling the ingredients on the oven floor while transferring it.

I bake it at 420 (our gas oven runs extremely hot, but if yours doesn't you might want to bake it closer to 500) for about 12 minutes. Let it cool a minute before slicing and eating. Yum!

Marinated Mozzarella, Tomato, and Pesto Toasted Sandwich

Today was one of those days.

It was a fun day, with many sweet moments, but there was also a big tumble, a scraped chin and a fat lip. Boo for little boy acrobatics.

Kisses from Miss Lilia

On days like this, I don't want to mess with a big production of a dinner. Bring on the toasted sandwich.

Take some fresh ciabatta loaves from the deli, cut in half, stick under the broiler for a few minutes. Rub fresh cut garlic on the OUTSIDE of the bread slices, so that you get a subtle lick of garlic when you bite into the sandwich. So good.

Slather with pesto, layer with marinated mozzarella, thick tomato slices, lettuce leaves, and avocado.

 It's a thick sandwich, so you have to squish it to eat it. Squish it. Devour.

Even little boys with scraped chins will stop fussing long enough to chew.

And maybe even smile for a minute or two.

Meal Planning: A Love-Hate Relationship

I kind of hate planning meals for my family. I love feeding them nutritious, homemade, satisfying meals, but putting together a decent hot meal (or even a cold one sometimes) with a walking/running one-year-old boy who likes to fling his books and wooden blocks clear across the house is a challenge. After almost a whole year of being a stay-at-home-mom, I've finally sucked it up and conquered the task. Here's what works for me:

turkey burgers and roasted sweet potatoes from Monday night

1. Find your middle ground. If you're a type A+ like me, you may dream of Iron Chef worthy dinners each night. When I was working and I only cooked one meal a week, I could spend the effort and money on some pretty amazing food. That is not my reality right now. My compromise is that I can't spend hours (or even an hour) cooking, but I'm not willing to use non-food or processed ingredients more often than once in a blue moon. Sorry, Velveeta. My priority is to feed my family whole grains, produce, lean protein, and plant-based fats at each meal.

2. Make a list and stick to it. I used to scoff at this common recommendation, but that was before I planned our meals. I would make a list of all of the ingredients for the meals I might possibly make during the week, but even when I stuck to my list, I was spending too much and food was going unused and eventually landing in the trash can. Make a list of only the ingredients you need to complete the meals you're making for the week, and stick to it. This takes some discipline, but it's a valuable skill.

3. Come up with some reliable standby meals, something that you always have on hand and know you can whip up in a hurry if you're too exhausted or busy to make a new meal. We usually have whole wheat pizza dough in the freezer, so a veggie pizza requires almost no effort from me and is tasty and nutritious. I keep a bag of frozen, peeled and deveined shrimp in the freezer, and can quickly thaw two servings under cold running water. I throw the shrimp, some olive oil, salt, pepper, basil or oregano, and cherry tomatoes into a roasting pan, roast for 10 minutes or so, and serve it over brown rice. If you add some butter and freshly grated Parmesan to the roasting pan after the shrimp has cooked, you will have some very happy eaters.

4. Break it up! We're having chicken enchiladas tonight, and I needed to roast the whole chicken today. I put the chicken in the oven at 8 am, so that I could have this main task completed way before it's time to make dinner. There's no way I'm willing to roast a chicken once it's 100 degrees outside. If I'm making tacos, I'll prepare the meat in advance and then I only have to assemble the toppings in the evening. You get the idea.

Food we've eaten this week (there are only a couple of pics because it's only Wednesday):

Homemade pizza with fresh mozzarella, herbs, bell peppers, and kalamata olives. Not my favorite combination, but not every meal has to be perfect. I used what we had on hand.

Homemade Cinnamon Sugar Popcorn. Not healthy or nutritious, but freaking delicious. 

Sunday Mornings: MacGyver & Pancakes

Don has really fond memories of watching MacGyver with his Dad as a child. Thanks to Netflix, he can carry on the tradition with William.

This is possibly the only time that William actually lies still while he's awake. It lasts about ten minutes, and then William gets up and plays while MacGyver music fills the living room. And I make pancakes. Whole wheat pancakes with bananas and toasted pecans. Mmmm.

I used to hate making pancakes because I felt so guilty eating them and feeding them to other people that it just wasn't worth it, but I have to say these whole wheat pancakes are nutritious. Yep, they're actually good for you (minus the syrup). No sugar crashes or pancake coma an hour after eating them. And with sliced bananas and toasted Texas pecans, they are pretty dang delicious.

Happy Eating: Baby Mama Smoothies

Sometimes William is not in the mood to eat a million tiny crumbs of whole grain brain, chopped up greens, half-moons of mozzarella cheese, and slivers of turkey meat. Sometimes, he has a stuffy nose and is not so interested in playing with or eating his food. On days like this, I make us both a healthy smoothie and call it a meal.

Here's the thing I've learned about feeding homemade smoothies to my child: he loves them as much as I do, and I can pack them so full nutritionally that they're healthier than what I could get him to eat off of his highchair tray. The beauty of a smoothie is that it can change a food's texture. William doesn't like cooked spinach, but he can't yet snack on raw spinach leaves. Blended in with his smoothie, he gets all the benefits of raw spinach.

Side note: I know many pediatricians and parents disagree about what is okay to feed your baby. If these foods aren't things you would give to your child, you don't have to make this smoothie! :)

Banana-Mango Milk Smoothie:
2 cups of soy milk or whole milk
1 cup of frozen mango chunks (we buy a huge bag of them at Sam's Club)
1 whole banana, peeled
1 pinch of cinnamon, optional
1/2 cup whole oats (try Quaker Old-Fashioned Oats, not the quick-cooking or instant kind)

Pour milk and remaining ingredients into blender jar and blend until totally smooth. Add more milk to get the consistency you prefer.

The uncooked whole oats provide a full serving of whole grains.

Green Monster (or Spinach & Strawberry) Smoothie:
2 cups of soy milk or whole milk
2 cups of fresh spinach leaves (I leave the stems on.)
1 cup of frozen strawberries
1/2 cup of whole oats

Same directions as Banana-Mango Milk Smoothie.

William is One!

Our littlest cowboy turned one on Thursday and we had a sweet family party by meeting Don for lunch at Maudie's South. Don and I used to go there several times a week, but since becoming parents, we go there once a month or so. The servers are so kind and loved to see William have his birthday lunch there. He had his first sopapilla (minus the honey) and loved it.

On Saturday, we celebrated with family and friends by hosting a cowboy breakfast birthday party. We served this cowboy breakfast casserole, bagels and cream cheese, fruit, and Bill Miller's awesome hash browns. The cupcakes were actually these whole-wheat apple muffins with vanilla cream cheese frosting, since William loves those muffins so much. I snapped a few pics before the party started.

I made a cupcake tower by wrapping old boxes in parcel paper and tying them with folded red wrapping paper, ribbon, and raffia. I tucked photos of William into the ribbons to hide the tape that held everything together. Those are my mom's baby cowgirl boots from when she was a little girl!

I can't believe I don't own a cri-cut. Those things are genius. My new BFF Brandi helped me make his banner and cupcake toppers.

I hung pompom fringe across the dining room window and used clothespins stamped with pet names for William to hang our favorite photos of him.

In the center, we hung our prayer for him. 

The party favors were actually for the parents, since the average baby age was less than 1 year. The bags held packages of graham crackers, marshmallows, and mini hershey bars to make microwave s'mores.

The balloons cast a light like stained glass later in the evening.

Allison & Ryan & Blythe. Blythe wears bows. Big bows. I want to pick her up and hug her every time I see her because she looks like a baby doll. 

Laurel, Jason, and Braxton. Braxton is an angel. Look at those baby lips!

Jason, Allison, and Avery. Avery is William's baby girlfriend, though she doesn't know it. He LOVES her. He always tries to touch her face and she just pushes his hands away. 

Bill & Evan & Sarah. Sarah's stomach is way too flat to have just had a baby. Rock on, sister.

My brother-in-law Ryan and nephew James. James may or may not have eaten a cupcake before William did. I like the glazed over look as he eats his icing!

My sister Catherine and her son, Rhys, who is only a couple of weeks younger than William. The boys look so much alike.

My BFF Adri and Lucas.

My sister Mo, Myles, and Jenny. Myles is such a little chunk; I could just eat him up.

Just for kicks, we tried to take a picture of all of the babies sitting next to each other. Ha. Check out Avery's tooshie as she escapes the photo session, and William starting to remove Blythe's bow. Despite this pic, these babies have grown up together and love each other. 

I'm so sorry we didn't get pictures of everyone, but we were so thrilled to have such a fun day for William's first birthday party.