Happy Halloween! Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Every year, I look forward to going to the pumpkin patch and finding a pumpkin so I can toast the seeds! This year, my family got 3 pumpkins, and two of them ended up being pie pumpkins, but I'll save the pie pumpkin recipe (Pumpkin Chickpea Lentil stew) for another post! Here's how I toast my seeds.

(I love this kid!)

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients
pumpkin seeds, leave some pulp
butter
salt

Directions

(Here's us, gutting the pumpkins.)

Preheat oven to 400-425. (I almost burned down the house...again.)
Sautee in a large frying pan the seeds along with a good amount of butter. I think I used about 2T. And salt. Lots and lots of salt.

(Here's the seeds and the gobs of butter.)

I would sautee them a good 5 minutes or so, until it's not uber buttery in the pan anymore. Then spread them out on a cookie-ish pan (I like to use the ones with the sides so they don't escape.)

(Seeds ready for the oven.)

Bake for 7ish minutes, flip, and bake 6ish minutes more. Like I said before, I nearly burned down my house. Maybe play with the temp and time. Maybe less time, because the high temp gets them nice and dry!

(Gorgeous toasted seeds, ready for consumption.)

(Here is a photo of our carved pumpkins.)

Pancake Night!

This is my first post! In honor of pancake night at our house, I thought I'd post my absolute favorite pancake recipe! I got it from the TV show "The Chew." One of the viewers "won" with her Pumpkin Apple Pancake recipe, and I thought I'd try it, because I love pumpkin, apples, and pancakes!

MIA ROGERS' PUMPKIN APPLE PANCAKES

Ingredients:

1c flour

1 1/2t baking powder

1/2t cinnamon

1/4t nutmeg

1/8t ginger

1T butter, melted

1/2c pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/4c brown sugar

1/4t salt

1 egg, lightly beaten

1c buttermilk*

1/3c peeled, diced apple (I usually use 1 apple)

Caramelized Apple Topping:

1 apple, thinly sliced

1T butter

2T brown sugar

(I usually double this recipe, because I love it so much! And really, who wants a scant amount of this apply goodness on their pancakes?!)

*If you don't have buttermilk, put 1T of lemon juice in a liquid measuring cup and fill with milk until it reaches 1c. Whisk it to combine, then let it sit at room temperature for 5-10 minutes, until it's curdled. Mix it up and voila! You have your buttermilk substitute!

Directions:

In a medium bowl, toss in your flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. In a smaller bowl, place your egg, melted butter, diced apple, pumpkin puree, and buttermilk. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and let stand for about 5 minutes. At this point, you can now make your caramelized apple topping!

In a large-ish skillet, melt your butter (here's where I'd use 2T...okay maybe 3 or 4T of butter!) over medium-ish heat. Add your brown sugar and apples and stir until the apples are nice and soft, and slightly golden (8ish minutes). Oh, I can smell them already!

(This is my husband, being an awesome assistant, caramelizing the apples. Don't you love the action shot?!)

To cook your pancakes, scoop up 1/3c of the batter and plop it onto your preheated griddle. Cook on one side until it's bubbly, then flip and cook another 1 1/2ish minutes. When they are done, top with your delicious caramelized apples, some warm maple syrup, and maybe...just maybe...some brown sugar!

(Here is an unnecessary photo of the pancakes almost finished cooking.)

(The plated goodness.)

The recipe says it serves 4 people, but I can easily eat 4 of these delicious suckers myself! Enjoy, and happy Autumn!

Back to Baking!

Happy Autumn!! Obviously we are celebrating by not posting anything. We are awesome this way. :)

Autumn is my favorite time of year, something Allison & I have in common, so I thought I would actually try to post something related to it. I love baking, especially for other people, but tend not to do much of it in the heat of summer. This August the heating element in the oven went out & even though I didn't plan to bake much I felt slightly panicked at the thought that I couldn't if I wanted to. ;) Fortunately my dad put a new heating element in & the weather has turned cooler so it's time to make delicious autumn-inspired foods!

To christen the new heating element I decided to make some Peanut Butter Pumpkin Bread. It sounds like a weird combination but they work well together.

The recipe I use is from an old Taste of Home magazine but I've made a few additions of my own over time. I like it spicy. :)

Here's the recipe with my additions in bold:

Peanut Butter Pumpkin Bread (adapted from Taste of Home):

• 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon plus a little more
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves  
• 1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup water
• 2/3 cup peanut butter
• Chocolate chips!

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves in a large bowl. Put the peanut butter (I prefer extra chunky!) in a slightly smaller bowl and microwave for 30 seconds to a minute so it is easier to combine with the other ingredients. Once it is easily stirred add in the pumpkin, oil, water, and eggs. Stir the pumpkin-peanut butter mixture into the dry ingredients just until everything is combined. I like to add chocolate chips at this step. As many as you'd like! Don't overstir.

The Taste of Home recipe calls for two 9x5-in. loaf pans. I've also used smaller pans and made mini-loaves. Just make sure you grease them. I use an ice cream scoop to evenly distribute the batter. When the pans are full I like to sprinkle a line of cinnamon down the length of the batter before swirling it with a knife or fork. It makes it look pretty! You can also sprinkle some sugar on top to give it an extra something. Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes. My oven tends to be hot (and the new element is very hot) so I check around 45 minutes, especially if making small loaves. Use the toothpick method to see if it's ready. Cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes before carefully removing from pan. Let cool before wrapping carefully. 

This freezes well & makes a great gift! You can add cinnamon chips, white chocolate chips, cranberries, nuts, etc. Happy eating!