Tasty Tuesday: Crock Pot Granola

My mom first made this granola recipe back in February and had me try it. It was so good that I got the recipe from her and made it a couple days later.

We've been making it ever since.

Leighton keeps a jar of it at work and eats it by the handful. The kids like it with milk. I mix mine with Greek yogurt.

It's great eaten as a snack or as a meal, because it's healthy and filling. Oh, and delicious.

And as a bonus? It's so much cheaper than buying it from the store. And did I mention that it's easy to make?

Honestly, if you like granola, you need to give this one a try!

Crock Pot Granola

Ingredients:

5 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup slivered almonds (I pulse mine in the food processor a bit, because we don't like large pieces.)
1 cup raw pumpkin seeds 
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup ground flax seed (optional)
2/3 cup honey
1/3 cup coconut oil 
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 cup raisins or craisins

Directions:

1. Lightly grease the crock-pot with oil. Add the oats, almonds, pumpkin seeds, salt, and ground flax seed, if using.
2. In a large measuring cup or small glass bowl, combine the honey, coconut oil, peanut butter, cinnamon, and vanilla. Microwave for one minute, stir and microwave an additional 30 seconds, as needed, to melt everything and allow it to combine smoothly. (Can also be melted on the stove in a small saucepan.)
3. Pour the liquids over the oats in the crockpot and stir well to thoroughly coat. Place the lid on the crockpot, leaving it slightly vented. Cook on HIGH for about 2 hours, stirring every 30 minutes.
4. Stir in the dried fruit right at the end. Spread the granola across a large baking sheet and let it cool before transferring to an airtight container. It fills a half-gallon mason jar.

Recipe adapted from Barefeet in the Kitchen.

Tasty Tuesday: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Every Thursday, my friend Karen from Tots and Me hosts Throwback Thursday Blog-Style. When she first started it, I thought it was a great idea. It's so fun looking back through old posts, seeing older pictures of the kids and remembering some activities that we've done. It's also a good way to connect with other bloggers. 

This past week, she personally shared a recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I knew immediately that I wanted to try them. We make pumpkin cookies every fall and coat them with a simple icing. We've made them so many times that I thought for sure that the recipe was here on the blog. I was shocked to discover that they're not and will remedy that eventually. And though I had been craving our pumpkin cookies the last couple weeks, the idea of adding chocolate to the pumpkin goodness instead of the vanilla icing on top was very appealing. I grabbed some butter out of the fridge to start softening. As soon as the schoolwork was done for the day, we got to baking.

 

Oh, let me tell you, these cookies did not disappoint! As with any cookie, we had to taste them just minutes out of the oven. Soft cake-like texture, gooey melted chocolate chips, and a hint of pumpkiny flavor. It's a good thing we made 5-6 dozen, because these kids of mine were inhaling them. I'm sure they would have gobbled down nearly all of them that first day had I let them. 

Yeah, they're that good. These are cookies that we'll be making again.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
5 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
3 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a large bowl and set aside.
2. Cream the butter and sugar. Add pumpkin, eggs, and vanilla and mix well.
3. Slowly add in the flour mixture until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Drop dough onto baking sheet. (I used my large cookie scoop, about 2 tablespoons.) Bake at 350* for 14-18 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.    

Recipe adapted from Tots and Me.

Tasty Tuesday: Maple-Filled Pumpkin Spice Spritz Cookies

I am so excited that it's fall! This is my favorite season for so many reasons, but especially for the flavors: apples, pumpkins, cinnamon, nutmeg. Within the past few weeks we've already made pumpkin bread a few times and zucchini muffins. And cinnamon swirl bread, but we make that year-round. With all the bread baking, we were needing a change. These cookies were the perfect solution.

Not only do they taste yummy with just a hint of pumpkin spice, but look how adorable they are! The kids love whenever we pull out the cookie press. Treats are even more fun when they're in cute little shapes.

I love how the end of one color bled into the beginning of the new one in some of the cookies. I think it would be really pretty to fill the cookie press alternating the different colors. It would make wonderful multicolored leaves--perfect for fall!

While the cookies themselves are not quite as buttery as our typical spritz recipe, they make up for it with the maple filling. To me, they taste just like the maple cookies my grandparents used to buy in the bulk section of the grocery store. Leighton said they taste like a cross between pancakes and waffles. Haha, I guess the maple filling just means that we can eat these for breakfast!

Because you don't need a lot of filling for the cookies, I used the leftover goodness to frost a loaf of that cinnamon swirl bread I was talking about. And, yes, I most definitely ate a piece of that with my coffee for breakfast!


Whether you prefer these cookies by themselves or filled with maple goodness, why not make a batch to celebrate fall.

 

Pumpkin Spice Spritz Cookies
 Ingredients:
1 cup (16 tablespoons) butter softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
 food coloring (optional)

Directions:
1. With an electric mixer, beat butter and powdered sugar until fluffy, about 4-5 minutes.
2. Mix in the egg and vanilla extract until combined.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and pumpkin pie spice. Slowly mix dry ingredients in with the butter mixture until combined.
4. If using food coloring, separate the dough, and add coloring accordingly.
5. Fill the cookie press with dough and press cookies onto ungreased baking sheets.
6. Bake at 350* for 7-8 minutes, until firm and edges are just beginning to brown. Remove from oven and let stand for 2 minutes before transferring to cooling racks to cool completely.


Maple Filling
Ingredients:
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon maple extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup powdered sugar

Directions:
Beat cream cheese and butter until smooth. Blend in maple and vanilla extracts. Slowly beat in powdered sugar until combined.

Sandwich maple filling between 2 cookies.

Recipes adapted from diethood.

Tasty Tuesday: Apple Butter Pumpkin Pie

Looking for something a little different this holiday season?  Why not make an apple butter pumpkin pie. It combines two of the season's favorite flavors and is still traditional enough to satisfy your pie fix. Plus, it's coated with a streusel topping. And we all know, streusel makes everything better!

We used our own homemade apple butter in this recipe. It adds a wonderful depth of flavor. You could also use a store-bought variety, but I highly recommend the homemade.

Just know, there aren't any spectacular pictures you can take for the making of this pie. Just a bunch of ingredients plopped into a bowl. 

Consider yourself warned.

 Appetizing?

 Mmm, looking better with each ingredient? 

 All mixed up, it looks like traditional pumpkin pie . . . but we know better. Ha!

We used the last of our brown sugar in the filling of the pie, so we had to make our own using white sugar and molasses, like we did HERE.

Technically, you're supposed to mix the two together by themselves (or mix the molasses with the wet ingredients.) I didn't want to take the extra time to do so, and it turned out just fine. See, sometimes shortcuts are ok!

We didn't add the pecans in the streusel because no one in our family would eat it then, and that would kind of defeat the purpose of making the pie in the first place. Nuts in desserts are starting to grow on me though. I think they would make a lovely addition to this one.

I've said it before, I don't care for pumpkin pie (even though I love any sort of pumpkin-y cake, cookie, or bread.) It doesn't even look like pumpkin though. It actually looks pretty good.

To me, it tastes very similar to a regular pumpkin pie - but better because of the topping. The texture is also a bit lighter. I think it needs more apple butter in order to get a better blend of flavors though. Or maybe I'm just trying to mask the pumpkin flavor altogether? It's possible. I love the addition of the streusel though. It adds a crunchiness to an otherwise creamy pie and gives it a good contrast.

Leighton's opinion is the one that truly matters. He agrees that it needs a stronger apple butter flavor to be called an "apple butter pumpkin pie." But put this pie in a match against a regular ol' pumpkin pie, and the tried-and-true traditional pumpkin is the winner.

Either one I make, one thing will always remain true: I steal the end crust off Leighton's slice(s). He could live without it, but it's my favorite part. We're like Jack Sprat and his wife, only instead of fat and lean, we're filling and crust.

Ah, such romantics we are.

Pie Crust
Ingredients:
1/2 cup vegetable shortening                                 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour                                   1/2 cups cold water

Directions:

1. Mix shortening, flour, and salt together with a fork or a pastry blender until very crumbly. Add as much water as needed to hold together, and mix lightly with a fork.
2. Roll gently on a floured pastry cloth to about an inch larger than pie plate. Fold carefully in half, lift to pie plate, and unfold. Press into pan. 

3. Don't forget to use up that excess pie dough!

Apple Butter Pumpkin Pie

Pie Ingredients:
1 cup canned pumpkin puree                                 1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup apple butter                                                   3 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup dark brown sugar                                       1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon                              1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Streusel Topping Ingredients:
3 tablespoons butter                                              1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour                                        1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, combine pumpkin, apple butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Stir in eggs and evaporated milk. Pour into prepared pie shell.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a knife inserted 2 inches from the center comes out clean.
4. To make the streusel topping: In a small bowl, combine butter, flour, and 1/3 cup brown sugar. Stir until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in pecans.
5. Sprinkle streusel topping over the pie, and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

Tasty Tuesday: Pumpkin Bread

Have I mentioned how much I love quick breads? Oh, I have? Well, I really do. Not just because they're quick and easy, but because they taste soooo yummy!

We showed how Jake made banana bread all by himself. 

And in our chocolate chai bread post, Alyssa used the hand-mixer by herself for the first time!

Here, you'll see Alyssa has improved much in the kitchen during the last 10 months.

She cracked the eggs all by herself.

Better yet - she dropped NO pieces of shell!

Eating a marshmallow while making the bread? Multitasking already. Girl after my own heart. She's come a long way from the first time she used the mixer.

The kids just love grating the nutmeg. She wanted to turn the entire seed to powder. It's a good thing it's the season of spice baking.

And since when did she learn to dump a bowl of something into another bowl without pouring it on the counter in the process???

I'm amazed while watching my children in the kitchen. They've learned so much and truly enjoy creating delicious foods. 

I'd better be careful though - pretty soon they just might kick me out of the kitchen and take over for good!

We made a simple glaze (1 1/4 cup powdered sugar & 3 tablespoons milk) and drizzled it on top of one loaf after it (mostly) cooled.

For the second loaf, we swirled 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips into the batter before baking.

Which one is better? You be the judge! Try this recipe yourself and see. You really can't go wrong with this one. Try adding walnuts, cranberries, white chocolate chips, or caramel. No matter how we've made it, we always love it! Even plain, it still ranks up at the top of my list for quick breads - and that's saying something!

Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree                           
4 eggs                                                               
1 c vegetable oil                                               
2/3 c water                                                         

2 c white sugar                                                   

1 c brown sugar                                                 
3 1/2 c all-purpose flour   
2 ts baking soda
1 1/2 ts salt
1 ts ground cinnamon   
1 ts ground nutmeg
1/2 ts ground cloves
1/4 ts ground ginger
                                                               
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9x5 inch loaf pans.

2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.

3. Bake for about 60 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Tasty Tuesday: Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

I've really come to love pumpkin desserts these last few years. I'm still not fond of pumpkin pie though. I'd rather scoop out the filling and eat just the crust. 

But these cupcakes taste amazingly just like pumpkin pie . . . and I can't get enough of them. 

Maybe it's the texture of the cake. Maybe it's the cream cheese frosting on top. Maybe my tastes have just changed. But whatever it is, I like it. And so does everyone else.

The list of ingredients is of fairly respectable length. All those spices add to the yummy goodness that you see above. The cakes are simple to make though.

But just in case something were to go wrong, Super Girl was right there to help out.

I'm convinced she made the cupcakes even better using her special baking powers.

If you don't have any buttermilk, you can make your own substitute by putting 1 tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice into a measuring cup and add enough milk to reach 1 cup. Stir and let sit for 5 minutes.

Cracking eggs is Jacob's favorite part. Seriously, if you're ever making a frittata or a quiche, he would love to save you some time and crack open all those eggs.

He might even pay you to do it.

My parents bought me this cute little spice grater and fresh nutmegs while they were on one of their elaborate vacations. The kids just love it. They wanted to grate the entire seed, but that would have resulted in dozens upon dozens of cupcakes, and that would not be good for my already-growing tummy.

You see this boy? He would live in footed pajamas if I let him. He wore holes in the bottom of the feet and needed patches. Then he wore holes in the patches. (Can you patch patches???) It's either footed pj's or just his undies. 

Boys.

Super Girl is quite adept with her baking skills. One taste of the batter, a face showing that something was not quite right, and a finger to her chin. "Hmm, it needs something," she informed us.

Oooh, I know! Frosting! (And I'm not even a super hero.)

Make sure to beat the cream cheese and butter until light and creamy before adding the powered sugar.

Unless you like the illusion of snow falling in your kitchen. I've done that a time or two. It's not as exciting as you might expect.

Cream cheese frosting is my absolute favorite. I could eat it on cookies. I could eat it on doughnuts. I could eat it off my finger. I could eat it off the spatula. It's the only reason I might eat a piece of carrot cake. (Now that's saying something.) 

This time we added cinnamon to half the batch to bring out the fall flavors of the cake. Oh. my. goodness. It tasted just like a cinnamon roll! That did not help my obsession with already trying to lick every last bit of goodness out of the bowl. Yum.

We used the handle of a spoon to drizzle caramel over the cupcakes with the plain cream cheese frosting. Wow. I really don't know which one I like better. I should probably test a few more. Or, I could drizzle the caramel on the cinnamon ones too. Wait, already tried that. 

Yep, no matter how you prepare them, this one's a keeper!

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

4 c cake flour (not self-rising), sifted                         ¼ ts ground cloves

1 tsp baking soda                                                       1 c unsalted butter, room temperature

1 Tbsp + 1 teaspoon baking powder                         2½ c packed light-brown sugar

1 ts salt                                                                      4 large eggs

2 ts ground cinnamon                                                1 c buttermilk

1 Tbsp ground ginger                                               1½ c canned pumpkin (not pie filling)

1 ts freshly grated nutmeg

Frosting:

8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature                  1 tsp vanilla extract

4 Tbsp butter, at room temperature                          1 tsp cinnamon

4 c powdered sugar

Directions 

Cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices.

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and beating until just combined. Add pumpkin; beat until just combined.

3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until golden brown, 15 to 18 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 10 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely. Cupcakes can be refrigerated up to 3 days in airtight containers.

4. To finish, use an offset spatula or a pastry bag fitted with a decorated tip to top the cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Frosting:

1. In a medium bowl, mix together cream cheese, butter, and vanilla. 

2. Gradually add powdered sugar and cinnamon, mixing well until it’s all incorporated.  

3. Use immediately or refrigerate.  The frosting will harden in the fridge, so plan on bring it back to room temperature if you must refrigerate it before frosting the cupcakes.

Tasty Tuesday: Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin pie is an all-American dessert with a history going back hundreds of years. The pilgrims, though their "pies" were different from ours, wrote about the abundance of the fruit:

"For pottage and puddings and custard and pies,
Our pumpkins and parsnip are common supplies:
We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon,
If it were not for pumpkins, we should be undoon" 

Who doesn't love pumpkin pie with its pumpkiness and creamy goodness? Well, I don't. But my family does. This pie was for them.

Pie Crust 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable shortening                                          1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour                                            1/2 cups cold water

Directions:

1. Mix shortening, flour, and salt together with a fork or a pastry blender until very crumbly. Add as much water as needed to hold together, and mix lightly with a fork.
2. Roll gently on a floured pastry cloth to about an inch larger than pie plate. Fold carefully in half, lift to pie plate, and unfold. Press into pan.

Whip up a single batch of pie dough. I love my food processor for this since it does all the work, but you can also mix it in a bowl.

Now isn't that pretty? Are you sure we need to add the filling?? Oh, all right.


Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin                                            1/2 teaspoon ground ginger 

1 (14 ounce) can Sweetened Condensed Milk                1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 

2 large eggs                                                                1/2 teaspoon salt 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon                                        1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust 

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Whisk pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, eggs, spices and salt in medium bowl until smooth. Pour into crust. Bake 15 minutes.

2. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F and continue baking 35 to 40 minutes or until knife inserted 1 inch from crust comes out clean. Cool. Garnish as desired. Store leftovers covered in refrigerator.

Don't forget to stop and pose for a picture.

I love the spices in fall baking.

We always bake up that extra pie dough (here with added sprinkles.) Don't want to waste that yumminess!

Top your slice with a big ol' dollop of Cool Whip and you're set to go!