Pumpkin Cupcakes

Wilton had this adorable Turkey Cupcake Kit so I whipped up some Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting.  An easy and fun treat for Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin Cupcakes:

1 box yellow cake mix
1/2 cup oil
3 eggs
2 cups canned pumpkin
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Mix up all ingredients until smooth, beating for about 2 minutes.  Pour into cupcake liners and bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

2 (8oz) packages of cream cheese softened
1 stick of butter
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 cups powered sugar

Soften butter and cream cheese and beat together until smooth.  Add vanilla.  Mix in 2 cups powered sugar.  Add additional cup until desired consistency.

Taco Soup and other game day treats

Big football game yesterday...  The Holy War for Utah and my Aggies playing a big game as well.  Something easy and delicious for this time of year that can feed a crowd is, Taco Soup!

2 lb ground beef sautéed with onion (if onion desired)
2 cans corn (do not drain)
2 cans kidney beans (do not drain)
1 BIG can tomato juice (46 oz...which is a little over 1 quart)
1 pint Salsa
1 pkg Taco seasoning

Brown beef and then add other ingredients.  Mix and heat in a large pot on the stove. Top with Fritos, sour cream, and shredded cheddar. Also great to make in a crockpot after browning beef.  This is a large recipe but I would imagine it would be easy to freeze for later as well.

Another treat we made was Pumpkin Spice Chex Mix.  Pumpkin is all the rage and so Chex came out with a little spice packet to make the chex mix.  It was fine as is after following the directions on the packet but I would change it up a bit for next time.  Chex has a similar recipe not using the new spice packet that can be found here.

My version for next time...

3 cups cinnamon chex
2 cups corn or rice chex
1 cup honey teddy grahams
 mini chocolate chips
chopped pecans
1/4 cup butter
spice packet

In a large bowl toss chex, teddy grahams, chocolate chips, and pecans. Melt butter and mix with spice packet.  Stir over chex mix, until coated.

At this point the direction called for microwaving chex mix for 3 minutes, stirring every minute, to glaze...my bowl was too big so I spread onto baking sheet and baked at 350 for a few minutes until glazed, stirring it around.  This process takes a bit longer.

For an extra pumpkin kick I would melt some of Hershey Kisses, pumpkin spice kisses and drizzle over mix.  Allow to cool then break apart and enjoy!

Apple Cinnamon Bread.

This recipe was adapted from Apple Bread on allrecipes.com

3 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon

3 eggs
1/2 cup veg. oil
1/2 cup applesauce (I used cinnamon applesauce because that is what I had on hand)

3 cups apples, peeled, and cut into small cubes (I used pink lady apples because that is what I had on hand)
1 cup cinnamon chips (optional)

1.  Preheat oven to 300 degrees and spray grease 2 bread loaf pans.
2.  In a small bowl blend eggs, oil, and applesauce.
3.  In a large bowel stir together dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
4.  Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix well.
5.  Add apples and cinnamon chips.
6.  Seperate into 2 loaf pans and bake for 60 minutes (glass pan took 60 mins. Metal took 65 minutes, just keep an eye on it).

Monster Truffles

These were rediculous and easy to make.  You can make Oreo Truffles a million different ways roll by rolling them in chocolate or white chocolate and roll in any type of topping.

For these I used:

1 package reduced-fat oreos
1 package Cream cheese
candy melts
sprinkles
eye-ball sprinkles

1.  Crush package of oreos and mix together with softened cream cheese.

2.  Melt candy melts according to package directions. 
3.  Roll oreo mixture into balls and roll in melted coating, using 2 forks or spoons to roll and cover.
4.  Decorate with sprinkles before they harden.
5.  Place on wax-paper covered cookie sheet to set.

(lucky for me the monsters can be lumpy because I can't ever get these smooth!!)

 

The Great Pumpkin.

When I found these GIANT pumpkin marshmallows I knew I just had to get them.  While I was trying to decide what to do with them I just took the simple approach and thought of one of my favorite Halloween shows, "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown."  So I made some devil's food cupcakes, frosted them with green vanilla buttercream, and topped them with the marshmallows (ps.  these are vanilla flavored, not pumpkin spice).

For dinner to continue the pumpkin theme we had some Pumpkin ravioli I got from Sam's Club.  It is a pumpkin filled & pumpkin shaped ravioli that we drizzled with Browned Butter, some also liked it with a little lemon juice and salt.

Quick Caramel Popcorn

2 qts popped popcorn (1/4 cup unpopped)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup karo syrup
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda

1.  Pop popcorn and pour into a large brown paper bag.
2.  Place butter, brown sugar, karo, and salt in a microwave safe bowl.  Microwave 2-3 minutes, stop when bubbly.
3.  Pour over popcorn in bag, roll top of bag down and microwave for 1 minute and 20 seconds. 
4.  Remove from microwave and shake bag well.
5.  Pour onto wax paper or a wax-paper lined baking sheet to cool.

Sprinkle with salt and mixed with cashews if desired.  You could also drizzle it with melted chocolate for variation.

Spooky Chex Mix

3 1/2 cups Rice Chex cereal
3 1/2 cups Corn Chex cereal
8 oz  vanilla bark or 1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup chocolate chips
2 cups reeses pieces (10.5 oz bag)
3 oz halloween pretzels
1 1/2 cup salted peanuts

Melt vanilla bark in 30 second intervals, stirring in between each interval, until smooth (mine took about 90 seconds).  Pour over rice chex and mix until coated.  Spread rice chex onto a wax paper covered cookie sheet.  Try and spread into a single layer.  Refridgerate for 5 minutes.

Melt chocolate chips in 30 second intervals, stirring in between each interval, until smooth (mine took about 90 seconds).  Pour over corn chex and mix until coated.  Spread chex onto a wax paper covered cookie sheet in a single layer.  Refridgerate 15 minutes.

Break apart each chex as needed into a large bowl.  Stir in pretzels, reeses pieces, and peanuts.

Bat wreath

I had seen this wreath on eighteen25 and wanted to make one of my own...

I used a 10 inch wreath and it took about 1 hour to make total.  I did not spray paint my wreath as other sites suggest, just careful winding and didn't have any trouble keeping it covered.  I used the Pebbles bat from the Silhouette store and cut out several sizes.  I attatched the bats with glue-dots.  For ribbon I used scraps left from my Vintage Halloween Picture Banner project.  I am really happy with how it turned out overall!

linked up to:

Vintage Halloween decorations

I made this vintage halloween picture garland as well as a little pennent garland to change up my halloween decorations this year.

It was super simple and cheap...

Google Old or vintage halloween pictures.  You will get a ton of these creepy old pictures of people in their halloween costumes.  I saved a bunch and printed them out at home on photo paper all as 3x4 pictures.  I had some random ribbon on hand and picked some out that was halloween-ish, as well as a tiny skelton key I had to tie to the ends.  I used baker's twine in white for the main string, cut up the pictures and just taped them to the twine. 

For the pennent I used Diecuts with a View Halloween paper stack that came out this season. They had a sheet of paper that was printed as pennents already and I just cut that apart and strung together with twine and tape.  Sewing them together would also be easy and cute but my sewing machine wasn't out.

For the candle just glue some lace around a votive.

I bought the Witches picture canvas at Bear Lake Raspberry days a few years back.  The basic idea is pretty simple though to print a picture on fabric or canvas and then glitter spot a few things for fun.

The owl was a thrift find. 

My next addition (as seen on eighteen25 and Pinterest): 

linked up to:

Sin-sational treat

These tasty fall treat is wickedly good.  They come from the blog "Our Best Bites" and I keep finding more and more things there I want to make!  Definitely check it out and for very detailed pictures with fantastic step-by-step instructions check out the recipe's link.  I am just posting basics here for my own records.


Cinnamon Caramel Corn

12 cups popped plain popcorn (This is 1 1/2 bags of microwave popcorn or 1/2 cup of traditional popcorn kernals).
1 cup roughly chopped pecans
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup Karo syrup
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
white chocolate chips

Pop popcorn and mix with pecans in LARGE bowl.  In a 2 quart microwave save dish stir together brown sugar and cinnamon.  Chop butter and place on top of brown sugar.  Pour over Karo Syrup.  Microwave on high for 30 seconds and stir together.  Microwave for 2 minutes and stir again.  Then microwave for 2 more minutes until bubbly.  Add in baking soda and vanilla (this will make mixture froth.  If you want to see this, then check out the actual link).  Pour mixture over popcorn and pecans, stirring constantly until all pieces are incorporated. Spread over a foil lined baking sheet (one with sides).  Bake at 250 degrees for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.  Remove a piece from oven and allow to cool.  Is it crunchy enough?  If yes then pull out of oven and transfer to a large piece of waxed paper.  If not bake another 5 minutes.  Melt white chocolate (or almond bark) in the microwave or with a double boiler.  I used 3 pieces of almond bark.  Drizzle over popcorn on waxed paper and allow to cool.  Break into pieces and serve.

Pumpkin Seeds

Tonight we carved pumpkins and I decided to save the seeds and roast them.  Super easy and delicious. 

Collect the seeds (super slimy, I feel bad for the people who get them out for a living).  Wash them well and lay them out to dry.  I only dried mine for about 15 minutes.  I lined a baking sheet with parchment paper, sprayed it with cooking spray and laid out the seeds.  I sprayed those with cooking spray and then seasoned and salted them.  I just used some Season-All.  Stirred them around and put them in the oven at 400 degrees for 45 minutes stirring every 15 minutes.  You know they are done when they are sizzling.
Cool completely.

Awesome Halloween Printable

"Eat, Drink, and Be Scary" is my new favorite Halloween catchphrase.  For a cute FREE printable of this check out Craftily Ever After.

And Craftily Ever After did a "Keep Calm and Scary on" one as well.

fun for fall and all for fun

Here are some fun fall craft/party ideas I have stumbled across and would love to use.

Martha's Pumpkin Balloon game.

Halloween Roundup at One Pretty thing has lots of different links for craft ideas.

Acorn Dough Nuts. These were in family fun and were so stinking cute I could hardly stand it!

Another Family Fun snack is to make a "salsa" of apples and use cinnamon tortilla chips to dip. Add some variety on the chips by cookie-cutting them into fall/halloween shapes before baking. Apple dip recipe is found here.

Hopefully these are a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing as we approach fall. I know I have some ideas and need to get some doughnuts stat.

One last Halloween recipe...

Mummy Calzone's

This recipe is inspired by Jabba the Hut Pizza loafs and my friend's Kris and Emily...

You roll out Pizza dough and fill center with all of your toppings.Cut into edges to make strips to wrap over center.With a regular pizza loaf you will just criss-cross back and forth. With a Mummy loaf you leave little feet and add olives as eyes.

Enjoy!

Ghost Chili with Spiders

It was a football watching afternoon yesterday with the Aggies on TV, at the same time as the Utes and the BYU to follow. So I decided to turn on the TV and make some White Bean Chili. (Ps. The Aggies won!! the Utes barely won is OT, and BYU lost so overall it was a great Football day).

This White Chili recipe is one I altered slightly from on in the new World wide Ward Christmas cookbook (which I LOVE).

Ghostly Fall White Chili

4-5 chicken breasts cooked et diced. (I just boiled mine up to cook them).

4 (15oz) cans white beans. (I left mine whole but some people recommend puree-ing one can for thickness)

1 & 1/2 cups Chicken broth

1 (4oz) can green chilies chopped

1 onion, finely chopped

4 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

1/2 Tbsp minced garlic mixed in some olive oil

2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp oregano

1 tsp ground red pepper (only 1/2 if you want less spicy)

Combine all ingredients in a large pot and simmer for up to 1 hour. Add some Monterey Jack cheese before serving if desired.

I served the Chili with rolls I had shaped as spiders for fun.

Huge Halloween Resource

The Scrapbook Lady has compiled together a huge list of Halloween "recipe" tips saving me the time because great minds think alike and she listed everything I've been checking out the past few days. So if you need any baking, decorating, scrapping, photo-taking, activity ideas head on over to the Scrapbook Lady.

recycled packaging

I'd heard of recycling the packaging that your scrapbooking supplies came in for crafts, gifts, and on your layouts before, but I didn't really "get" how'd you recycle the packaging until I saw this new little trend at a local store Paper Creations in SLC. I love gifty things and thought this was way fun.

front back

At home I looked at what I had still in the package that would work for a similar Halloween treat. I took my big clear block for my clear stamps out and viola! I had the perfect container. All product used is Pebbles Inc. Halloween line and ribbon.

front

back

Ghost in the Graveyard Cupcakes

I call these Ghost in the Graveyard cupcakes because they have a yummy surprise cream cheese filling. They have also been called Black Bottom Cupcakes.

1 (80z) pkg cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1/3 cup white sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup minature chocolate chips

Beat cream cheese, egg, sugar, and salt until there are no more lumps. Stir in chocolate chips. Set aside.

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup water
1/3 cup veg. oil
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Make a well in the center and add water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Stir together until blended.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line or grease muffin tin. Pour chocoalte into muffin tin until 1/3 full. Add a spoonful of cream cheese mixture to the center.

Bake for 25 minutes. Frost with chocolate frosting if desired.

Ways to celebrate October.

On my regular blog I always post a list of ways to celebrate October.

You can check out this years list by clicking here.

Enjoy!

TV Thursday

When I was in college I had a fantastic group of roommates and friends, and we would always throw themed parties. This all started with "TV Thursday." The best shows are on TV and our favorites included, ER, Friends, Grey's Anatomy, the OC, Smallville, and the Office.

It all started when we got together for the ER and Grey's season premeirs. Most of us being nurses, and wanting it to have a theme we did a hospital style party. We were pretty extreme that first year...emesis basins and ene..yeah ok, pretty extreme. But it was a party none of us would EVER forget. We would watch our favorite clips from past episodes, rewatch the finale, and eat, drink, and be merry!!

One fabulous menu included (In true medical fashion):

BBQ Ribs.

Deviled Eggs

Rolls (baked in a muffin tin)

fruit punch with a floating hand

finger shaped cookies

Fruit salad...

The idea was that everything looked like a body part. The coolest was the hand floating in the fruit punch. To make that you freeze water in a plastic medical glove. It looks really cool.

So there you have it, the beginning of TV Thursdays and a medical themed party (or Halloween)!!