Pumpkin Muffins

I love pumpkin! Pumpkin bread, muffins, pie, cake, smoothies - you name it, I love it. This time of year is always a special treat because I really break out the pumpkin and go to town.

This muffin recipe is pretty much a staple right now. I think I have made it three times so far, so I thought I would share.

Enchilada Pasta

I love anything that is remotely associated with Mexican food. I love Mexican spices and I love cheese.. perfect combination. I have had this recipe tucked away in my book for a long time and finally tried it last night: Yum! It has earned it's keep on the recipe blog.

Mummy Dogs

I love Halloween and Halloween food! It's such a creative time of year that I have so much fun with it. These have been my kids' favorite Halloween food forever. As a matter of fact, when we had them the other day Jessi (from college) was sad we had them without her. They are so simple to make and a huge crowd pleaser. I'm sure I'll make them again for our Halloween party, since Jess will be home for that.

Chocolate Chip Mint Ice Cream

Ice Cream is one of my favorite foods in the whole world. I think it should be it's own food group and part of a healthy diet..... I tried this recipe out during the summer, and fortunately took the time to snap a picture of it before I devoured it: I am just now getting up here on the blog. It is so good, but then ice cream is kind of like pizza or sex - even when it's bad it's good. This is one of the easiest ice cream recipes I have ever made.

Carrot Cake

Jess is in school and I am almost back onto a routine: Lord, I can't wait to get my life back in order. It has been a great summer, but nothing has gotten done. I spent one whole day just cleaning bathrooms and scrubbing floors....

But, now I am back to trying out my recipes. I have had a few strike outs this week. I don't think it was the recipes really we didn't like but rather the zucchini I was using. I was trying to get through the last of the garden zucchini, but it was bad for some reason. I made a quiche but the zucchini in that was tasteless and had large, tough seeds in it (no, it wasn't a huge zucchini either). Then I tried a turkey/veggie sloppy joe. That zucchini had skin as tough as nails.... I then, at Aaron's very strong request, threw out all the rest of the zucchini: we are done with that, it's SO not worth it.

I did have an amazing conquest however. Alex brought me over a big bag of carrots from his garden. Hmm.... what to do with all those carrots? Well, carrot cake sounds good. And boy howdy, it was a-maz-ing! One of the best carrot cakes I have ever had - a definite keeper.

Orange Glazed Chicken Salad

I love salad. It's one of my favorite things to eat in the Summer time. Cool, nutritious and pretty to look at: so I'm always looking for new salad recipes. This one was pretty dang good. Aaron didn't like the oranges so he opted out of that, but other than that he liked it too. Tasty and beautiful, win win.

I'm Working On It... Okay!

Things have been super crazy around here as of late. I have been working mass amounts of hours, been chasing Aaron around with Chrome Molly on most weekends, and spending every free second I have with Jess before she leaves me for the new chapter in her life. I haven't had time to make dinner let alone try new recipes. Needless to say, my cookbook challenge has been somewhat put on the back burner. 

I have posted all of the recipes I tried right before starting this blog, and already had up on my personal blog. They are recipes I want to keep, so need to be bunched with my library. I will add new ones as I can, but won't really be back on track with my goal until September. Then, hopefully, my life will settle down a little bit. We'll see.....

Strawberry Coffee Cake

I think breakfast is probably my most favorite meal of the day. I am a total carb girl though. I DO NOT like eggs and breakfast meat. Bleck! But, I do love bread. Any kind of bread. Pancakes, muffins, waffles and.... coffee cake - yum! I also LOVE strawberries, so when I saw this strawberry coffee cake it just seemed perfect: and it pretty much was! Of course I modified it to suite my desires, but you know, that's just what I do.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

I love cheesecake and have had this recipe in my book for a while now waiting for me to try it out. It's a bit labor intensive, but so worth it if you have the time! Delicious and absolutely beautiful. A great centerpiece to any nice dinner you want to prepare.

Broccoli Salad

Always looking for ways to add more veggies into my diet, and trying to appease the rest of the carnivores in my house, I gave this recipe a try. It was really good. Of course, modification was necessary, but all worked out great.

Chicken Focaccia Sandwich

I love flat bread and focaccia bread.... okay, let's face it, I just love bread! Throw some yummy veggies on it to make a good sandwich and I'm in heaven. This is a pretty easy twist on the same ol' boring sandwich.

Cake Batter Ice Cream

Cake batter ice cream is one of Jessi's favorite flavors of ice cream. We wanted to make ice cream for her Graduation party, so I went sleuthing for a good recipe: this one was a huge hit. I have made this twice now and it was great both times. 

Italian Chicken

I had kind of forgotten about this little recipe until I picked an old magazine to go through - it's getting so old and used that the pages are falling out, so I thought I better get to the recipes in there first. It is super easy and very yummy. I did it this time over rice, but I have also done it over Fettuccine Alfredo with great results too.

Chicken With Mustard Sauce

For not being a huge meat eater, I actually liked this dish quite a bit. It was super easy and quick to make and paired very well with a simple spinach salad. The next day it made a great sandwich too, with the leftover pieces.... I think I need pretty plates though, if I'm gonna be taking pictures of my food ;o)

Cheesy Chili Popcorn

We're always looking for a fun girls night snack while we are playing games and watching movies. This was our second experiment with popcorn. Jess is addicted to popcorn, so it's fun to come up with different ways to eat it. This is great if you are in the mood for something salty with a little extra flavor.

Southwest Chicken Wraps

This is a perfect little wrap for a picnic - which is what we did with it last weekend. Packed full of veggies and protein from chicken and black beans it's actually pretty healthy for you to boot.

Sugar Free BBQ Sauce

I haven't eaten BBQ sauce in forever because it is usually loaded with so much sugar. Not that I don't like it, I just don't like to have a lot of sugar in my diet. For Father's Day I was playing around with making some as a present, because Aaron feels the same way I do, and I think I hit on a winner. Tasty without all of the added sugar traditional BBQ sauces has.

Beef Stew

There is something so magical about the crock pot. Throw ingredients in first thing in the morning, go about your business, and then at dinner time... Done! I love that. Especially when you have an extremely busy day like I just got done having. As everyone knows, I'm not a huge meat eater, but if there is meat in something I do great with it. Stew is the perfect fit for all of the above.

Chocolate Chip

These are the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever eaten in my life - and I've eaten a lot! My sister-in-law gave me this recipe years ago, and I have never gone back. Healthy it is not, but hello..... cookie.

With vanilla pudding in the dough it makes your cookies extremely soft (I HATE crispy cookies!!!) and has an extra wonderful vanilla flavor.

Cinnamon and Sugar Popcorn

Jessica and I have started girls nights every Tuesday. Jeff works and Aaron has band practice, so we make sure to keep our calendars free on that night to spend together. Usually we use this night to catch up on our episodes of "Fringe" but since the season is over we have been using it as a chick flick night. What better thing to go with a movie than popcorn!

Try this for your next movie night, it's great!

Sesame Orange Shrimp

I found this recipe on Martha Stewart's web site. (I know she's kind of a freaky criminal, but that lady has a lot of good ideas and a lot of talent backing her.)

I didn't change this recipe too much actually, it was pretty good all on it's own. The only thing I really did differently is I substituted olive oil for the vegetable oil, omitted the salt and pepper and I added some of the leftover cornstarch mixture to the orange sauce - I was just too impatient to let it "boil down". 

This was a big hit with everyone.