Macadamia Nut, White Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Cookies

I found these cookies right before Christmas. I know the family loved these little gems, since they were devoured before the Snickerdoodles and chocolate chip cookies!

My daughter says they taste like pumpkin bread with white chocolate. I know this seems like an unlikely mix of pumpkin, macadamias and white chocolate, but it works and is yummy!

2 cup	flour
2 tsp	cinnamon
1 tsp	ground cardamom
1 tsp	baking soda
1 cup	butter, softened
1/2 cup	sugar
1/2 cup	packed brown sugar
1 cup	solid pack pumpkin
1	egg
2 tsp	vanilla
2 cup	white chocolate chips
2/3 cup	coarsely chopped macadamia nuts, toasted
Combine first 4 ingredients in a small bowl. beat butter and sugars in a
large bowl until creamy. beat in pumpkin, egg and vanilla until well
mixed; gradually beat in flour mixture. stir in chips and nuts. drop by
rounded tbls. onto greased baking sheet; flatten slightly with back of
spoon or greased bottom of glass dipped in
sugar. bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees f for 11-14 minutes. cool for
2 minutes, remove to wire rack to cool completely.

Pumpkin Pumpkin and More Pumpkin

As you might be able to tell, we love pumpkin recipes in our house. Pumpkins are low in calories and high in fiber, vitamin A and C. This is one item; I stock my pantry with during the holidays. Most stores will not stock canned pumpkin year round.

I thought I would give you three recipes today, a dip, cobbler and muffins. The dip and muffins are light on calories.

Pumpkin Dip

Ingredients

3/4 cup (6 ounces) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

2 teaspoons maple syrup

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

24 apple slices

Directions

Place first 3 ingredients in a medium bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add syrup and cinnamon, and beat until smooth. Cover and chill 30 minutes. Serve with apple.

This pumpkin recipe came from Cooking Light magazine.

Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup canned pumpkin

3/4 cup fat-free sour cream

1/3 cup fat-free milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 large egg white

Cooking spray

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons brown sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 375.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 5 ingredients (flour through salt) in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Make a well in center of mixture.

Combine pumpkin and next 6 ingredients (pumpkin through egg white); add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Spoon the batter into 18 muffin cups coated with cooking spray.

Combine 1 tablespoon granulated sugar and brown sugar; sprinkle over muffins.

Bake at 375 for 25 minutes, or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. Remove muffins from pans immediately; cool on a wire rack

Thanksgiving, When You Don't Like Turkey

We don’t really care for turkey, so during the holidays we have been known to have ham, prime rib, homemade pizza or multi-dish homemade Chinese food meal. It is not so much what you eat, as much as the people you share the day with.

With Thanksgiving, a week away and I still do not know what I am cooking on this day. I am leaning toward, cranberry apple stuffed pork chops, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans,  rosemary yeast bread and pumpkin dream pie. It will be a lot of cooking for the four of us, but side dishes usually freeze well.

Stuffed Pork Chops are a favorite with my family. I get the thickest center cuts I can find. I am not picky if it has a the bone removed or not. For every day stuffing, I will  use Stove Top brand stuffing and pop the chops in the oven easy, quick and tasty. Thanksgiving will require a bit more effort...

Cranberry Apple Stuffed Pork Chops

Ingredients:

6 thick center cut pork chops

1 ½ cups cubed dry bread

2 apples cored and chopped

1 cup cranberries

2 Tablespoon fresh rosemary

1 Tablespoon dried thyme

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

1 cup cold chicken stock or apple juice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F

Cut a large pocket into the side of each chop. Be careful not to cut all the way through.

In a bowl combine all dry ingredients and slowly add liquid in small amounts until mixture is just moist.

Stuff as much mixture into the chop as possible, approximately ¼ cup.

Place chops on a foil lined baking sheet

If there is extra stuffing arrange around the chops.

Bake for 45 minutes, flip chops over at half way.

Pumpkin Dream Pie

Not sure how many of you remember the chocolate dream pie. Mixing dream whip with pudding, creating a mouse like pie, you can still find the dream whip mix in the baking isle of your grocery store. I am all for quick easy recipes, especially around the holidays!

So you will need 2, 3.4 ounce boxes of Jell-o Pumpkin Spice Pudding mix, 2 envelopes of dream whip, 2 ¾ cups of milk and a pie crust. I am going to use Graham Cracker crumbs to make a crust, only because I have these and have to use them.

Follow the directions on the back of the box of the dream whip.

Beat whipped topping mixes; 1 cup of milk in a large bowl with electric mixer on high for six minutes, or until topping thickens and forms peaks.

Add remaining milk and pudding mixes, beat on low, then on high speed for 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally.

Spoon into pie shell and refrigerate for four hours. Slice into 8 servings and top with dream whip or whipped cream. I like to sprinkle pumpkin pie spice on top of the whipped cream to dress up the dessert.

Pumpkin, Gingered Soup

One more pumpkin soup recipe for you to try. This one I would suggest carving out cooking pumpkins and serving the soup in it. This would make a lovely dish for American Thanksgiving dinner. This is another super easy and filling soup that is also not going take up very much of your time. If you are making this for a dinner party, you can very easily make a few days ahead of time. Store in an airtight container then reheat on low medium when ready to use. The original recipe can be found in Country Living website. 
   

Ingredients:

2 15 ounce cans pumpkin puree (not pie filling)

5 1/3 cups of chicken bouillon or 43.5 ounces of chicken broth

1 1/3 cups of white grape juice

1/3 cup peanut butter, creamy

2 Tablespoons minced garlic

2 Tablespoons minced fresh ginger, or ¼ teaspoon dried ground ginger

3 Tablespoons chopped green onions

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

½ tablespoon lime juice

Directions:

Combine pumpkin puree, chicken broth, and pear nectar, in a large soup pot.

Bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 10 minutes

Transfer one cup of pumpkin mixture to a food processor, add peanut butter and mix until smooth.

Return to pot and add remaining ingredients, simmer for 5 minutes before serving.

Garnish with either pumpkin seeds or chives.

To serve in a pumpkin:

Preheat oven to 375°F

Clean a cooking pumpkin, removing all pulp and seeds.

Place pumpkins on a baking sheet lined with foil

Bake for 45 minutes with top on. Allow to cool before adding soup

Unexpected Recipe Exchanges

Pumpkin cheesecake is so good it is almost sinful. This recipe was giving to me sixteen years ago when we were stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. Funny, it does not seem like it was that long ago!

 A week before Thanksgiving, our duty station, had a fund raising bake sale. This squadron was mostly young, unmarried sailors, and to get them to open their wallets for charity; you had to offer sweets in return. I made my peanut butter cookies, which turned out to be a huge hit. Towards the end of the bake sale, one of the female officers came in looking for them and they were all gone. I did not think too much about it, since there were others who came also looking for the cookies.

 A week later, my husband handed me a recipe for Pumpkin Cheesecake. I was puzzled when he handed it to me; he then explained about me the officer who I had spoken with. She was his division officer.  After I left the bake sale, she hunted him down and found I had brought some cookies just for his shop. She was attending culinary school at the time and in exchange for my peanut butter cookie recipe, she gave me her Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe.

Pumpkin Cheesecake:

Ingredients:

Crust:

1 ½ cups Graham Cracker Crumbs

3 Tablespoons white sugar

6 Tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:

1 ½ pound of cream cheese

1 1/2cups brown sugar

2 Tablespoon flour

1/8 teaspoon cardamom

1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup sour cream

3 eggs

1 Tablespoon vanilla

1 ½ cups solid pack pumpkin

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F

Pan, 9” springform

Crust:

Mix crust ingredients together

Press mix firmly into the bottom of 9” springform pan

Filling:

Whip cream cheese until very smooth and NO LUMPS remain.

Blend in brown sugar and sour cream, until smooth

In separate bowl mix the spices together and add to mixture above

One at time, blend in eggs, scraping sides of bowl after each addition ensuring no lumps

Blend in vanilla and pumpkin

Pour into prepared pan and bake one hour or until the cake is set and top is dry.

Chill well before serving

Try Me Tuesday...

Saturday, I dished dinner and called the family in to eat. I was met with mixed enthusiasm, as to was to what was on their plates. First item was the soup; my husband, gave me a questioning look then asked “Why is there so little in my bowl?” I gave each of them about a quarter cup of soup, which just filled the bottom of the bowl. I was not sure if they would like soup, so why waste it?

Next on their plate was a honey-smoked thick cut pork chop, the kind I usually get for stuffing, a Cheryl worthy buttery yeast roll and Paddy’s green bean supreme. 

The soup was huge a big hit. My husband went back for two whole bowls; he and our daughter were already calling dibs on the leftovers for lunch this week. This was a triumph since my husband cannot stand the taste of tomato soup. *I do a happy dance and throw confetti!*

 The soup has creamy tomato taste, like tomato bisque soup. The soups only dairy is four tablespoons of butter. So where is the soup getting its creamy taste? Pumpkin, yes I said pumpkin. The other surprising aspect to this recipe is with two simple changes you could serve it to your vegan friends.

 

Not Bisque, Tomato Bisque Soup

1 small onion, chopped

4 Tablespoons of butter (could use vegetable oil)

1 28 oz can of whole tomatoes

2 15oz can of whole pumpkin, not pie filling

4 cups of chicken broth, (could use vegetable stock, but it will alter the taste)

2 Tablespoons dried parsley

½ teaspoon of ground ginger

2Tablespoons ground pepper

1 teaspoon of white sugar

Directions:

In soup pot, melt butter and sauté onions until soft and translucent

Add broth and bring to a boil for ten minutes

Add entire can of tomatoes to a food processor or blender, puree until smooth

Add tomato puree, canned pumpkin and spices to broth

Simmer for fifteen minutes

 Check back tomorrow for the green beans supreme and pork chop recipe

Spiced Coffee

It is no secret I have a love hate relationship with coffee. Growing up, my bedroom was closest to the kitchen. My parents loved to grind their own coffee beans, before grinding your own was fashionable. Every morning I woke to beans being poured into the antique crank coffee grinder. The grinding seemed to take hours in "kid" time, in actuality it took no longer than five minutes.

I took my first job when I was a junior in high school and for Christmas, I thought I would get my parents something special without saying "Hey can I have money to go Christmas shopping?" Poking around Sun Valley Mall, I came across Williams Sonoma. My mom loved to shop this store for all of her gourmet club meetings. I had my "A Christmas Story" moment when there in the window was a Braun electric coffee grinder! Electric had to be quicker method of getting those dang beans ground so I could sleep, right?

Christmas morning came with happy parents laughing I did not like the hand grinder and bought them an electric one. There I sat smiling ear to ear, because on December 26, I was going to sleep in past six! I woke the next morning to a sound, which could be compared to a locomotive running wide open, the steam whistle blowing while chugging through a convent! Did I mention I hate coffee?

For me to drink coffee it has to be 60% dairy, 30% sugar, and 10% coffee. I have to kill the taste of the coffee somehow. I still do not understand how something that smells so wonderful, tastes so bad!

When my husband was stationed in Texas, I worked in a county probation department. Where I became friends with Terra. Even though, we were born one day and at least fifteen years apart we clicked like we had known each other for years. For our birthdays, we would bring each other a Starbucks Venti Carmel Frappuccino. One day Terra let me try her coffee with cinnamon in it, hmm not too bad... but I still needed it fully loaded with sugar and milk.

Yesterday morning after enjoying a slice of Pumpkin Bread, I decided to try something. I had made an 8-cup pot of coffee earlier, (I told you I love the smell of coffee.) I threw out the coffee filter and grounds, then added a fresh filter to the basket. To the basket, I added 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, cinnamon, and ground cloves (I would suggest cutting the cloves back to half a teaspoon.) I also added something I knew would not work but I tried it anyway. I added 1/2 cup of white sugar into the mixture. Next I poured the coffee from the carafe back into the coffee maker and re-brewed it (I can see my dad saying here "oh yuck." Nevertheless, in reality I did not re-brew the coffee since it did not go through the grounds again.) The sugar did not work that well, since it would not dissolve quick enough to make it through the filter without me having to stir it.

Minus the sugar mess, the coffee came out tasting wonderful. The spices gave it a warm rich taste that made me think of winter. I would pair it with the Pumpkin Bread Recipe or even Gingerbread during the holidays for something extra special.

 

The Panic of The Lost Pumpkin Bread Recipe

I have a stack of recipes that are loose and unbound. They are either hand written, or printed from the internet and emails. When I want a recipe, I pull out the stack and start shifting through it. I am the only person in the house who can touch the stack. I know exactly where  a recipe should be and they should never get out of “my” order.

Huge panic erupts when I cannot find a recipe. The thought or idea that I have lost or miss placed a recipe is devastating. Yes, yes, yes, I know, I should have a better system for keeping recipes, but I am a procrastinator and a creature of disorganized chaos.

Two weeks ago, I made pumpkin bread. This weekend I went looking for the recipe and it was nowhere to found. I went through the stack of recipes twice and could not find it. My over active imagination started churning with the “what if’s.” What if it got thrown away when my husband cleaned the kitchen? Did Lily, our paper-shredding cat, get her paws on it? Was it mistaken as scratch paper and used by the kids for math homework? Gasp!

Lily, A.K.A. The Paper Shredder

  So panic with setting in, I start pulling cookbooks out of my cabinet and riffling through them. This is one of those recipes, I do not need to read what is on the paper; it is burned in my memory. Though without the paper in my hand, I cannot remember any of it besides canned pumpkin.

 After emptying the cabinet, the recipe is nowhere to found. My kitchen is a disaster, and Lily was stalking recipes that have fallen on the floor. Dejected I sit down at my computer, only to look over at the printer. Yep, sitting on top of the printer is my recipe for pumpkin bread. I placed it there to scan into the computer, in case I ever lost the paper copy.



Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 16 oz can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie)

3 cups of all purpose flour
3 cups of sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cloves

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

2 teaspoons of ground nutmeg (if you have the time, grind it fresh)

1 teaspoon of baking soda

½ teaspoon of baking powder

** Optional you can add either add 1 cup chopped walnuts or pumpkin seeds**

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350° F. Prepare two 9X5X3 inch loaf pans by buttering and flouring.

In large bowl beat sugar and oil until blended. Mix in eggs and pumpkin.

In separate bowl sift remaining dry ingredients, and then slowly stir into pumpkin mixture.

Divide batter between the prepared pans, sprinkle with nuts and bake for 70 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool on wire racks.

This recipe can be used to make one dozen pumpkin muffins, prepare tins as above or use cupcake papers. Bake for 20 minutes, insert toothpick to check doneness