PUMPKIN PANCAKES

 I didn't get any posts published last week, but for a very good reason. Earlier this month we celebrated moving here to Kansas City from Ventura fourteen years ago. In some ways it seems like we have been here longer than that but probably more likely it's hard to believe we have been here that long. Either way one thing I wanted to do when we moved here was visits some more states I have never been in...mainly the northern states in the west and midwest. In particular, I wanted to go to Mount Rushmore and the area. Last week we finally did that.

We had a fabulous time and I took so many pictures. I promise I will share some of them in a post soon. It looked and felt like fall...brisk mornings 50s and high 40s and delightful days in the 60s and 70s. We did have clouds two days but the day we went to Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and Custer State Park to see the buffalo was perfect with not one cloud in the sky and the sky ... the bluest I have ever seen. You will see what I mean when I share my pictures later this week.

Coming home on Friday my mind was racing with the prospect of getting in my kitchen and doing some baking. Fall and baking just go hand-in-hand like biscuits and gravy. I ended up making two different muffin recipes Saturday along with these delicious pumpkin pancakes. (One of the muffin recipes used pumpkin so I had leftover pumpkin I needed to use.) I do love pumpkin pancakes though so it was just natural for me to make them. I was looking through some cookbooks for recipes of main dishes I could make ahead of time and freeze when I came across this recipe. I have made pumpkin pancakes before and even shared the recipe here, but I didn't check the previous recipe.

This recipe makes a lot of pancakes and there is just the two of us. Since the recipe calls for 2 eggs, I just cut the ingredient amounts in half. I made three pancakes apiece for us Saturday night and then made four thinner ones for us last night for supper. They were thinner because I added just a bit of water to the refrigerated batter before cooking them.

PRINTABLE COPY OF RECIPE.

PUMPKIN PANCAKES

2       cups flour

2       teaspoons baking powder

1       teaspoon baking soda

1/2    teaspoon salt

1       teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4    teaspoon ground ginger

1/4    teaspoon ground nutmeg

2       eggs, lightly beaten

1-1/2 cups buttermilk

1       cup cooked, mashed pumpkin (I used canned pumpkin)

1/4    cup water

1/4    cup oil

Sift together the first seven ingredients (the dry ingredients) into a large bowl.

Beat the eggs in a smaller bowl and then add the buttermilk, pumpkin, water, and oil and

stir to blend.

Add the wet ingredients to the bowl with the dry ingredients and

stir until blended. (I added a little more water because I prefer the batter thinner than what I made cutting the recipe in half.)

Pour batter onto a hot, lightly greased griddle.

Turn pancakes when tops start to show bubbles or edges looked cooked. Cook on the other side. I place cooked pancakes on a plate buttering each and place the plate in the microwave and close the door while I cook another set.

While we were gone, one or both of our cats, Charlie or Parker, opened the door of my sewing room and had some fun. I'm just glad it wasn't worse.

I'm just glad they didn't paw the spools of thread down. That would really have been a mess to clean up.

KATE'S CRANBERRY ORANGE MUFFINS

 I know it has been a while...the longest break I have ever taken since I started this blog in 2012. If this is your first time to visit, welcome. If you have been following me for a while, thanks for not giving up on me. I have mentioned before that I was dealing with some depression and it's still here. Depression takes time to recover from.

Some good news is the recipe I am sharing with you today is possibly the best one I have found for Cranberry Orange Muffins.  I don't remember where I saw the recipe. I wrote it down on a tablet but didn't include where I found it. At least I wrote down the title of the recipe. You wouldn't believe how many recipes I find where I wrote it down on the back of an envelope or a piece of paper and didn't include the title of the recipe.

It took me at least a week before I got around to making them since I didn't have any orange juice. I had all of the rest of the ingredients. I did something new that I have never done before when glazing baked goods. I usually glaze items while still in the pan or over a wire rack. This time I placed the muffins on a platter and then glazed them. The excess glaze ended up seeping under the muffins so we had glaze on top and on bottom when we ate one. If you like them warm, just pop one in the microwave on a safe dish and heat on High for about 15 seconds.

KATE'S CRANBERRY ORANGE MUFFINS

2     cups flour

3/4  cup brown sugar

2     teaspoons baking powder

2     large eggs

2/3  cup orange juice

1/3  cup oil

1     cup cranberries, coarsely chopped

1     cup chopped walnuts

*******

1     cup powdered sugar, sifted

2     tablespoons orange juice

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a 12-cup muffin tin. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder using a whisk. (Make sure you break up any clumps in the brown sugar with your fingers.) Make a well in the dry ingredients in the bowl. Set aside.

Combine the eggs, orange juice, and the oil in a bowl with a whisk until the eggs are blended.

Pour the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients and

stir with a wooden spoon until dry ingredients are mostly moist.

Add the cranberries and nuts and

finish stirring just until they are evenly distributed in the batter.

Divide the batter evenly in the 12 muffin cups. (about 3/4 full)

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes. Allow to stay in tin on wire rack for at least 10 minutes. May need to run a knife around the inside edge of the cups to loosen muffins.

Place on wire rack to finish cooling.

Prepare the orange glaze by stirring the powdered sugar and juice.

Drizzle glaze over cooled muffins. 

Thought I would share some recent pictures of Charlie and Parker, our kittens/cats. They each have their own personalities. We are so glad they are brothers from the same litter as they love play-fighting with each other. They also often nap and sleep together. Parker runs first to the food dish and if we don't watch him closely, he will move over to Charlie's bowl when he, Parker, finishes his own or decides Charlie's bowl has more food in it after he eats half of his. Charlie is a gray tabby with a red collar and Parker is brownish with a blue collar. Parker also has more white on his legs and chest.

EASY NO-SUGAR-ADDED APPLE BREAD

 It has been a long time since I cooked something "sweet" for us or anyone. My sweet-tooth can really been aching too. We haven't even been eating as much frozen custard either. Gosh. I wonder why. Maybe two new additions to the family - Mr. Charlie and Mr. Parker have something to do with it. I said when we first adopted them that our lives would never be the same. Needless to say-that was an understatement if there ever was one.

We will be taking them to the vet later this afternoon to get their second round of shots. Anxious to see how much they weigh. Using our scales and weighing myself first and then picking them up one at a time, I think they have gained 1.2 lbs since their first visit. They gained the pound in one week, no gain the next week and then 0.2 pound this last week. Eating, sleeping, and playing with each other are their favorites things to do. Charlie likes to jump up my leg which really hurts and explore. Parker is trying to learn (bad) things from Charlie. Parker can drink from the faucet in the bathroom. Charlie eats faster than Parker and will move over to Parker's plate when he finishes his own portion to help Parker finish.

Yesterday started early because we had to be at church 45 minutes early as our Sunday school class was hospitality for both the 9:30 and 11:00 services. We ended up missing the first quarter of the Chiefs vs Rams football game because it started at noon. After they ended up losing the game, I decided it was time I went to the kitchen to bake something. I managed to almost get it in the oven before the kittens woke up and came upstairs to the kitchen and started bugging me. 

The recipe I chose to make was for an Easy Cake Mix Apple Bread. Besides just sounding good, I had a Sugar-Free cake mix so that meant I could make it sugar-free. I also had some cinnamon sugar that I had mixed up using Erythritol. The only mistake I made was deciding to make it into 5 mini loaves instead of two 8 x 4 inch loaves. One slice of a mini loaf wasn't enough; I had to cut another second slice to satisfy myself.

Satisfy yourself making this Sugar-Free or use a regular yellow cake mix and sugar.

EASY NO-SUGAR-FREE APPLE BREAD

BREAD:

 1     box yellow cake mix (without pudding) (I used a SF yellow cake mix)

1/2   cup oil

3/4   cup milk (I use skim milk)

3      eggs

1      tablespoon ground cinnamon

3/4   teaspoon ground ginger

1/4   teaspoon ground nutmeg

2      cups coarsely shredded, peeled tart apples

TOPPING:

2      tablespoons sugar or sugar substitute (Erythritol, Splenda, etc)

1/2   teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour bottoms only of two 8 x 4 - inch loaf pans or five mini-loaf pans. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients for the bread except the apples on low with electric mixture until dry ingredients are moistened. Scrape down the sides using a spatula. Increase speed and beat 2 minutes.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl again and then add apples and

stir to blend them in with the batter.

Divide batter between pans.

Combine the topping ingredients and then sprinkle evenly over the top of each loaf.

Bake for about 40 minutes for mini-loaves or 45 to 50 minutes for larger loaves. Test doneness with a toothpick. Remove and cool 10 minutes in pans on wire racks.

Then remove the loaves and finish cooling them on the wire racks. Wrap in foil to store. You can freeze them or give them to friends. They will certainly appreciate your kindness.

Charlie and Parker eating....

and napping...

Charlie

Parker

Hope you have a good week!

SF DOUBLE CHOCOLATE BANANA PUMPKIN MUFFINS

 I really needed some chocolate yesterday. You know sometimes you just have days like that. I thought about making some cookies, but didn't have a particular recipe in mind. We took the kittens to see the vet for the first time and they were a little lethargic after getting their first round of shots. Parker was sleeping beside me on the glider so I didn't want to move and disturb him. Finally after watching a Hallmark Christmas movie that I had recorded, I decided I had to get up if I were going to make anything.

Sunday Friend Sandi told me about some easy, super moist muffins that she had made with her granddaughter Camila. Her recipe used a spice cake but I didn't have one. Besides I was craving chocolate. So I improvised and ended up with a Double Chocolate Banana Pumpkin Muffin that was sugar-free or almost sugar-free since I had added the dark chocolate chips. If you want to make it totally sugar-free, just use SF chocolate chips. FYI you have to eat a tablespoon of dark chocolate chips to take in 6 g of sugar. I didn't have that much in each muffin. So just leave them out if you don't have the SF chocolate chips and want the muffin to be sugar-free.

I took several over to Friend Fran and before I got home she had sent me a text telling me how delicious and moist they were.

SF DOUBLE CHOCOLATE BANANA PUMPKIN MUFFINS

3     very ripe bananas, mashed

1     can of pumpkin

1     cup dark chocolate chips, optional

1     SF Devil's Food Cake mix

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly spray a regular size cup muffin pan. Set aside.

Combine the bananas and can of pumpkin until well blended.

Add the chocolate chips if you are using them.

Add dry cake mix. Stir well with a long handled wooden spoon. (oops forgot to take a picture)

Scoop a little more than 1/4 cup into each cup. (I have an ice cream scoop that holds about 1/4 cup that works perfectly.)

Bake in oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

Cool briefly and then lift out and cool on wire rack.

I made 23 muffins so I added a little water in the empty cup so the muffins would cook evenly.

Last evening our grandchildren Madison and Tyler came over to play with the kittens. It was the first chance they had had to see the kitchens. Here are a few pictures of the evening... Madison is holding Charlie in the first picture, Tyler has Parker in the second one, the rest of with Parker and Tyler took the first and last pictures.