Nutella Hot Cocoa

Do you like Nutella?  It's a chocolate hazelnut spread in a jar. Mostly I eat it with a spoon, but recently my husband has been dipping Nilla wafers into it, it's pretty good. 


 I wanted to drink it. So I did.

Two ingredients, you can't go wrong, right?


Ingredients:

2 spoonfuls Nutella
1 Cup Milk, hot.

x2

Make sure it's hot. :P

Directions:

1. Stir Nutella in milk until Nutella has melted into the milk, and has become a delicious Nutella Hot Cocoa.

Add  Marshmallows if desired.

And I do so desire. 

Halloween Cookies

I made these bad boys last year for Halloween. They're based off of a "Lofthouse" cookie knock off recipe, but I used a ganache to top the cookies, because it's more fitting for Halloween. My kids couldn't get enough of them.

Ingredients:

Cookies:
6 Cups Flour
1 Tsp Baking Soda
1 Tsp Baking Powder
1 Cup (2 Sticks) Butter, softened.
2 Cups Sugar
3 Eggs
3 Tsp Vanilla
1/4 Tsp Salt
1 1/2 Cups Sour Cream
Food Coloring ( I used neon purple, and neon orange gel food coloring)

Ganache:
1 Cup Chocolate Chips
3 Tbsp Heavy Cream


Directions:

 1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar.
2. Add eggs, sour cream, and vanilla, mixed until well blended.
3. Slowly add the dry ingredients  into the  bowl, mixed until incorporated.
4.Divide dough in half, and mix a singular color into  dough. Such as adding purple into one mound of  dough, and orange into the other mound of dough .  Cover doughs in plastic wrap.
5. Refrigerate doughs for two hours .
6. Remove plastic wrap, and individually roll dough into 13x9 rectangle, place one sheet of dough onto the other, and roll length wise.
7.  Refrigerate rolled dough covered in plastic wrap  while oven preheats to 425º
8. Slice cookies to 1/4" thickness, you may need to reshape them back to circles, place on greased cookie sheets , make sure cookies are about  2 inches apart from each other.
9. Bake for 7 -9 minutes, until bottoms are slightly golden. You don't want to over cook these.  Let cookies cool completely.
10. Once Cookies are cooled, make the ganache, you do that by microwaving chips and cream in a glass bowl until smooth.
11. Spoon and smooth ganache over the cookies, allow to cool, and serve. 

Enjoy! I know I did.

Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal

This is a recipe I came across a year or two ago. It's  tasty,  filling, and pretty cheap to make!

Serves 6

Ingredients:

2 1/2 Cups Old Fashioned Oats
1 1/2 Cups Pumpkin Pie Mix
1 1/2 Cups Milk
1/4 Cup Maple Syrup
1/4 Cup Ground Flax  (Optional)
2 Eggs, beaten
1 Tsp. Vanilla
1 Tsp Baking Powder
1 Tsp Cinnamon
1/4 Tsp Nutmeg
Dash of Ground Cloves

7" x 11" Pan, greased.

Directions:

Preheat Oven to 350º

1. Place all ingredients in a large bowl, mix until all ingredients are well incorporated. Pour into   baking Dish.

2. Cover with tin foil  and bake in oven for 30 minutes, remove tin foil , and bake for an additional 20 minutes. 

Allow to cool for 15 minutes.

Nomnomnomnom

Oatmeal with milk, so good!

Apple Pumpkin Oatmeal

 So I originally found a recipe on pinterest for pumpkin granola that I wanted to try. I didn't have some of the ingredients so I just changed a few things, and it came out really good :) I later found another recipe for apple-pie oatmeal.... and eventually sorta combined the two, creating this monster delicious breakfast. Mmmmmmmmmm oatmeal! 

Pumpkin Granola recipe:
Makes: 3 2/3 cups

(the orignial recipe called for cranberries, pumpkin seeds, and pecans, instead of the sunflowers, almonds, and raisins :P)

1/4 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed well and pat dry
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup ground flaxseeds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup  honey
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp pumpkin spice (or more to taste)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees
2. Spread oats & quinoa on baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes
3. Remove oats/quinoa from oven and place in medium bowl, mixing in the nuts and fruit
4. Decrease oven temp to 300 degrees
5. In a second bowl, mix together honey, pumpkin, oil, vanilla, and spices
6. Mix dry and wet ingredients together
7. Spread onto baking sheet and bake 20 min or until golden brown
8. Store in air-tight container 



Apple-Pie Oatmeal:
Servings: 1

1. Cook 1/3 c. oatmeal on the stove with 2/3 c. water
2. Add in 1 small apple, cut into bite sizes
3. Add in spices----> pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger (1 tsp each)
4. Let simmer until water absorbs and apples are soft

I first tried oatmeal with pumpkin spices, with the pumpkin granola added last.... then I had tried the apple-pie oatmeal with pumpkin granola... and YUM! The cooked apples are really good :) 

Apple Pumpkin Oatmeal:
Servings: 1

1. Cook apple-pie oatmeal
2. Add 1/3 c. pumpkin granola
3. Add splash of unsweetened vanilla almond milk
4. If you like it sweeter, add 1-2 tsp brown sugar on top!

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Cream Cheese Filling

 This recipe is brought to by Hannaford... So Wayne's mom had this recipe kicking around and we have made it for a few years in a row now. SO GOOD! We usually make them mini-whoopies because 1. they are super cute 2. it cuts the 495834095834 calories per whoopie in half (unless you eat 4 or maybe 10 like me, which defeats the purpose) 3. SO CUTE!

Depending on how big you make them, this recipe will make 20-40 whoopie pies. :) And they are highly addictive, kinda like pumpkin crack, so beware. 

Pumpkin cakes:
1.5 c. light brown sugar
3/4 c. canola oil
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree
3 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon (we usually use a lot more than this...)
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg

( waynes obviously crazy amount of filling...... it will just explode everywhere if you do this... lol ) 

Cream Cheese Filling:
1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese, room temp.
1/4 c. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temp.
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 1/2 c. confectioners sugar, sifted

 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, coat 2 baking sheets with cooking spray, or line with parchment
2. Lg mixing bowl---> mix brown sugar, oil, & vanilla with electric mixer until well blended, then add eggs one at a time, then add pumpkin.
3. 2nd Lg mixing bowl---> Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, clove, ginger, and nutmeg. 
4. Add 1/2 dry mix to wet mix, blend until smooth, then add remaining dry mix, and blend
5. Drop 2 tbsp of batter onto cooking sheets, leaving 2in between each
6. Bake 11-13 min until "puffed" and set, but still soft to touch. Let cakes cool for few minutes before taking them off cooking sheets, then let cool 20 min
7. Prepare filling while cakes cool----> Lg mixing bowl, mix cream cheese and butter with electric mixer until creamy. Add vanilla and 1/2 confectioners sugar,  blend until smooth. Add remaining confectioners sugar. 
8. Put your whoopies together! :)

***Store at room temp x2 days or freeze for up to 2 months
(I'm pretty sure they will last more than 2 days......... BUT I thought I'd share what they recommend :P)

Pumpkin Cream Cheese

Tree in Winthrop, ME (Photo by Kt)

It's almost Autumn! My favorite season.

There's so much I enjoy about this season, it's gorgeous, fairs, pumpkins, Halloween, Thanksgiving, leaves changing color, the weather has cooled and it isn't muddy outside....

 ..and all of the food.


So let's begin the day with some breakfast.

                                                  A bagel with pumpkin cream cheese.

 

Ingredients:
8oz Cream Cheese, softened
1/4 Cup Pumpkin Pie Mix
1 Tsp Cinnamon
2 dashes of Nutmeg

1.  In a bowl, add cream cheese, and spices, stir with a fork for about 30 seconds.
2. Slowly add pumpkin into cream cheese, stirring as you go , until completely integrated.
3.  Place pumpkin cream cheese into an air tight container with  a lid, and keep in refrigerator.

The cream cheese is very tasty, easy to spread, and a little goes a long way.

Kt! Why did you use pumpkin pie mix, instead of pumpkin puree?! It has PRESERVATIVESSSSSSSS.            
                         I generally use Pumpkin Pie Mix when I am cooking something using pumpkin as a sweet. It saves me time from measuring sugar,  and has spices in it. 
                   But if you are truly concerned about it, then I would suggest using  3 tablespoons of pumpkin puree, 2 tablespoons of maple syrup, and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, dash of nutmeg, and a dash of ground cloves.

But you added spices to it.

          I like mine to have a little more cinnamon, and nutmeg. It's a personal preference. I do this often.