Baked Pumpkin Doughnut Holes

You're gonna love these if you like Pumpkin. I have had a slow warming up to all things pumpkin over the past few years, and while I don't enjoy everything with this fall flavor, there's more I like than not.

These are amazing! Super moist. Super pumpkin-y. Super sweet with the crunchy cinnamon-sugar goodness on top.

We made these for our Saturday morning Big Breakfast and they were a hit.

Kid plates:



Mommy's plate:


And ONE that I had to pop in my mouth and take a big bite of while we were serving up the meal.


I found this recipe at Two Peas and their pod blog. Check out the recipe and bake them now! You won't be sorry.

Parents Review: Will be making again.
Kids Review: Would like me to make them again. :-)

Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal

Oh.

My.

Word.

I have posted recipes for baked oatmeal before, but this one, hands down, takes the cake!

Especially with the fact that it is turning fall outside and the weather is chilly, and I start thinking of things I can enjoy with the almighty can of pumpkin!

This simple recipe is sure to be a hit and will hit every comfort spot you have on a cold morning. I made mine the night before and threw it in the fridge so that I could just wake up and pop it in the oven.

Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal

3 cups quick cooking oats
½ cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¾ cup canned pumpkin
¼ cup brown sugar (for the top)
In a large bowl mix together all ingredients except the ¼ cup brown sugar for the top.

Spread into a greased 9×13 pan.

Sprinkle remaining ¼ cup brown sugar on top.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

Serve with milk and enjoy!

Seriously. You have to make this!


Parents Review: Perfection.
Kids Review: Agreed.

Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread

I made this cinnamon bread for Big Breakfast a few months back. I had found it on a blog somewhere (can't remember where) and thought it sounded just wonderful. I did some searching and found a recipe that was just like the one I made.

Here it is.

Ingredients:
1 unsliced round loaf sourdough bread
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup powdered sugar
1-2 Tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

To make Vanilla Honey Butter: Whip butter and 1/4 cup powdered sugar together until smooth; stir in honey and vanilla. Set aside.

Cut the bread lengthwise into 1/2" slices, without cutting through the bottom crust. Spread vanilla honey butter in between slices. Rotate the bread 90 degrees and slice the bread again into 1/2" pieces, without cutting through the bottom crust. Spread more vanilla honey butter in between new cuts. This doesn't need to be perfect - just make sure there is lots of butter in between all the cuts. Combine sugar and cinnamon. Generously sprinkle in between all cuts. (You may have extra butter and cinnamon sugar. It will just depend on how large your bread loaf is.)

Wrap in foil; place on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes, until bread is warm. Unwrap cinnamon bread and place on serving platter. Combine powdered sugar and milk - adding milk until you get the consistency desired. Drizzle icing over bread and serve immediately. Enjoy!




Parents Review: Wow. It was really rich. Almost too rich. It was good, but I think it made my teeth hurt with all the sugar.
Kids Reivew: They loved all the sugar that was involved. :-)

Erin's Baked Oatmeal

I posted another recipe for peanut butter baked oatmeal that you also might enjoy, but this one is great too.

My friend Erin made this dish for our Lifegroup one night when we had a Breakfast theme and it was a huge hit.

Here's the recipe. You definitely want to make this one!

Baked Oatmeal
Preheat oven to 350-degrees and grease 9 x 13 pan.
Mix: 3 cups oats, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon, 2 tsp baking powder, and 1 tsp. salt.
Beat in 1 cup milk, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup melted butter, and 2 tsp. vanilla.
Optional: Stir in 3/4 cup dried cranberries.
Spread in pan and bake for 40 minutes.

YUM ... you can substitute away too if interested!

Enjoy!!!!

Peanut Butter Baked Oatmeal

I love new breakfast ideas. Instant oatmeal is always an easy choice in the mornings, but this is a fun twist and definitely a little healthier. Plus - it's made with LOVE - you can't beat that! :-)

Peanut Butter Baked Oatmeal

3 cups quick cooking oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup peanut butter

Mix all ingredients together and stir well. Spread in a greased 9×13 pan. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. If you like it a little crunchy on top cook for a few minutes longer. Serve with warm milk poured over top. Enjoy!


I've seen several variations of this recipe and here is one that a friend sent to me. It was rich and yummy. Hope you will give it a try!

Monster Cookies

Did any of you have these as a kid?

They have a little bit of all your favorite flavors rolled into one cookie!

M&M's!! Oatmeal!! Chocolate Chips!!! Peanut Butter!!!



I have lovely memories of my mom making these when I was little and I found a recipe from none other than Paula Deen to kick it up a notch.

Here's the recipe.

There is no flour in these cookies. The oats act as flour and you add baking soda to give them some fluffiness. I made these to take to my nephew's "Cookie Monster" 1st birthday party this past weekend. Huge hit!!

Enjoy! I'd love to hear if you make these.

Home-made Breakfast Pizza

What's left of it anyway.

I remembered to snap a quick photo of this delicious breakfast pizza right before we gobbled up it's remains.

Remember the home-made pizza dough I shared with you about to make barbecue pizza? Remember that I wasn't all that super-duper thrilled with the pizza itself? Remember that I just said the dough was "good".

I discovered something.

If you let the dough sit in your fridge for 2 or 3 days (like the recipe actually encourages you to do) - it tastes simply amazing - not just good. David and I are kind of obsessed with this dough now and the Hubs actually requests for me to just keep dough on hand at all times to whip up any pizza-like dish that we so desire.

My bro-in-law and sis-in-law are in town, so last week, I made several batches of the dough and had everybody over for pizza night. Yum!! I had one round of dough left from the batch that I didn't use that night and David and I decided to use it for Big Breakfast the next morning. Big Breakfast - for those of you who don't know - is what we call our Saturday morning meal together. It is always something yummy, something cooked with love from our kitchen and it is always BIG. We love it!!

We made this yummy dish and it was a hit with 3 out of the 4. Little Girl wouldn't even try it. Surprise.

We simply took our dough - flattened it out on a (olive oil sprayed) cookie sheet (you could use a pizza stone if you have one) and then brushed it with some more olive oil and a sprinkling of salt over the whole thing. Then - we added a little monterey jack cheese, approximately 5 (not all the way cooked) scrambled eggs, crumbed cooked Maple flavored sausage and a little more cheese, then popped it into a 375 degree oven for around 15 minutes.


Here's my previous post with the dough recipe.

Or I"ll post it RIGHT HERE too.

Recipe for Basic Pizza Crust

Ingredients
1 teaspoon Instant Or Active Dry Yeast
1-1/2 cup Warm Water
4 cups All-purpose Flour (I substitute 2 Cups with Whole Wheat)
1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
1/3 cup Olive Oil
Preparation Instructions
Sprinkle yeast over 1 1/2 cups warm (not lukewarm) water. Let stand for a few minutes.
In a mixer, combine flour and salt. With the mixer running on low speed (with paddle attachment), drizzle in olive oil until combined with flour. Next, pour in yeast/water mixture and mix until just combined, and the dough comes together in a sticky mass.
Coat a separate mixing bowl with a light drizzle of olive oil, and form the dough into a ball. Toss to coat dough in olive oil, then cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and set it aside for 1 to 2 hours, or store in the fridge until you need it.
Note: it’s best to make the dough at least 24 hours in advance, and 3 or 4 days is even better.
When you are ready to make the pizza, grab HALF the pizza dough (recipe makes 2 crusts) and squeeze the dough toward the bottom to form a nice, tight, pulled ball. You can roll out the pizza with a rolling pin if you’d like, but sometimes it’s just as easy to throw it around and pull and stretch till it feels right. And when the crust is nice and thin, lay it on an oiled baking sheet or pizza pan. Drizzle a little olive oil on the dough and spread it with your fingers. Very lightly sprinkle some salt on the crust.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Top your crust with your toppings of choice. Then bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and toppings are bubbly.

Parents Review: One of our favorites now!
Kids Review: Baby Boy kept asking for bites, so that's a good sign.

Chocolate Chip Granola Bites

I found these little yummies online a few months back and was so excited to try them. They are such a fun treat to whip up and they are a healthier option as opposed to buying preservative-filled granola bars from your local store.....and cheaper I might add.


I feel SO good making things for my kids instead of just buying them. Trust me, we have cereal nights and "here have some more cheez-its" if you're hungry nights", but I truly love to cook and bake for my family with my own little hands.

My favorite line from Little Girl is when I told her that when I cook for my family, I always make things with love. She then said to me, several days later, that "she could taste the love" as she rubbed her tummy.

Cuteness.

I have been talking a little bit about Bento Boxes over at Me-Moddy, and one of the sites that I fell in love with shared this recipe. Go HERE to check it out.

Oh, and I had the sweetest little helper to assist me on my new food adventure. He was awesome.



Parents Review: Really yummy. I didn't try the granola bars, only the granola bites. I used silicone square baking cups and they were great, however, you could just use a muffin tin with paper liners too.

Kids Review: They are asking me to make more. I want to have these on hand to throw in their lunches when school starts next week. Yikes!! Did I just say that?

Happy Snacking!

Grilled Breakfast Pizza

David and I are always looking for fun new recipes to try for Big Breakfast that we do each Saturday with our kids. This one sounded fun and different, PLUS we got to whip out the grill - for breakfast. Yay!


Look at that beautiful over-easy egg sitting atop this pizza?

I found the recipe from one of my favorite blog recipe sites - How sweet it is. She got it from the Tasty Kitchen website. Here's the full recipe.

I didn't use the crust recipe they gave, although I bet it would be wonderful. David and I are kind of hooked on the one I made from this recipe. I, again, used half white and half whole wheat flour. Yummy.

Here's the pizza on our little charcoal grill.



I loved that they gave the option to do it in your oven too. Having a pizza stone is ideal. We may try this next time.

Parent's Review: We really liked it. We used maple flavored bacon and it actually didn't have as much of a hickory flavor as I like. Also, I wouldn't mind trying this with scrambled eggs instead of over-easy next-time. It was good, but it's a texture thing.

Kids Review: They didn't try any. So sorry for them. :-)

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

I handed this new found recipe over to my husband last Saturday morning and asked if he would try his hand at making them while I tried to pre-burn calories with a friend of mine on a 5 mile trail walk.

He said he would.

That sweet man.

And this is what he was makin' while I was walkin'


Don't they look fun?

They even had a home-made buttermilk syrup recipe that was part of the deal and we made that too.

We actually didn't love this stuff. Most people online have raved about it, so I am wondering if we did something wrong. I think we both would've preferred just regular maple syrup.

Plus - these were not overly sweet (which surprised us) and it needed a little more sweetness in the syrup department.

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes (adapted from The Idea Room Blog).

Parent Review: They were labor intensive. David looked tired when I got home. :-) We thought they would be sweeter, but we did really enjoy them and they were fun to try.

Kids Review: Little Girl loved them. Baby boy still wasn't feeling great, so he didn't eat much to tell.

Added: I just landed on THIS RECIPE for cinnamon roll pancakes and HELLO - it calls for adding a cream cheese glaze over the top. Wow!! Plus- the cinnamon swirl looked all crispy and carmelized, so this is a different take. You guys could try either one! Let me know what you think!!

Enjoy!!

CPK Barbecue Chicken Pizza

I found this recipe for California Pizza Kitchen's (knock off) barbecue chicken pizza from The Pioneer Woman's blog. I was excited to do a home-made crust and try my hand at something new. I don't think I make the greatest pizza dough in the world, but I didn't think this was too bad. I used half whole wheat flour and it gave it a nutty flavor.

Here's the recipe

Here it is with the grown-up side and the kids side. You can imagine that the kids weren't interested in the fresh green cilantro from the garden, but WE WERE!! Yum!


Parents Review: I thought it was pretty good, but I didn't love the BBQ sauce I purchased. David said he really liked it.
Kids Review: They picked it all a part as usual and then ate all the separated items. :-)

Peanut Butter Cup Brownies

I hate to even call these little treats "brownies", because to me they resemble a cookie bar more than anything. I made these guys for my friend Julie last week and she thinks that they tasted just like a brownie, but sometimes I think she's crazy and can only say nice things and it's like an illness or something. :-)

But.......David and I both concur that these guys taste like a really soft, thick cookie. I would've added waaaay more chocolate chips and mini reeses-peanut butter cups than they called for, but other than that - they were great! If you like peanut butter and you like chocolate - you'll be set!!



After I pulled these guys out of the oven - I stuck several rows of the mini reese's in there to melt and get all happy.

Here's the recipe I found off of a blog called "Buns in my oven". Her pictures suck you in and make you HAVE to try her recipes. Or, um, maybe that's just me. :-)

Parents Review: It needed more chocolate inside, otherwise we really liked these.
Kids Review: More please.

Creamy Caprese Pasta

In my searching through the internet and my recipe books for something new to cook in the kitchen - I came across this recipe for Creamy Caprese Pasta on a fun blog called How Sweet It is. I've posted a few from here before.

I started out by mixing all of the yummy ingredients together.

Then I poured it in the dish and added more cubed fresh mozzarella on top.


Then I baked it all warm and bubbly. I even threw it under the broiler at the end of baking to give it the brown crunchy top.


I baked some chicken separately and then made up my kids plates. They don't like things all mixed together like me and the hubby.


I served this dish up with more fresh chopped basil on top and then I put some garlic butter all over some leftover french bread I had on hand. I threw them under the broiler for 1 minute per side. So good.


Here's the recipe - again with WAY better pics and details.

Parents Review: We liked it for sure, but it lacked a little "kick" that screamed "CAPRESE" like we are used to with tomatoes, mozzarella and loads of basil. We would definitely add a lot more fresh basil in this recipe and even a little spice or balsamic twist would be fun too.

Kids Review: They liked the way we sectioned everything out. We just marinated the chicken in a balsamic dressing and broiled it on the side for all of us.

Blackberry Crumble

We were comparing a "Crumble" to a "Cobbler" this weekend and this is the Crumble recipe we decided to give a whirl.

The Crumble definitely focuses more on the fruit in this dish and the topping was just an accent piece. I prefer it with a little more "bread-i-ness" or topping-to-fruit-ratio, but the flavor was awesome.

Here it is a-la-mode after the ice cream got all melty from the heat of the crumble.


Parents Review: David loved this. I loved the flavor - needed more crumble or more texture for me.
Kids Review: Both of them loved it even though LG declared she wouldn't like it before trying it. Typical girl.

And, for Julie, my dear friend who was searching for a great cobbler recipe. I think both of these 2 variations are really, really good, but that doesn't mean I won't keep searching. :-) Thanks for giving me a reason to bake!

Blackberry Cobbler

I made 2 Blackberry recipes this weekend. This is the first one. I wanted to compare "Cobbler" to a "Crumble" in the whole fruity dessert department.


Here's the recipe I tried for the cobbler. I actually had a different planned out to make and then I realized that it involved rolling out dough and many other things that I knew I wasn't in the mood for this weekend, so I went with this one because it looked both yummy and easy. 2 great things. :-)

We, of course, served it with cold vanilla ice cream on top of the hot cobbler. So good.


Parents Review: I liked the texture of the cobbler, but the fresh blackberries were a little bitter maybe?? I'm not sure. I've never tried frozen blackerries or even ones from the can, but I've heard that's a whole different flavor. What do you guys think? We really enjoyed it, but thought it could've been a little sweeter.

Kids Review: Baby Boy gobbled it up. Little Girl was all about the Crumble. She wouldn't touch this one.

Baked Buffalo Chicken Pasta

Wow. I saw this recipe on one of my favorite recipe blogs and since my hubby LOVES all things spicy, I thought this would be a winner in our house.

It did not fail.

Here's the recipe from How Sweet it Is, with very detailed instructions and way prettier pictures than I can offer if you want to give this one a try. I think you'll love it!

I used lowfat milk in mine, so I'm sure it wasn't as thick as hers, but we still loved it. I didn't have gorgonzola either, so I threw some feta on top at the end and it gave it a fun kick. I also was running a little short on my Frank's hot sauce, so I barely made the 1/3 cup called for in the recipe. I would have loved it with even a little more than it called for. I loved the zing in this souped-up Mac-n-cheese dish. I baked the chicken in the oven for about 25 minutes (threw a little olive oil, s&p and garlic powder on it too). I then just shredded it up with my hands and threw it in the bottom of the dish.

I used fresh cilantro and green onions from my garden to throw on top and we LOVED what this added to the dish.


David even added a little extra Sirache sauce on top of his for more heat.


Parents Review: David said this is his new favorite dish. I am making it again very soon with more hot sauce next time. Perfect!
Kids Review: They don't do spicy, so I just gave them some plain pasta and baked chicken before I dolled it all up, then added a veggie on the side for them. They were happy. :-)


Let me know if you try it!