Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

This was a recipe request from my friends mom.

I'm including both the original recipe, and what I actually made here. I think it's funny when people don't trust their pumpkin recipes and add superfluous chocolate that overwhelms the pumpkin flavor.

These muffins are really sticky, so I strongly recommend cupcake wrappers.

Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

Topping:

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

3 Tbsp soft butter 

Sift Dry ingredients together:

3 1/3 cups flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice

2 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Mix wet ingredients separately:

1/2 cup butter melted

1/2 cup olive oil

2 cups winter squash puree

4 eggs (or if you ran out of eggs 4 Tbsp flax meal and 3/4 cup water set in the fridge for 15 minutes)

Fold wet ingredients into dry until just moistened.

Use a #20 scoop / disher to fill muffin tins.

Sprinkle topping on top of muffins.

Bake 350 F 20 minutes, or 40 minutes for jumbo size. 

Easily makes 2 dozen regular sized muffins.

Original Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin recipe for reference

Topping:

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

3-4 Tbsp butter 

Sift Dry ingredients together:

3 1/3 cups flour

2 cups sugar

2 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice

2 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 cups chocolate chips

Mix wet ingredients separately:

1 cup butter melted

2 cups pumpkin puree

4 eggs

Crockpot Lasagna

One of Scott's favorite foods is lasagna. One time we made it in the crockpot, and it was tasty. This was a loose interpretation of Alton Brown's crockpot lasagna.

From: July 2, 2014

Steak on the grill

Scott and I have been wanting a grill for a long time. Right after we moved in to our new place, we were making a few back-and-forth moving trips, and passed a moving sale. On a whim, we decided to stop and check it out. They had a full gas grill for only $75. Score! So we bought it.

One night we made steak on the grill. Served with green beans (from my parent's garden), salad, and homemade wheat rolls. Yum. Scott is a grill master.

From: November 9, 2014

Apple onion soup

We eat a lot of soup around here, especially when it's cold. This one was definitely an experiment and it wasn't bad. Apple onion soup.

From: October 28, 2014

Pesto Tortellini

It's been awhile, blogosphere. But don't worry, Scott and I have still been taking pictures of our food, and plan to update this blog. So prepare for a bunch of posts. And I've decided to start posting recipes too. Mostly for my (our) sake(s), so that I don't have to rely on internet links going bad. Anyway, here goes.

We made some pesto then mixed it together with a standard cream sauce (made using a standard roux and milk). Served over cheese tortellini with grilled squash and salad.

On a side note, I now have this old iPhone, and the camera isn't very good...the coloring on the pictures is all wrong, usually. Trust me, the food didn't look that yellow.

From: October 13, 2014

Happy Fourth!

I really hate cooking in the summer. Especially turning on the oven, but the stove heats you up just as bad (and then I have to pay for AC to cool back down again). We don't have a BBQ grill, so I took the Foreman grill outside and cooked up some chicken in the shade. I seasoned with a home made rib rub. When I remember what I put in it, I'll have to post the recipe.

Rather than turning the oven on for potato wedges, I thought I'd pressure cooker them and run them on the Foreman as well. They ran too long in the pressure cooker (dumb timer didn't start), so I seasoned with Italian dressing and pan fried them instead. At least the oven stayed cool...

Time Traveling Smothered Burritos

E!s mom is the queen of the garage freezer. From jams to produce, all sorts of food spends time in what Julia has dubbed "The Time Machine;" Food enters one month, and magically emerges months later. Since I cooked through all our produce before leaving the country, I left quite a bit of food in our little time machine.

Chicken Enchilada Soup the first time around before our trip

Upon our return, we didn't really have any groceries, so I threw a few jars in the fridge overnight to pull our time travelers out of the wormhole.

Time travelers 

There are dangers to time travel. One of the 2 jars of chicken enchilada soup I froze cracked, making the precious soup inside too dangerous to consume.

There was still plenty of chili, soup and cheese to thaw, wrap in shell and quickly toast for a delicious dinner. I made some brown rice in the background to round out the burrito fillings.