Pumpkin Muffins

Yum. You need to make these muffins. The boys were crazy about them! They are delicious! Andy liked them. Wilson liked them. Luke liked them. Tyler liked them. I liked them. The End.

*I'm just not a food photographer. Or any kind of photographer. Sorry. There is a picture after the link!

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! We celebrated Friday night as a family. I chose to eat at Red Robin since we'd never tried been there. It was fun! Then we went to Lowe's and picked out a new stove and hood. On Saturday Andy installed the new stove and hood and I used it to make dinner- chicken enchiladas. I'll have to share that recipe -it's one of our favorites. I love the new stove! I've been wanting a new stove for a couple years. I finally have a smooth top stove! Last night I was reading the owner's manual in bed to learn how to take care of the top. Today I made oven roasted veggies for our mother's day cookout at my sister's and muffins for my mom. So I've definitely broken it in this weekend. We had a great evening at Cara and Jason's and a delicious dinner. Andy just did all of bathtime with the big boys so I got a night off from helping with that. It's been a nice mother's day! Here is a picture of my new stove. I owe Andy some chocolate chip cookies for installing this now!!

Paw's Chili and Cheese Muffins

This post is dedicated to my Paw-Paw, one of the best cook's I've ever known. I love you Paw!

One of my favorite foods of all time has been my Paw-Paw's Chili. Over the last 2-3 years I have tried my hand at making his chili. I finally have figured out how to apapt his reciple slightly to make it work in my own kitchen. I typed the recipe up tonight after making it for dinner so I wouldn't forget. For me chili isn't chili without spaghetti! I also decided to make cheese muffins from the Pioneer Woman Cook's blog. They were delicious! They went well with the chili. You can find her recipe here. She has helpful step by step directions and photos! They were so simple to make and turned out very tasty. I made a double batch since Mimi and Poppy, Stephanie, Meg, Lily and Trey came over for dinner. If you try the chili, let me know how it turns out!

Paw’s Chili – Cincinnati Style

4 ½ - 5 lbs lean ground beef
2 T vinegar
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
3 onions, diced
4 cloves garlic, diced
1 T garlic salt
1 t cinnamon
4 T cumin
4 T chili powder
1 t black pepper
2-3 cans red beans – OPTIONAL
29 oz can tomato puree
46 oz can tomato juice
4 cups water, divided
Cooked spaghetti
Toppings: shredded cheese, Tabasco, chili powder, crackers

Brown ground beef on medium heat. Drain. Add vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Mix in onions and garlic. Cook on low (so the meat doesn’t burn) for 20 minutes. Add spices (next 5 ingredients) and 2 cups water. Turn heat back to medium and cook 30 minutes, adding an additional cup of water when necessary to keep the meat from burning to the bottom of the pan. Next, add puree, tomato juice and 1 more cup of water. Stir and turn heat to medium high. Bring to a boil. Then reduce heat and simmer 1 hour. Serve over cooked spaghetti with toppings of your choice. I leave the beans out of mine.

Another pumpkin recipe for Fall!

Pumpkin Muffins
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
¾ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. ginger
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
pinch of allspice
1 stick (8 tbsp.) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup sugar
¼ cup (packed) light brown sugar
2 large eggs
½ tsp. vanilla extract
¾ cup canned unsweetened pumpkin puree
¼ cup buttermilk

Directions:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400°. Line a muffin pan with 12 paper liners. Set aside. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Beat the butter at medium speed until soft. Add both the sugars and continue to beat until light and smooth. One by one, add the eggs, beating for a minute after the eggs are incorporated, then beat in the vanilla. Lower the mixer speed and mix in the pumpkin and buttermilk. With the mixer at low speed, add the dry ingredients in a steady stream, mixing only until they disappear. To avoid overmixing, you can stop mixing early and stir any remaining dry ingredients into the batter using a rubber spatula. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then carefully remove each one from its mold and finish cooling on the rack.

I found this recipe on Annie's Eats and modified it slightly for our taste. I left out the nuts and raisins. Had some batter leftover after making 12 muffins so I made about 6-7 mini muffins as well. Her muffin pan must make bigger muffins than mine!

New Recipes

Okay, remember when I told you I really liked the new blog I found, Annie's Eats? Well this week I've tried a bunch of new recipes from her blog!
One night for dinner this week I made Chicken Quesadillas with White and Black Bean Dip. Very good. Click the name of each for the link to her blog with the recipe. I made a couple changes to the quesadillas - I cut the red pepper t0 1/4 tsp. because of my boys and I just used a skillet to cook the quesadillas so mine didn't have the fancy grill marks! It was still very yummy.

Tonight I made Spaghetti and Meatballs. The boys and I really liked this dinner. It made a ton of sauce so I froze 1/2 of it and saved enough in the fridge for leftovers. I followed her directions and made the meatballs about 2 T. in size and found they weren't cooked through in 20 min. so I turned the heat up and cooked them another 6 minutes or so. I might make them a little smaller next time. I also did not put mozzarella cheese in the middle of the meatballs. Just plain meatballs. I'm usually a spaghetti sauce from a jar kind of cook but this was easy and good!

Tonight, after getting the boys to bed I made 3 different muffin recipes off the blog- from SCRATCH!! No, they're not all for me!!! I am taking a basket of muffins to a friend at church who recently had a baby. Got that idea off of the blog too! I chose to make the Cinnamon Buttermilk Muffins- I'm calling them Cinnamon Sugar Muffins, Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Muffins (let's call those Double Chocolate Muffins), and the Blueberry Muffins. The recipes weren't difficult at all. I've only eaten 1 muffin tonight- a Cinnamon Sugar Muffin. Man, it was GOOD! Very light and fluffy. I am not a milk drinker and I had to have a small glass of milk after that. I hope the others are as good!

I bought a cute basket at Meijer. Wilson was a little worried that I was going to give all the muffins away but I promised him there was going to be plenty. The boys both REALLY like muffins!! I'll post a picture of the basket once I get the muffins inside tomorrow! I feel like such a little homemaker...