Pumkin Roll

Here I go again!

Pumpkin.

Are you sick of it yet?

A friend of mine asked me a while ago to help her make a pumpkin roll for her hubby who loves them and hasn’t had one for a couple years. They are both relatively new to Wisconsin, and honestly, I had never heard of a pumpkin roll! It’s apparently a regional thing or I’ve been left in the dark for far too long.

We planned it all out, Rachel and Lacey came over to help bake this scrumptious, delectable treat!

Actually, we made two!

I was a bit worried about  making these, since I’d never done it before. It’s easy enough to mix ingredients together, but to flip these babies out of the pan AND roll them up, then unroll them, fill them with cream cheese, sugary goodness, and ROLL THEM BACK UP!
It sounds like a lot of work.
But in the end, I was pleasantly surprised as to how easy it was. In fact, I want to make another one!

Pumpkin rolls go perfectly with coffee, by the way.

Pumpkin Roll
Note: My friend Rachel sent this recipe to me via Facebook. Prior to that, I don’t know where it came from.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 cup white sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin
1 teaspoon lemon juice
3/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon nutmeg
powdered sugar for sprinkling

Filling:
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs on high speed for 5 minutes. Slowly add the white sugar, pumpkin, and lemon juice and mix well. Add the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, salt, ginger, and nutmeg and mix until combined. Batter will be thick, but spreadable.

Line the bottom of a large jellyroll pan with parchment paper and grease and flour the sides. Pour batter into pan.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Sprinkle 1/4 cup powdered sugar on terrycloth towel. (I used a regular kitchen towel) I lied the towel right on top of the pan and flipped the pumpkin sheet out, that way it would just fall onto the towel and not all over the table. Gently roll with the towel rolled up inside it as well and let it cool in the fridge.

While roll is cooling, prepare filling by mixing cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla in a medium bowl. When roll has cooled, unroll it and spread the filling evenly. Roll it back up and refrigerate. It’s really hard to not crack the dough when rolling but if it does don’t stress because the cracks fix themselves when it refrigerates. Also, slightly dampening the cloth helps. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Cut into 1 inch slices to serve.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Spice Rice Krispy Bar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I tried to get this recipe out at the end of last week, but clearly just ran out of time. So, I will continues with my Pumpkin week today… I hope you don’t mind 🙂

On Friday, I made a meal for some friends that just had their fourth baby. A girl…they actually have four girls now! But, really, they are just trying to hold up the girl end of all these new babies. Seriously, there are lots and lots of boys going on here.

I knew what meal I wanted to make them. I grabbed some salad and dressing from the store and was well on my way. Except for dessert. I really wanted to practice more cakes, but ran out of time. Last week was so busy, I could even imagine baking and frosting another cake. But I also didn’t want to make it look like I just threw this meal together in a day. (maybe a day and a half…lol)

I knew I had lots of bags of marshmallows on my pantry shelf in the basement, since I went on an accidental marshmallow shopping spree a few weeks back. I also had a new box of rice krispies from a good sale at the local grocery store. So obviously, rice krispy bars were on my mind, but again, it sounded too boring to me at the time. (when I male something for someone, I can’t make it easy…its the OCD coming out in me)

Lucky for me, I remembered a recipe that I pinned on Pinterest for pumpkin spice rice krispy bars. It was the perfect dessert. Not too messy for the little girls that I knew would eating these, but also a little more sophisticated for the grown ups.
The original recipe, found here, has you ‘brown’ the butter before adding the marshmallows. I say forget that…do it the easy way and just melt it all together like you normally do. Add the rice krispies and ‘tada’! You have a masterpiece fit for a king..or at least an adult.

This a great recipe to get the kind involved in too. If you have small children, using the stove would be a not so good idea, they could definitely help press the rice krispy mixture into the pan.

So without further ado…here’s the recipe and some lovely pictures to go with it 🙂

Pumpkin Spice Rice Krispy Bars (adapted from Cookies and Cups)

6 cups rice krispies
10.5 bag marshmallows
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Melting butter, marshmallows and pumpkin spice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pour rice krispies into a large bowl; set aside.
In a medium sauce pan, melt butter, marshmallows and pumpkin pie spice.
Once it’s melted, pour the marshmallow mixture into the bowl with rice krispies. Mix well.
Pour into a greased 9×13 pan. Pat down with greased hands.
Let sit until completely cooled; cut and enjoy!

Can you see the pumpkin pie spice mixed in there?

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

Forgive me for the classy phone pic of the this pumpkin bar. (yes, it was done on my Pyrex lid) It’s the only thing I had to take a picture with. At least of the end result.

So, it’s almost fall. Ahh.. I wish it lasted longer. It is, by far, my favorite time of year. My husband and I were married on the first day of Autumn almost six years ago now. The colors of the trees. The smell of leaves and baking. Oh, and did I mention Pumpkin Spice Lattes??? Have I mentioned I have an love obsession with pumpkin….anything. Pumpkin bars. Pumpkin bread. Pumpkin coffee. Pumpkin creamer (for the coffee!). Pumpkin smoothies. The color, pumpkin. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. PUMPKIN!!!!!!!! (you know how when you repeat the same word over and over it looks funny. Pumpkin just did that for me..lol)

So, as you may guess, there will many more pumpkin recipes before the season is through (and it hasn’t even started yet!!!!)

I made these for a picnic with our Sunday School class. There were many treats there, including some Pina Colada Cupcakes. Thank you Franci!!! They were delicious! (as were all the others..there were just too many to name!)

Besides being easy to make, they feed a lot of people. Unless you’re me and eat half the pan first…okay, maybe not half the pan…but I ate quite a few! Seriously though.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars (from Eat Live Run)

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin
3 eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 Tbsp  heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp salt
24 oz cream cheese, at room temperature

For graham cracker crust:

18 graham crackers (two sleeves from the box)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar

Graham crackers, melted butter and sugar

 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Place graham cracker in a resealable bag and crush using a rolling pin or your hands. I’ve always found this to be the best technique.
When the cracker are coarse crumbs, pour them in to a medium bowl. Add the sugar and melted butter and mix well. Pat into a 15×17 inch jelly roll pan, lined with parchment paper. Bake for 5 minutes. Remove and reduce heat to 325 degrees F.

In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin, eggs, brown sugar, cream and vanilla.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together cream cheese, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and salt. Beat until light and fluffy. (I used my whisk attachment for extra fluffiness!) Slowly add the pumpkin mixture, mixing until there are no lumps and the mixture is perfectly smooth,

Pour batter onto prepared crust. Bake for 50 minutes or until edges begin to pull away slightly. Let cool completely before cutting and serving.

Garnish with either homemade whipped cream, redi-whip, or cool whip. Whatever your preference.

Before being baked

Enjoy!

After being baked

Clean Eating Zucchini Bread

I’ve been on a kick with bread-y things lately, although I’m not sure why, since carbs have not been agreeing with me.lately. Every time I eat a slice of whole wheat toast a burger on a bun, I get really bloated and feel terrible for a few hours or more. I don’t think I am going to end up with celiacs, like my mother-in-law, but I think its from eating so many healthy carbs, my body doesn’t know how to digest bread carbs. (At least, that’s what I’m telling myself) I am not saying that this recipe isn’t healthy. It is. It’s clean, and its really really yummy, so I still eat, just in small increments. One slice at a time and with some protein, like Greek yogurt or cottage cheese, and it seems to be fine. I also feel better feeding this to my family since its not chocked full of sugar and other ingredients that aren’t good for them.
My sister was the one that originally told me of this recipe, since we are both following a clean eating food plan, and she found it on one of my favorite websites, The Gracious Pantry. It is full of clean recipes for everything! I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I can’t emphasize enough, how much I love looking around at all the yummy recipes. I also fond tons of stuff on Pinterest. I have my own Clean Eating board, so when I want to find something, I know just where to go!
Now that I’ve completely gone off on a bunny trail… Kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit… (Sorry, I couldn’t resist singing that one)
A slight note on the zucchini, I like to buy really big zucchini, chop it in really small pieces and freeze it. Thanks to my sister and her wonderful garden, I was able to get 3 large zucchini to freeze! Once they are that big, zucchini doesn’t taste the greatest just sliced and fried or baked. So here I sit with at least 16 cups of chopped zucchini and so much baking I want to do!
Bring it on!

Clean Eating Zucchini Bread (adapted from The Gracious Pantry)
Yield: One 9×5 loaf
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
2/3 cup honey
1 generous cup grated zucchini
2 tbsp. unsweetened apple sauce
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 whole egg
1 egg white
1 tbsp. fresh lemon zest
3/4 cup plain, non-fat Greek yogurt
Chocolate Chips (optional)

In a medium to large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and nutmeg. In a slightly larger bowl, whisk together honey, zucchini, applesauce, olive oil, egg, egg white, lemon zest and yogurt. Using a wooden spoon, mix the flour mixture into the wet mixture. Stir well.

If you choose to add chocolate chips, now is the time. By adding them, the bread is no longer considered ‘clean’, but it’s darn close. So I added some. However, when I cut into the bread, I noticed all the chocolate chips had sunk to the bottom of the loaf. So if you want to avoid this, don’t add them or just sprinkle on top after you’ve poured the batter into the bread pan.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9×5 loaf pan. Pour batter into pan.

Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

The weather lately has been playing with my emotions. It was so unbearably hot for what seemed like forever that I thought fall would never come. Don’t worry, I am mot wishing away summer! We had some cool days with rain which put me in the mood for scarves, boots, and anything pumpkin related. Food, drinks, the color, you name it, I like it. So, now its hot again. The a/c is on and the windows are shut (which is fine with me since my allergies are terrible this time of year), but I’m still craving fall. The apples, pumpkins, scarves, and boots. Well, this afternoon I couldn’t take it anymore! I had to make something pumpkin! And thank you Pinterest for helping me find that something. You see, I had a plain chocolate protein shake on the menu for this afternoon, but got hungry too early for it. So I decoded to hunt my Pinterest boards to find a shake or smoothie that would be more filling. And here it is folks! It’s tasty. Satisfying. And reeks of fall! (okay, maybe reek isn’t the right word, jut you get my drift)

Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

1/2 banana
1/3 cup pumpkin puree (no sugar added)
1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt (would be yummy with vanilla too)
3/4 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1 packet stevia (or sweetener of choice)
A few shakes of pumpkin pie spice
4-5 ice cubes

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Enjoy!