Brunch with friends old and new

A  couple of months ago, my good friend and new mommy, Diana and I decided we needed to get friends together and cook for them.  Both of us are good cooks (if we do say so ourselves) and enjoy entertaining.  Also, Diana hasn't shown off her 6 month old baby Bryan to everyone yet.  So we decided to throw a little brunch get together today.  It went so well!  We cooked but it never felt like work, we cleaned up but did it together so it went by quickly.  Cooking and eating (and even clean up) is way better with company!

Here are a few pics of the goodies:

Dorie Greenspan's mushroom and shallot quiche (I added spinach) and berries with honeyed greek yogurt

Ina Garten's Cape Cod Salad

Crispy and flavorful potato hash and fragrant pumpkin muffins served with honey butter

moist and delicious buttermilk raspberry cake

Great girls, delicious food and a great afternoon.  I was excited to make pumpkin muffins (again) and decided to make them a little healthier - knocked out about 1/2 the oil and more than 1/3 of the sugar... still ended up delicious, without the guilt!  We ended up keeping the meal pretty light and none of us felt too full afterwards. We provided the right combination of sweet and savory.

I got the recipe from Kirbie's Cravings and when I just went to her site to pull the recipe up, I noticed that she has post titled CINNAMON SUGAR PUMPKIN DONUT MUFFINS... Aaaaaaah I gotta try those next!  !!!  Anyway, here is the recipe and I've noted in bold italics any changes I made.

Pumpkin Bread

(Kirbie says this makes 3-7x3 loaves... I say it makes 2-9x5 loaves OR 24 muffins OR 1 9x5 loaf and 12 muffins)

Ingredients

  1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree

  4 eggs

   1 cup vegetable oil (i used 1/2 cup oil, 1/2 cup no sugar added apple sauce)

   2/3 cup water

  3 cups white sugar (I used 1 c brown sugar, 2/3 cup white sugar - consistency didn't change at all)

   3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

   2 teaspoons baking soda

  1 1/2 teaspoons salt

    1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used a heaping teaspoon of cinnamon)

   1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

   1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (I used a pinch - probably 1/2 tsp... not a huge clove fan)

    1/4 teaspoon ground ginger (I didn't have ginger so left it out)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7×3 inch loaf pans. (see above for other pan options)
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar
   until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour,
   baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry
   ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. (I usually use the hand mixer here for a little bit because my flour mixture always clumps.  I only mix it until most of the clumps are out.) Pour into the prepared pans.
3. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when
   toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

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What are some of your favorite brunch foods?  Feel free to share with me here!

Chow for now!  :)

Happy Halloween! How about a pumpkin scone?

I had half a can of pumpkin leftover from my pumpkin hummus and decided I wanted to make something sweet with it.  I came across a great recipe for pumpkin scones on food.com and made them.  Don't be afraid of making scones (even if you don't bake all that much).  There is no rising, no rolling, no kneading.  And if you have a food processor, all of you have to do is pulse everything then form it into a 9x3 brick, slice and bake.

These scones have the wonderful, warm, autumn flavors of cinnamon and nutmeg.  It also has cloves, which I am typically not a fan of, but a little sprinkling in the dough won't overwhelm you with strong clove flavor.  I felt there was way too much icing so I would cut the icing recipe in half or less (I include the full recipe below).  Also, I didn't have ground ginger and so chose to leave it out. Feel free to leave out one of the spices if you don't want to spend the money on it...in my mind the cinnamon and nutmeg were most important. Otherwise don't change a thing.

Pumpkin Scones (from Food.com)

  Scones

2 cups all-purpose flour

7 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

6 tablespoons cold butter

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

3 tablespoons half-and-half

1 large eggs

  Powdered Sugar Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon powdered sugar

2 tablespoons whole milk

  Spiced Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

3 tablespoons powdered sugar

2 tablespoons whole milk

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 pinch ginger

1 pinch ground cloves

Directions

TO MAKE THE SCONES:

1.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Lightly oil a baking sheet or line with parchment paper.

2.  Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices in a large bowl. Using a pastry knife, fork, or food processor, cut butter into the dry ingredients until mixture is crumbly and no chunks of butter are obvious. Set aside.

3.  In a separate bowl, whisk together pumpkin, half and half, and egg. Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Form the dough into a ball.

4.  Pat out dough onto a lightly floured surface and form it into a 1-inch thick rectangle (about 9 inches long and 3 inches wide). Use a large knife or a pizza cutter to slice the dough twice through the width, making three equal portions. Cut those three slices diagonally so that you have 6 triangular slices of dough. Place on prepared baking sheet.

5.  Bake for 14–16 minutes. Scones should begin to turn light brown. Place on wire rack to cool.

TO MAKE THE PLAIN GLAZE:

1.  Mix the powdered sugar and 2 tbsp milk together until smooth.

2.  When scones are cool, use a brush to paint plain glaze over the top of each scone.

AS THAT WHITE GLAZE FIRMS UP, MAKE THE SPICED ICING:

1.  Combine the ingredient for the spiced icing together. Drizzle this thicker icing over each scone and allow the icing to dry before serving (at least 1 hour). A squirt bottle works great for this, or you can drizzle with a whisk.
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Happy Halloween everyone!  Enjoy your day (and your candy!)


Chow for Now!  :)

Boo-rific Pumpkin Hummus!

Tomorrow, I am going to carve pumpkins with friends who have a 20 month old.  This is my little buddy's first Halloween where he understands that everyone dresses up in cool costumes, there are "punkins" on everyone's front porch and the houses in the neighborhood are decorated with scary but fun witches, skeletons and cobwebs.  Wait until he goes trick-or-treating and finds out he can collect candy from his neighbors!

I want to bring over a snack to eat while we are carving (to offset the candy and sugary snacks he will likely get on Sunday!).  I decided to make something I know he really likes... hummus! To make it more festive, I made a pumpkin hummus recommended by the fabulous blog: Cooking with Trader Joe's.  I used cookie cutters to cut TJ's Olive Oil Wheat wraps into pumpkins and bat shapes.  I then sprayed them with olive oil spray and sprinkled a little salt and cumin on them for flavor and color and baked them in the oven at 325 degrees for about 8-10 minutes (keep an eye on them!).  What a tasty and healthy treat!

Pumpkin Hummus
1 15 oz can garbanzo beans, drained
1/2 can pumpkin puree (about 3/4 cup)
1 tsp crushed garlic (1 clove or 1 cube frozen garlic)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp sesame tahini paste (in refrigerated section next to premade hummus)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon


1.  Add all ingredients to a blender or food processor and puree until hummus is smooth.  If mixture is too thick, add water, one tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is achieved.
2. Taste and adjust for seasonings.
3. For best flavor, store in fridge for a few hours before serving.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Serves: 8
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I used a little more tahini, salt and cumin than the recipe calls for.  This seemed to give it the flavor I was looking for.  I sprinkled a little more cumin and dripped a tiny bit of olive oil on top.  What do you think?

For those of you who are worried about making hummus "from scratch," I will tell you it is pretty simple - especially if you have a food processor.  But, if you prefer, you could take CWTJ's advice and use pre-made plain hummus and mix in pumpkin and spices!  You can also purchase bagged pita chips to make life a little easier.

Cooking With Trader Joe's also lists some other creative and fun recipes for you to try, using mostly Trader Joe's ingredients. I highly recommend checking out their website!

Are you steering away from the sweets this Halloween? Have any healthy recipes to share?  Please feel free to do so here!

Chow for now!  :)