Maura's Famous Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

This one is from my Alpha Chi Omega pledge sister Maura and these cookies are fabulous!! At my house these are a favorite year round - not just in the fall. 

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup shortening (or butter)

1 cup pumpkin

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla
6 oz bag chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions:
Cream together the sugar, egg and shortening. Add the pumpkin. Blend well.

Stir together flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder and cinnamon. Add to pumpkin mixture.

Add vanilla, chips and nuts (if using).

Drop in rounded teaspoonsful on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Do not overbake. Cool and store in an airtight container.

(I usually double the recipe and use a 15-ounce can of pumpkin)

Number Of Servings: makes 3-4 dozen

baby love...

LOVE these darling shirts and onesies for babies and toddlers from Ava's Closet!

Thanks @CauseShoppe for tweeting about them!! And thanks Ava's Closet for your contributions to Kiva!

Our Biergarten

Had to share how creative my friend Kendra is! We're headed up to the Poconos this weekend with a third friend, Marjana, to attend the wedding of one of our lifelong friends. The bride and groom requested cash gifts but we wanted to find a fun way to present our present! The happy couple both love good beer and the bride is a master gardener so Kendra combined both to make us this cute Biergarten! We'll put our cards in the slots with the beers. So fun!

Cincinnati Style Chili

An experiment this week at our house - Cincinnati Chili served 5-ways. I took a bit from a couple different recipes I found online which means I better write down what I did before I forget. It turned out really yummy!

1 quart cold water
2 pounds ground beef
2 cups (16 ounces) tomato sauce
2 yellow onions, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 ounce Ghirardelli bittersweet baking chocolate
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
2 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 whole bay leaf
1 whole clove (the kind you make ground cloves from)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp salt

Extras:
1 15-ounce can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
about a pound of spaghetti, cooked and drained
shredded cheddar cheese
1 chopped onion
oyster crackers

Add beef and water to a 4-quart pot. Bring to a simmer while stirring until the ground beef is in very small pieces. Simmer for 30 minutes and add all the rest of the ingredients.

Simmer on low, uncovered, for 3 hours. Add water as needed if the chili becomes too thick.

Refrigerate the chili overnight (I put ours in the freezer for an hour), and then remove the layer of fat from the top before reheating and serving.

We added the beans to the chili while reheating it, then served it over spaghetti with cheese and onion on top, and oyster crackers on the side.

Coconut Key Lime Bars

yep another recipe :)
by request for Tara! ... to simplify feel free to use limes instead of key limes; also it's ok to omit the coconut

Title: Coconut Key Lime Bars

Description:
A variation the classic Lemon Bars. 

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter (unsalted), softened
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 eggs, slightly beaten
1 Tablespoon grated key lime peel
5 Tablespoons key lime juice
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup shredded coconut
powdered sugar

Directions:
Preheat Oven to 350.

Blend butter, salt, 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 2 cups flour to make soft dough. Press evenly into ungreased 9x13 pan. Bake 15 to 20 minutes until golden. Meanwhile, combine eggs, key lime peel, key lime juice and 1/4 cup flour and blend until smooth. Pour over baked crust. Sprinkle 1 cup coconut over top of filling. Reduce heat to 325 and bake 25 minutes until firm. Cool. Dust with powdered sugar and slice into bars.

Variations
Best Loved Lemon Bars - Substitute lemon juice and peel for key lime juice and peel. Omit coconut.

Orange Bars - Substitute orange juice and peel for key lime juice and peel. Omit coconut. Omit powdered sugar topping. Melt 2 ounces semisweet chocolate with 1/4 cup butter. Spread over bars as a glaze.

Almond Amaretto Bars - Substitute Amaretto liqueur for lemon juice. Omit lemon peel. After pouring filling over crust, sprinkle with 1 cup sliced almonds. Omit coconut.

Cherry Bon Bon Bars - Substitute maraschino cherry juice for lemon juice. Omit peel. Chop about 2 dozen well-drained cherries and add to filling. Omit coconut. Omit powdered sugar topping. Melt 1 ounce semisweet chocolate and 1 ounce unsweetened chocolate with 1/4 cup butter. Spread over bars as a glaze.

Number Of Servings: makes 3 dozen

Preparation Time:1 hour give or take, not counting cooling time

Pumpkin Smoothies

My son and I adapted this recipe from Family Fun to our tastes.

1 cup canned pumpkin
1 1/4 cup vanilla low-fat yogurt (we like Stonyfield)
1/4 cup vanilla soy milk (we like Silk Very Vanilla for Kids)
3 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
8 ice cubes

Put all ingredients in the blender and puree until smooth.
Thanks @jules23 for suggesting soy milk - it made an excellent addition!

Love this old pic of T from his second Halloween:

seriously how can you resist a NOAA widget?

Learned today via Twitter (thank you @CraigatFEMA) that NOAA has cool widgets you can add to your webpage. http://www.noaawatch.gov/widgets/

Had to try it out!!