Pumpkin, breakfast braid and chicken - OH MY!

  Alright, so this post is a couple days in the making.  Here Avery is enjoying some Pumpkin Pie Overnight Oats for breakfast a couple days ago.  The kid refuses to eat a lot of the time lately, so I figure I better stuff some nutrients into her when I can.  Did you know pumpkin is a fruit?  Dang.  I was hoping to get a veggie into her.  Oh well. 

The pumpkin parade continues with these sweet babies.  OH MY were they good!  Yes, were good.  They are gone now.  In our bellies.  Actually, we gave some to the neighbors too, so we aren’t that bad! Heres the recipe in case you are interested in being taken over by pumpkin as well!

 

Pumpkin Cupcakes by Ina Garten

 

1 cup of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg

2 room temperature eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin

 

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil

For the Maple Cream Cheese Frosting:

6 ounces of cream cheese
3 tablespoons of unsalted butter at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon of maple extract (or mapleine) – I didn’t have either and used some maple syrup – worked just fine!
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 cups of powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg and salt all in a bowl.

In a bigger bowl, combine the eggs, pumpkin, sugar, brown sugar and vegetable oil. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients.  Fill cupcake liners.

 

Bake for 20-25 minutes
FROSTING: Mix the cream cheese, butter, maple extract and vanilla extract together.  Then mix the powdered sugar in slowly until combined. 

Pipe onto cupcakes.

     Yes, I am aware that I have already talked about this recipe before, but it’s just so dang good that I can’t help myself!  And since we were having it today, I had to include it!  It didn’t want to feel left out, you see.  The recipe for the breakfast braid can be found here. It kinda looks like a little mummy here!

Seriously good brunch today.  Good work Trishy!

And then dinner this evening was Spicy Honey Brushed Chicken Thighs from Cooking Light’s September 2010 issue.  It was pretty darn good!  We had it with Bob’s Red Mill brown rice and some asparagus spears that Dylan had picked out.  Would you believe he didn’t want to eat them when it came down to it?! LOL!

It had the right amount of spicy-ness to sweetness.  I liked it!  And it was super fast to make too.  I think it was ready in less than 15 minutes!  Gotta love the broiler!  Next time though, I’d buy two packages of thighs like they tell you to.  I didn’t know that the thighs would be so small.  Next time I want more to myself, dang it!  And Avery wasted hers and threw it on the floor!  Grrrr!  She doesn’t know what she was missing though cuz it was delicious! 

That is all for now!  Its tv time!