Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Pasties

While on vacation, I finally got to see the new Harry Potter movie. It was pretty exciting. And I always love the food they serve in the movies and in the book. So to celebrate I decided to make Pumpkin pasties and to add some extra fun, I added chocolate chips. I found this recipe here.

Gather together:

• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1-1 lb. can pumpkin
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ginger
• 1/4 tsp. cloves
• 1 2/3 cups evap. milk (1 can)
• 1/2 tsp. allspice
• 9 oz pie crust pastry (enough for two single standard pie crusts)
• 1 egg white
  

Bake the pie filling only (no crust) in a large casserole dish in hot oven (425 degrees) for 15 minutes. Keep oven door closed and reduce temp to moderate (350 degrees F/180 degress Celsuis) and continue baking for 45 minutes or until table knife inserted in center of dish comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.
Make or purchase pie crust pastry. Roll thin and cut into circles approx 4" in diameter--I used the can the pumpkin came in to cut the circles. Put a spoonful of the cool pumpkin mixture towards one side of the center of the circle. Fold over the crust into a half-circle and firmly crimp the edges closed. Slice three small slits in the top for venting. Brush with egg whites. Place on a greased cookie sheet, and bake only until crust is a light golden-brown (about 20 minutes). Ta-da. Mini pumpkin pies with little chocolaty goodness.


These are always fun to make. And the chocolate makes them irrestiable to just about everybody. It's something about the combination of pumpkin and chocolate that is just pure bliss.

Chocolate Oat Bars

Everyone needs a dessert recipe that they can whip up in 15 minutes and requires minimal messes. This is that recipe for me. Everyone who has tried these really likes them, and I like them because they're easy and I don't have to heat up the house.

Chocolate Oat Bars

3/4 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups quick cooking oats

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup PB

Grease a 9x9 pan. Melt the butter in a saucean. Stir in brown sugar and vanilla until combined. Mix in the oats. Cook this on low heat for about 2-3 miutes, or until the oats seemed cooked down a bit. Press 3/4 of the oat mixure into the pan to make the crust.

Melt the chocolate chips and peanut butter over low heat. Pour this over the crust. Sprinkle the rest of the oatmeal mixture on the top. Put this in the fridge until it sets up.

So easy!

Gifts for Samara (& Aaron) and Erin (& Anthony)

We receive tons of emails & calls every day with questions like, "I just made beer cheese soup and the cheese is staying at the bottom of the pan burning and the whole thing is greasy. What should I do?"
And "I tried making the margarita cake, but it never fluffed up. What went wrong?"

Also, "We love your blog so much, we want to get you and Erin something nice to say thank you. What should we get foodies like you."

First, Throw that greasy mess away. And next time make sure your shredded cheese is lightly coated in flour and and small batches of cheese at a time whisking it in over low heat until melted.

Second, I did not create this recipe, so I would ask Better Crocker. It was probably old cake mix. I've had that happen too sometimes. :(

Finally, foodie gift options include fun kitchen gadgets. Erin needs a 9 cup Cuisinart food processor, so do I. Well, I use need lightly since I have a 3 cup, but with the way I cook, I need something bigger. Much bigger. We also have this weak spot for chocolate. And we both have been dying to try Vosges Chocolate, especially the Mo's chocolate bar. (Yes, Erin will eat the bacon if it is coated in chocolate.) And really who can resist flavors like:

• Barcelona Exotic Candy Bar hickory smoked almonds + Fleur de Sel grey sea salt + deep milk chocolate
• Mo's Bacon Bar - New Applewood smoked bacon + Alder wood smoked salt + deep milk chocolate
• Organic Enchanted Mushroom Candy Bar Organic dark chocolate + mushrooms
• Goji Exotic Candy Bar Tibetan goji berries + pink Himalayan salt + deep milk chocolate
• Black Pearl Exotic Candy Bar ginger + wasabi + black sesame seeds + dark chocolate
• Oaxaca Exotic Candy Bar Oaxacan guajillo & pasilla chillies + Tanzanian bittersweet chocolate
• Calindia Exotic Candy Bar cardamom + organic walnuts + dried plums + Venezuelan dark chocolate

This sounds like a fun taste explosion, but with each cand bar costing about $8.00 each, I don't think either one of us will be getting any of these for ourselves any time soon.

Just a few suggestions.

Cookie Dough Cupcakes

I made these for Beaver Round-Up. I received third place for them in the cakes section of the contest, so I felt pretty good about it. I suggest not trying new recipes for bake-offs, however, because the whole process was nerve wracking and I had no idea how they tasted. I got the idea from Peabody's blog.

I used Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake recipe for the cake. This batter is extremely runny, which made putting the cookie dough (the cookie dough from the previous post) into the cupcake a little challenging. The cookie dough sank to the bottom, which was fine. Just not as pretty as I had wanted.

I then made a Brown Sugar Buttercream for the frosting. It was intense. Apparently, the judges liked it, though.

Brown Sugar Buttercream (from Peabody)

1 cup butter

2 cups brown sugar

4-6 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Cream together brown sugar, butter, milk, and vanilla until smooth. Add powdered sugar until reaching the desired consistency.

Sadly, this is the only picture I have of the cupcakes. They were especially a hit with the under 12 crowd.