Pumpkin Spice Breakfast Casserole

Pumpkin Spice Breakfast Casserole 
- 6 English Muffins, torn into 1 in. pieces *I used a knife and cut them. So much easier than tearing.
- 1 cup half & half
- 3 eggs
- 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp granulated sugar *I cut back on the sugar a little, it was too sweet for me the 1st time.
- 1 tsp pumpkin pie seasoning
- 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
- 1 tart apple, peeled and sliced
- 2 tbsp butter, cut into small pieces (best cut when frozen)


Butter the bottom of an 8" x 8" casserole, and scatter half of the English muffin pieces on the bottom. Place half of the apple slices over the muffin pieces. Whip together the half & half, eggs, 1/4 cup of sugar, spices and pumpkin puree in a small bowl. Pour half of the pumpkin cream mixture over the apples and muffins. Repeat the process, layering muffin pieces and apple slices, then covering them with the remaining pumpkin cream. Sprinkle with 2 tbsp of sugar and the butter pieces. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake for one hour at 350º F, or refrigerate overnight and bake before serving.
Serve warm.

NOTES:


This recipe is from my friend Joanna Masters. We've both made it a couple of times and determined it needs a little extra liquid. I usually just add extra milk (we use 2% most of the time.) I've also made it a couple times with day old bread. It's still VERY good. And once I omitted the apple and it was STILL very good! I usually do it the night before and let it soak in the fridge until morning, then pop it into a cold oven and add a few minutes to the baking time. 


the * notes in the recipe are Joanna's notes. 


Let me know what you think if you make it. 


Also, I do realize it's very funny for me to pull a recipe out of the coffers because I'm not feeling super, but wanted to blog something! Maybe I should make some Breakfast Casserole to help me feel better? 

Meringue Cookies

I needed a sweet bite today amidst sick babies and running to the doctor during naptime. I saw these cookies on My Bakingdom a few days ago and really wanted to try making them. We didn't have raspberry extract so I used vanilla. They were pretty easy to make...and to pipe it, since I don't have a large enough star tip, I used a plain circle. They aren't as pretty as the originals, but they are tasty!

Isn't he cute?

Oh one other thing happened. Aaron had a crazy asthma attack after only an hour of baking and we had to go to the doctor's office in a hurry. I decided to just switch off the oven and leave the cookies inside...and hope for the best. Good move! We returned 3 hours later to almost completely cooled pans of perfectly baked cookies.

Someday I will make the raspberry chocolate ones. These are delicious, too!

Another store-bought for homemade swap: Chocolate Syrup

We ran out of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup today. Almost a crisis. The kids don't seem to be feeling very well today and keep asking for chocolate milk.

I've been staring down the list of ingredients on the Hershey's bottle for quite some time now. Willing it to say sugar instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup. (HFCS) Believe what you want about HFCS, but I personally have read enough to be in the "it's not good for you" camp. I try to eliminate it from our diets as much as I can. (This is partly why we don't regularly drink pop. We get our "fizzy" fix from seltzer.)

So on a whim, to avoid a chocolate milk crisis, I whipped up a batch of homemade chocolate syrup.

I adapted my recipe from this one:

After reading a couple of recipes and the comments on those recipes, I learned that chocolate syrup really needs milk in it, so I did half water, half milk. I also saved the Hershey's bottle and put my syrup in it, just for ease of storing & pouring.


Homemade Chocolate Syrup


1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk (I used 2%)
2 cups sugar
dash salt
3 Tbsp. baking cocoa (I used hershey's powder)
1 tsp. Vanilla

Whisk water, milk, sugar, salt, & baking cocoa in a sauce pan over medium heat until boiling. Set timer & boil 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add vanilla. Cool completely. It will thicken as it cools. 


I'll post a picture as soon as I can.

Might be my new favorite food blog...

I stumbled across this Pittsburgh blog last night and was totally amazed.

Today I made her light wheat sandwich bread. Fabulous.

I will be making many more of her recipes soon.

YUM.

And the fact that the author's name is Lauren?

That's Burghilicious.

http://burghilicious.com/

French Dip Sandwiches

I was going off of this recipe:

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/Easy-Slow-Cooker-French-Dip/Detail.aspx

I say "going off of" because here's what happened:

I went to walmart to buy the ingredients since there were a bunch of other things we needed like lightbulbs and shampoo. Walmart, unbelievably, was OUT of French Onion Soup. There wasn't a single stinkin' can in any brand, size, etc. Apparently there is a run on French Onion Soup? So I ended up with Lipton powdered french onion soup/dip mix and a can of College Inn lower sodium beef broth.

I bought a roast.

I bought the nicest looking sub buns I could find (they weren't super, but they were ok.)

I bought provalone cheese.

Then I came home and put the powdered soup mix through a wire strainer to get out the big pieces of onion because I don't like onions. (I don't mind onion flavored stuff so much, but I do not want to chomp down on a hunk of onion in something...gross!) Added the onion soup mix to the crock pot with the roast and the beef broth and an extra can of water. (I filled the beef broth can up with water and dumped that much into the crock pot.)

Then I remembered the beer in the recipe. The only beer we have is one bottle of some special kind Roger picked the last time he did a mix-n-match 6 pack. I don't think he would've wanted me cooking with it. So I left the beer out.

Flipped the crock pot on high (it was almost 1pm by this time) and hoped for the best!

At 4:40pm I turned the crock pot off and took the meat out so it could cool a little before I tried slicing it.  Cut the buns in half, put them on a cookie sheet, cut the provalone slices into half-moons, turned the broiler on, then sliced the meat, put it on the buns, topped with cheese and into the oven.

Served with french fries and sweet potato fries, mixed veggies, the jus for dipping, & horseradish & mayo for Roger's sandwich.

They were very good.

The kids did not like them. Next time I will just cut meat like normal for the kids and not try to make them eat sandwiches. The kids love roast beef... not so much sandwiches. *sigh*

We will be having this again.  I'd like to try it with the beer added... maybe... but I liked it the way it was today, too!

Let me know if you try it too!

Did you notice I changed the table cloth?! 

It must be blueberry season in Chile. The fresh blueberries in our stores are not insanely priced right now.

I tried my hand at blueberry bagels this morning. Making bagels isn't that hard, but I definitely need more practice. I've tried a wheat bagel recipe & now the blueberry one. They taste good, but didn't rise like I thought they should.

Note, if you try this recipe, Make sure you read the "comment" about the recipe on the bottom. Also, I would not recommend using fresh blueberries like I did... it was one heck of a mess. I wanted to just quit, but I couldn't let myself waste the fresh berries so I pressed onward. Just beware. I will not make it again with fresh berries... only dried.

http://dairyfreecooking.about.com/od/breadsbakery/r/blueberrybagels.htm

Blueberry Bagels

User Rating2 Star Rating(1 Review) Write a review

By Ashley Skabar, About.com Guide

Bagels are one of those breads that are often--but not always--dairy-free, but, like so many things, making them at home is so fun and tasty, and they freeze and keep well for rushed mornings.

Makes 10 to 12 bagels

Ingredients:

• 2 cups warm water
• 2 .25-ounce packets dry active yeast
• 3 T. plus 2 t. white granulated sugar (I prefer unrefined cane sugar)
• 5- 5 1/2 cups all-purpose white flour
• 2 t. salt
• 2 cups blueberries, fresh or dried (I prefer fresh tiny varieties)
• Cornmeal, for pans
• 10-12 cups water

Preparation:

1. In a medium-large mixing bowl, combine the warm water, yeast and the 3 T. sugar, stirring gently until dissolved. Allow the mixture to stand for 5 minutes or until bubbly. (If no bubbles surface, this means that most likely your yeast is no longer "active"; discard your mixture and use fresh yeast.) Add in 4 1/2 cups of the flour and salt gradually until the mixture comes together into a soft dough. Fold in the blueberries gently. Add the remaining flour 1/4 cup at a time until the dough is stiff but not dry. Turn out the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead until the dough is elastic and no longer sticks to your hands, adding flour as needed, about 7-10 minutes. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, turning to coat, cover with a clean dish cloth and set in a warm place to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

2. Preheat the oven to 400 F. LIghtly oil a large baking sheet.

3. Punch down the dough and divide it into 10 to 12 pieces, depending on how large you want your bagels. Shape each piece into a ball and then, using your fingers, make a hole in the center, gently stretching the dough until the hole is the size of a large coin. Place the bagels on the prepared sheet as you work, then cover with the clean dish towel and let rise for an additional 25 minutes.

4. Lightly oil another large baking sheet and sprinkle lightly with the cornmeal. Bring the 10-12 cups of water to a boil in a large pot with the remaining 2 t. sugar. Working in batches (about 3-4 at a time), gently submerge the bagels into the boiling water and boil until they rise to the top, about 3-5 minutes. Transfer the bagels to the prepared baking sheet and repeat until all of the bagels have been boiled. Bake for 35 minutes, flipping after the first 5, until golden brown. Serve warm or at room temperature.

User Reviews

 2 out of 5

Good ingredients, poor instruction, Member pineapple.express

While the end product tasted good, the entire process of making these bagels was incredibly stressful, mainly because the directions were very unclear and also gave a very inefficient method. I have a few recommendations: 1) Use high rise yeast. I found that the dough rose a twice as fast as the recipe said and made the job go by somewhat faster with the same end result. 2) Before you put the dough in an oiled bowl to rise you MUST mead it with a lot of flour. I'm not sure this recipe calls for enough flour in the initial mixing process. 3) Instead of punching the holes with your fingers, roll the dough out into strips and pinch them together into an O. This is much easier and it is how they do it in bagel shops anyway, I have now clue why this recipe wants you to do it differently. 4) Separate dough into very small sized bagels. Trust me, they with rise a lot! I also found that when you boiled the dough, it did not sink to the bottom of the pot. I was kinda confused about this, but it didn't seem to have a negative impact. Also, this recipe appears to be a little out of order. You want to mix the dough, mead it, put it in a bowl to rise, punch it down, separate and shape it, let it rise again, boil, and bake. I was a little confused about how it was written, but it wasn't to hard to sort out. I also put an egg glaze on top and sprinkled them with sugar before baking.

Tea Time

Today I had a Tea Party for Grandma Bishop, Great Grandma Kelley, Aunt Sam, Aunt Pat, & Aunt Carol. I tried to make it kinda fancy!

The Menu Was:

• Pumpkin Soup
• Smoked Turkey Sandwiches with Dijon Mustard Cream Cheese on Wheat Bread
• Pumpkin & Vanilla Scones with Apple Butter Whipped Cream
• Chocolate chip oatmeal cookies
• Grapes
• Tea, Coffee, & Lemonade

 Pumpkin Soup:

(This was originally a recipe from a magazine, but I've tweaked it over the years)

1 lb pumpkin (pr butternut squash)

canola oil

1 1/2 tsp. chopped fresh sage

1/4 lb bacon or pancetta, chopped

1/2 of one large onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 1/2 cups chicken broth-low sodium

3 1/2 cups water

1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

Salt

Pepper

1. Roast pumpkin/squash until tender, scrape flesh from skin, puree in blender

2. Cook bacon in 4qt. heavy pot over medium heat until browned. Remove from pan. 

3.  Cook onion until softened, add garlic & sage, cook about 1 minute.

4. Add pumpkin, broth, & water. Stirring occasionally, simmer 20 minutes. Puree Soup in blender.

5. Stir in vinegar, salt, & pepper

6. Serve garnished with crispy bacon (sometimes I also garnish w/ roasted pumpkin seeds)

*notes*
-this soup tastes even better refrigerated overnight & reheated!
-Somtimes, depending on how watery the pumpkin/squash is, you need less/more water. Just add liquid until it is a consistency that you like.
-Pureeing the second time is optional
-you can use canned pumpkin, but the roast flavor is really superior.

"Light" Chocolate Chip Cookies

Eating Well Magazine

3/4 c. rolled oats

1 c. whole wheat four

1/ 2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 c. butter, softened

1/4 c. canola oil

1/3 c. granulated sugar

1/3 c. brown sugar

1 lg. egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 c. mini chocolate chips

Cream butter, oil, sugars. Add egg & vanilla. Add flour, salt, soda.Gently stir in chips.

Bake 8-10 min at 350 on greased cookie sheets or parchment paper. Store in airtight container with a piece of bread.

Serving Size 4 cookies: 98 cal, 12g Carbs, 1g dietary fiber, 5g fat, 1g protein, 7g sugars

Turkey Sandwiches:

I just made this up yesterday ;-)

Sliced Deli Smoked Turkey Breast

1/3 less fat cream cheese

Grey Poupon dijon mustard

wheat sandwich bread

Mix softened cream cheese & mustard, spread on all bread slices, add 2 slices turkey breast. Cut off crusts & into shapes (triangles, strips, or special shapes using cookie cutter) 

Pumpkin Scones:

http://www.green-tea-health-news.com/easy-pumpkin-scones.html

I followed this recipe exactly for the scones.  I served them with my own creation of:

Apple Butter Whipped Cream:

1 c. Heavy Whipping Cream

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 c. Apple Butter (no extras, just apples, spices & cider)

Whip cream until soft peaks form, add in vanilla, & gently fold in apple butter.  Adjust with more apple butter if you need to.  (I didn't measure this morning...)

For the Vanilla scones- I swore on my life that I wouldn't give out the recipe for these after begging for it from my friend & former boss Melissa.  THIS is a very similar recipe. I did not use raisins. While traditionally served with vanilla cream or strawberry jam, today I served them with apple butter... AWESOME.

Pineapple Pork

Here's a recipe for you to try.  Straight from my electric skillet.

1 small pork loin roast (1-2 lbs), cut into bite-size pieces
1 can pineapple chinks (or tidbits) in pineapple juice (not syrup), drained, reserve juice
1-2 tbsp. corn starch
3 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar
3Tbsp. lower sodium soy sauce
1/2 cup water
1 tsp. dark honey (or whatever you have, I have local buckwheat honey.)
salt
pepper
sesame seeds
rice
asian veggie blend (I use birdseye brand)
cooking spray

Sprinkle corn starch, salt, & pepper over pork & toss to coat while preheating a non-stick skillet sprayed with cooking spray (with a lid, I use my electric skillet).  Place pork into skillet on high heat in a single layer & brown on both sides.

Add pineapple juice, vinegar, soy sauce & water.  Simmer on medium-high, covered for 8 minutes.  Uncover & continue simmering until the liquid is cooked down & thicker. Add pineapple & honey. Continue cooking another minute or two to heat the pineapple through. Turn off.

Serve with steamed asian veggies & rice.  Sprinkle sesame seeds on top.

I know it sounds like a lot of ingredients that you might not have on hand, but I have found that we eat this for dinner several times a month and once you have the vinegar, soy sauce, sesame seeds, etc. you can make this as a "pantry meal."  We keep pork roast & asian veggies in the freezer all the time.

If you try it, let me how how you like it!  I threw this together one night after a long day out and about, hoping for a tasty, quick dinner.  It took several times to "perfect" it, but I personally think it is quite tasty.  I keep forgetting to take a photo of it, but next time we have it, I promise I will take one.  It not only tastes good, it looks really nice on the plate! The whole thing takes about 20 minutes to make- if you're cooking your rice & vegetables at the same time as the pork.  Yum!

Cool Fall Days

Make me feel like baking bread.

It isn't relaxing when you have little fingers helping you.

It is kinda silly (and gross?) when you turn around and find them licking and tasting everything...

But it is nice to see the delight on your child's face when he's so proud of what he's doing.

Don't let me forget to take a photo of Ian's first loaf of bread after we're done. (It's rising now.)

**Update**

And homemade strawberry jam on our bread for breakfast. Yum.

Bishop Family Christmas

We went to our first Christmas gathering of the season. (We actually don't have too many this year, which is interesting... we must lose our flavor the more rambunctious kids we have? just kidding...)

It was hosted by Roger's Mom and her husband Bob in New Brighton. They rented a room at the Penn Bistro, which in our opinion worked out perfectly! We thought the room was really nice, the space was the right amount, the food was good, the amount of time was right, etc. We thought it was great! Ian and Aaron didn't break anything, they only spilled one cup of water on the floor, and they were fairly easily contained. (Until they figured out there was a fish tank down the hall...)

The boys fell asleep on the way home, but both woke up when we got here. So they got to use their new plates and spoons to eat some soup before they went to bed.

Here are some photos from the day:



^that's a LOT of presents.



^ Ian and Aaron being silly


^the whole group: Front Row: Marilyn, Bob, Ian, Aaron & I
2nd Row: John, Liz, Waylon, Jeff, Melissa, John, & Roger




^the gift baskets we made: 2 coffee mugs, 1/2 pound of La Prima Coffee (local roaster & our favorite), homemade biscotti, intellegentsia tea, & torani syrup. Since Roger's mom and Bob are tea drinkers, their basket had tea only and local honey instead of coffee syrup. And a gift card to Beaver Falls Coffee & Tea, since they got a little something extra!

We thought the baskets turned out great, and the best part, for us, was they were mostly homemade. I like homemade gifts a lot. Maybe next year we will go 100% homemade and local with our gifts. What do you think? We had fun making them, we spent a lot of time putting them together, and we felt proud to be giving them!

Do you ever hand make holiday gifts? What have you made for people? Did they appreciate it more because it was homemade?

Baking Biscotti

If you know us well, you know that our last name should be changed to the Coffee-vorts. Roger & I both love coffee. Roger has taken to it as a hobby, while I enjoy being one of his guinea pigs. One of our favorite parts of the coffeeverse is biscotti. We used to buy it, but after a few months we realized that we just couldn't afford the $1.75/piece to support our habit. So we turned to making our own. We've tried several recipes and have ultimately (especially after this morning...I'll get to that) settled on one recipe from Joy Of Baking. Coincidentally, it is the very first recipe I tried and it is so far the best one. (Closest to "specialty store" biscotti, in our opinion.)

This recipe is great exactly as it is written. I made it that way the first time I made biscotti way back in 2008. ;-) This recipe seems to be fully customizable. We've used it as a starting point to create double chocolate, espresso chocolate, hazelnut, pecan, pumpkin, etc. We really do need to start writing down the variations. We are so bad about not writing down our own creations when it comes to baking/cooking.

Anyway, on with it, right? Today we (read: Susan) were baking biscotti to give as Christmas gifts. I decided to try a new recipe (why?? WHY??) and it sounded like it was going to be good. The comments on that recipe were all positive. I thought it was going to be a winner. It was easy to mix up. That was about the only think I liked about the recipe. I hate to say it, but compared to our tried-and-true recipe, this one was a bomb. It took twice as long as the directions stated to bake. It didn't rise at all. It didn't harden up the way I'd expect biscotti to... and the Olive Oil in it is overpowering. I tried to "cover" the olive oil taste with a chocolate drizzle, but ... nope. It just doesn't float our boat. The Joy of Baking (J-O-B) biscotti needs nothing added. No drizzle, no dipped end, no sprinkles. It is just that good.

So, for your viewing pleasure, here's the comparison. (I also made the J-O-B biscotti today. **without the almonds, just chocolate chips)

Can you smell the olive oil from all the way over there?

Some might say, "well, you probably made a mistake with the recipe." and to that I respond, "no, dear ones, I did not. I used utmost care to assure that I followed the recipe exactly as written. I never mess around with a recipe the first time I make something, and this was no exception."

Oh and one more thing... we use mini semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of regular size. No particular reason except that one day we didn't have anything but mini so we used them, and liked it better.




^Olive Oil recipe after baking


^trying to doctor it


^J-O-B before baking


^after 1st baking, before slicing


^after 2nd baking


^delicious


^side by side comparison