Pumpkin Seeds…that’s why we carve pumpkins right?

Another post for the #GreatHallowTweet!  This is the brain child of Renee from Flamingo Musings.  The widget on the side bar show everyone who is playing and makes it easy for you to “hop” from one participating blog to the next!  So from October 25th to the 31st, just click on any of these links and hop from blog to blog. Fun! Frolic! Mayhem! From ghoulish recipes to please monsters of all ages, to general insanity, make the rounds everyday to see what new surprises might be lurking around that dark corner. You know - the one with the broken streetlight and creepy shadows? BWAHAHAHAHA!

In out house on of the favorite things about Halloween is being able to carve the pumpkins.  Great scary faces, some silly, sometimes we even make them sad…but really our goal is the pumpkin seeds.  We LOVE the seeds.  Roasted up nice and crispy with a spicy and salty seasoning blend…

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Preheat oven to 425F

Ingredients:

1/2 stick of butter (melted)
2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp white pepper
pinch cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp smoked paprika

Directions:

• Mix and stir in cleaned and dried pumpkin seeds and place on a baking sheet.
• Place in the oven and stir every 5-7 minutes or until brown and crisp.

Banana-Chocolate Chip Muffins

So it’s been a while.  I can give you a million reasons why I haven’t posted since last month but I won’t.  Hopefully this is the end of the dry spell.

I had 4 small bananas that were past the eating date according to everyone in my family.  I knew I needed to make something with them but couldn’t decide on anything.  I was going to make a banana cake with cream cheese frosting but getting out the mixer seemed like a lot of work while I was trying to do laundry and clean.  Banana bread rarely gets finished here for some reason.  Everyone starts gung ho on it and then I end up throwing out the last 3 slices.  I was going to make banana snicker doodles but once again sounded like too much work.

Finally I came across a recipe for banana chocolate chip muffins from the Epicurious  website.  I love this site because of the honest reviews that people leave on the recipes.  How can you go wrong when 275 people have left comments for you!!!

These muffins were delicious.  Light and fluffy, full of bananas and chocolate chips.  Definitely yummy my taste testers just confirmed! 

Banana-Chocolate Chip Muffins (Epicurious.com)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large)
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup milk
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• Line twelve 1/3-cup muffin cups with foil muffin liners.
• Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl.
• Mix mashed bananas, egg, melted butter and milk in medium bowl.
• Stir banana mixture into dry ingredients just until blended (do not overmix).
• Stir in chocolate chips.
• Divide batter among prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full.
• Bake muffins until tops are pale golden and tester inserted into center comes out with some melted chocolate attached but no crumbs, about 32 minutes.
• Transfer muffins to rack; cool.

Banana Bread with Brown Butter and Caramel

This is the third recipe I have written using the caramel sauce from the DB Caramel Cake. If you love the flavor of caramel you simply have to make some to have on hand at all times. It’s easy enough to make and then any time that you want to add a wonderful caramel flavor to anything you have some in your fridge already!

CARAMEL SYRUP (Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater)

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup water (for "stopping" the caramelization process)
In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber.
When color is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back.
Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.}
Note: For safety reasons, have ready a bowl of ice water to plunge your hands into if any caramel should land on your skin.

Alright now that you have the caramel sauce at your disposal you HAVE GOT TO MAKE THIS BANANA BREAD!!!!!!

I had some bananas on hand that were definitely passed the comfortable eating stage but were not to the trash stage…yet. So I asked the girls what they wanted. Banana bread, banana cake, banana cookies etc…

They decided on banana bread so banana bread it was. Only this time I still had that caramel sauce in my head. And during the week Elle from Elle’s New England Kitchen had posted a recipe for Browned Butter Blueberry Maple Muffins. While her muffins looked great the browned butter thing was what stuck in my mind.

And that folks was the inspiration behind this wonderful banana bread!!!

Banana Bread (all recipes.com)

Preheat oven to 350

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
2 cups AP Flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 Tbsp caramel sauce (see above)
2-1/3 cup bananas, mashed
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 pecans, chopped

1. Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. Melt the butter in a small pan, letting it boil until it starts to brown and smell nutty. Don’t let it burn. Stop it when it gets a deep brown color.There will be sediment at the bottom of the pan, so pour the butter through a wire mesh strainer and set aside to cool.
3. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, stir together the browned butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs, mashed bananas vanilla, and pecans until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

This bread was delicious and I will be making this again and again!!! I cut it as soon as it was cooled and it tasted great but the real flavor came through the next day!!!

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

A Quick Chocolate Pudding Recipe

T. was starting to feel a little under the weather the other night and I know what that calls for…Chocolate Pudding. He has always called that his medicine and I have a very quick recipe that makes great pudding in a couple of minutes!

Chocolate Pudding (adapted from Better Homes and Garden)

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 3 cups free milk
• 4 beaten egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

1. In a medium heavy saucepan combine sugar, cocoa and cornstarch. Stir in milk. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir for 2 minutes more. Remove pan from heat. Gradually stir 1 cup of the milk mixture into egg yolks.

2. Add egg mixture to milk mixture in saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil; reduce heat. Cook and stir for 2 minutes more. Remove pan from heat. Stir in butter and vanilla. Pour pudding into a bowl. Cover surface of pudding with plastic wrap. Serve warm or cold (do not stir during chilling). Makes 4 servings.

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Customized Trail Mix

See all that healthy goodness. Good thing the kids don't realize it's good for them!

I was just hanging out reading some of my favorite blogs the other day when I came across Jo's blog The Adventure's of Kitchen Girl. First off I saw her really cute kids but then I saw what the post was about and immediately called my girls over. They loved this idea!!!

Customized Trail Mix (see Jo's version here )

combinations of ingredients:

pretzels (goldfish, sticks or twists)
Trail Mix (unsalted all cashews, peanuts, pistachios, sunflower kernels, raisins and dried mango)
peanut butter chips
chocolate chips

Today I bought:

Dried apricots (will cut them up)
banana chips
Craisins
dried cherries
salted cashews
grated coconut (unsweetened)

I mixed this up in 2 zip top bags for the girls. That way they could each make there own. They packed a smaller bag up to take to school. I think they really loved that they could make it whatever they wanted it to be and I like it because despite the chocolate and peanut butter chips it is still healthy and makes for a nice high energy snack!

I will be making this over and over again! Thanks Jo for a great idea!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Jalapeño Poppers finally...

Jalapeño Poppers

I have been wanting jalapeño poppers for a while now. Every time somebody mentioned peppers or I saw jalapeños it was all I could think about. I wanted the yummy ones that we used to be able to get in the bars. Filled with piping hot cream cheese and just a little zing of hot pepper. These were way better than that.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day. We had set aside the morning to finally get our garden in. I am really hoping that we aren't too late but we'll see. We planted a variety of tomatoes and some zucchini, peas, arugula, basil, parsley, oregano, cilantro and just for fun some sun flower seeds. Every year I swear I will keep a diary of what works and what doesn't but I never, ever do. When will I ever learn...

Doesn't look like much yet but just you wait and see...

It was after that when I decided that we were having poppers for lunch. After hunting around on the internet for that perfect sounding recipe I decided that I liked what was in my head a bit better.


Jalapeño Poppers

Ingredients:

2 packages (8 oz) of cream cheese, softened
1 cup of cheddar cheese, grated
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp garlic powder
12 jalapenos, split lengthwise, seeds and membrane removed
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1 box panko breading

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, mix the cream cheese, and cheddar cheese Spoon this mixture into the jalapeño pepper halves.
2. Mix the flour with the black pepper, salt, paprika and garlic powder
3. Put the milk and flour mix into two separate small bowls. Dip the stuffed jalapeños first into the milk then into the flour, making sure they are well coated with each. Allow the coated jalapeños to dry for about 10 minutes.
4. Dip the jalapeños in milk again and roll them through the breadcrumbs. Allow them to dry, then repeat to ensure the entire surface of the jalapeño is coated.
5. Place in the freezer to chill for about 20 minutes before frying.
6. In a deep pot, heat the oil to 365 degrees F ( 180 degrees C). Deep fry the coated jalapeños 2 to 3 minutes each, until golden brown. Remove and let drain on a paper towel.

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com