Pumpkin Cookies and Cupcakes

With the leaves changing colors and Halloween coming up I felt like trying out some pumpkin desserts. I didn't have any recipes so I checked out one of my favorite blogs, skinnytaste and tried out these two recipes: Pumpkin Spice Cookies with Chocolate Glaze and Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting. Everyone who tried these really liked them. The cookies especially were a big hit. Check out the recipes below:

Pumpkin Spice Cookies with Chocolate Glaze

Ingredients
4 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp pumpkin spice
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder

For the chocolate glaze:
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 Tbsp milk
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350. Line baking sheet with silicone mat.
2. In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, butter, and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add egg, beat well. Mix in pumpkin, buttermilk, and vanilla.
3. In another bowl, combine flour, spice, baking soda, salt, and baking powder. Gradually add to pumpkin mixture. Mix well.
4. Drop by round tablespoonfuls, 2 inches apart onto silicone lined baking sheet. Bake 12-14 minutes or until golden. Cool on wire rack.

5. For the glaze: Whisk the powdered sugar, cocoa powder, milk, vanilla, and salt in a bowl. Place in a ziplock bag. Seal the bag and but the point off of one corner and drizzle onto cookies.

Tip: Don't feel like buying buttermilk for just one recipe, use this alternative.


Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients
Betty Crocker Golden Vanilla or French Vanilla Super Moist Cake Mix
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 cup water

For the cream cheese frosting:
8 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese softened
1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
5 Tbsp packed brown sugar

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake wrappers.
2. Combine cake mix and pumpkin spice in a large bowl. Add pumpkin puree and water. Mix for about 2 minutes.
3. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full and bake about 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

4. For the frosting, combine the cream cheese, pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and brown sugar until smooth. Use a spatula to put the icing on the cupcakes.

Tip: These cupcakes are good enough without the frosting if you're looking for something more muffin-like rather than cake-like.


Credit goes to skinnytaste for both these delicious recipes.

Chili

Well I think the weather has officially indicated that it's fall now...personally I'm a much bigger summer person, but I do love the food that comes with fall: apples, corn, warm soup...the list goes on. With the weather getting colder, I was in the mood for something warm. And that something ended up being chili. This recipe is really easy (just takes 10-15 minutes of prep), and it makes some great leftovers...always a plus :)

Ingredients
1 to 1.5 lbs ground beef or ground turkey, browned and drained
1 can of dark red kidney beans, drained
1 can of light red kidney beans, drained
1 can of black beans, drained
1 can of pinto beans, drained
2 cans of stewed or diced tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste
1 Tbsp chili powder
Tabasco sauce, to taste

Directions
1. Brown the meat in a big pot (a stockpot for example). 
2. After the meat is browned and drained, add the remaining ingredients. After adding all the ingredients, fill one of the tomato cans with water and add that to the pot. 
3. Stir all the ingredients together and let simmer for 30 minutes. You can simmer for longer than this if you like; the longer it simmers, the more flavorful it becomes. 

4. After simmering for 30 minutes, do a taste test and add any additional chili powder and/or Tabasco sauce to your liking.

Emily's Thoughts
The great thing about this recipe is that it's flexible and you can easily adjust it based on your taste. For example, I'm not a huge spice person, but I like a little Tabasco sauce in there, so I add some until it's spicy enough for me. Also, sometimes I like to add veggies to my chili. You can really add whatever you want, but I've used corn, carrots, zucchini, and green peppers in the past.

Some people like their chili plain, but personally I recommend serving yours over elbow macaroni, with cheese sprinkled on top, and a dollop of sour cream to top it off. 

Also, being that you're using a lot of canned items in this recipe, I recommend looking for low sodium beans at the store.


Now give this simple and easy recipe and enjoy it as the leaves and temperatures start to change this fall!

Peach Cobbler

I was recently watching something on TV (I can't remember what now),  and they were eating peach cobbler. That made me start to crave my mom's peach cobbler. So I got the recipe from her and decided to give it a shot. I thought it turned out deliciously. The recipe is really easy. The only time-consuming thing is peeling the peaches, and that doesn't really take that long. I highly suggest trying this recipe out :)

Ingredients
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp cinnamon
4 cups sliced and peeled peaches (about 6 medium)
1 tsp lemon juice
3 Tbsp butter or margarine
1 cup all purpose flour
1 Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk 

Directions
1. Heat oven to 400
2. Mix 1/2 cup sugar, cornstarch, and cinnamon in saucepan. Stir in peaches and lemon juice. Cook stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils.
3. Boil and stir peaches for 1 minute.
4. Pour into ungreased casserole dish or pyrex dish (the square size is good). Keep fruit mixture warm in oven.
5. In a separate bowl combine flour, 1 Tbsp sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut butter/margarine into mixture until it resembles fine crumbs.
6. Stir in milk.
7. Drop dough by 6 spoonfuls onto hot peach mixture.
8. Bake until topping is golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve warm. 

Credit to my mom for making this recipe so many times over the years. And credit to Betty Crocker for giving the recipe to her initially. 

The Food of Philadelphia and New Jersey

Ever since I met my friend Megan a couple years ago, she's been telling me how great the food is in her hometown in New Jersey. Her hometown is just outside of Philadelphia, so she's also been telling me how great the food in Philly is. Naturally, as a big lover of food, I've always wanted to try out these things Megan has been telling me about. And this past week I was in luck; I finally managed to make it out to Philadelphia for a visit and try out all of the delicious food the city has to offer. As I'm sure you can imagine, a Philly cheesesteak was the first on my list:

1. Philly Cheesesteak: I'm told that there are 2 places in the city to get the best cheesesteaks (Geno's and Pat's). I had a lot of other things to accomplish on my trip, so I didn't manage to make it to one of the 2 "top" places. But I did still manage to get a cheesesteak. I got mine at the Reading Terminal Market at Carmen's Famous Italian Hoagies and Cheesesteaks and it was delicious. The classic cheesesteak is with cheese whiz and onions. But these days you can get provolone cheese, peppers, and sometimes more on yours too. I opted to get provolone and peppers (both sweet and hot) on mine. Unfortunately, I was too excited to eat it and I forgot to take a picture. You'll have to take my word for it that mine looked something like the picture here that I found on google images ;)


2. Chickie's and Pete's Crab Fries: While in Philly, I also took the opportunity to go see a Phillies game. It was an awesome night with perfect weather and the Phillies won (always a plus). One food that's really popular at the stadium are Chickie's and Pete's crab fries. They were a tad too salty for me, but still tasted really great, especially with a beer.

Watching the game

3. Tommy Dinic's Pork and Beef: For part of my time in Philly I stayed downtown right by the Reading Terminal Market which is an indoor market full of lots and lots of different food options. One of those options is Tommy Dinic's. A coworker of mine (who is from Philly) told me that I had to try the pulled pork sandwich there. So I waited 20 minutes in line to get the delicious sandwich you see below. I only got provolone on mine but you can also get greens (i.e. spinach or broccoli rabe) or peppers. I thought the wait was definitely worth it.

4. Water Ice: The concept of water ice was perplexing to me when Megan told me about it. At first I thought she was describing a snow cone or a slurpee, but she assured me that that's not what it was. It's actually more like Italian ice or sorbet but it comes out of a soft serve ice cream machine. In either case, it was really good. I got halfway through eating it before realizing I forgot to take a picture (so forgive me for the poor quality). I got mango flavored, but they have other kinds like blue raspberry and root beer. You can also mix the water ice with ice cream. Megan ended up getting root beer water ice with vanilla ice cream. Hers was also delicious and tasted like a root beer float. Apparently there are different types of water ice, but Megan recommended Polish water ice, so that's what we had.

5. Manco & Manco's Pizza: Being from New Jersey, Megan naturally wanted to dispel my misconceptions about what is really the Jersey Shore. The prospect of a day at the beach sounded wonderful to me, so of course I agreed to go. We spent a few hours on the beach and then went to walk the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ. On the boardwalk we got a slice of pizza at Megan's favorite place, Manco & Manco's. I always like a good slice of pizza, and I definitely enjoyed this one. I just went for their generic plain (i.e. cheese) pizza. But they have other options like broccoli (which is apparently really good), venetian, sicilian, and more.

On the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ

6. Yuengling: If you ever make it out to Philly and try out all this delicious food, a great beer to pair with your food is a Yuengling. It's a lighter beer but has more flavor than something like Bud Light or Miller Lite. I'd never heard of Yuengling until I came out east and Megan told me to try it. It's by no means a craft beer, but this Philly beer is definitely a great choice.





So that concludes by Philly and New Jersey food/traveling experience. Philly sometimes gets a bad rap for being a dirty city, but I truly enjoyed myself. And it helped that I had a great travel guide (thanks Meg!). There are a bunch of things to do in Philly and I just gave you a lot of good food options above :)

Chicken and Pasta Salad

This is kind of a new take on chicken salad and pasta salad, but it's really good and really easy. I can make it at the beginning of the week and then eat the leftovers for lunch throughout the week. 

Ingredients

2 cooked and diced chicken breasts

1 box of penne pasta

1 1/2 cups chopped celery

1 1/2 cups red grapes

3/4 cup mayo

1 Tbsp Dijon mustard

2-3 dashes lemon juice

Directions

1. Bake chicken at 350 for 40 to 50 minutes. After the chicken is done, cut it into diced pieces.

2. While chicken is cooking, cook the pasta. After you drain the pasta, run cold water over it cool it down.

3. Chop the celery and pick grapes off of the stems.

4. Combine chicken, pasta, celery, and grapes in a large bowl. Add the mayo, Dijon mustard, and lemon juice and mix everything together. 

You can easily adjust the quantities of each of the ingredients. If you want it to be more "saucy" just add a little more mayo and mustard. Or add more grapes if you like. The recipe is so easy, you can adjust it how you like or make it exactly how I did :)