pumpkin roll

I had so much fun making this pumpkin roll, it was the first roll of any kind I have ever made. If you like cream cheese fillings you will LOVE this. Great to keep on hand in the freezer to serve to unexpected guests!

Recipe
Roll
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin puree
1 tsp. lemon juice
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, if desired
powdered sugar for dusting

Filling
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
4 Tbs. butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla
powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a jelly roll pan. Lay a piece of wax paper in bottom of pan also.
In large bowl beat eggs and sugar for five minutes. Gradually mix in pumpkin and lemon juice. Combine the flour, salt, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir into the pumpkin mixture. Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan, it will be thin.
Bake for 12 minutes or until the center springs back when touched. Loosen edges with a knife. Cover two dish towels with powdered sugar. Dump roll while still hot onto one of the dish towels. Remove pan, cover with second dish towel and roll up cake using towels. Let cool for 20 minutes.
In medium bowl combine cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter and vanilla. Beat until smooth, add nuts. Unroll pumpkin cake when cooled, spread filling on top and roll up. Place roll on wax paper that has been dusted with powdered sugar. Dust the rest of the roll and roll up in wax paper. Twist ends like a piece of candy. Freeze overnight, serve chilled. Enjoy!

*Recipe from allrecipes.com, modified slightly

dinner in a pumpkin

This is such a fun idea for Fall! It was super easy to make, tasted great and looked so cute!

Recipe
1 small to medium pumpkin
1/2 onion chopped
1 green pepper chopped
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
2 lbs. ground beef
2 Tbs. soy sauce
2 Tbs. brown sugar
1 (16 oz.) pkg. mushrooms, sliced
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup cooked rice

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut off top of pumpkin and clean out seeds and pulp. If you want you can paint a face on the front with acrylic paint or a permanent marker. Put the pumpkin in the oven on a cookie sheet without top to soften as you prepare the remaining ingredients.

In a large skillet, saute onions and peppers in oil until tender. Add meat and brown. Drain drippings from the skillet. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, mushrooms and soup. Simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cooked rice, add additional brown sugar and soy sauce to taste and to keep mixture soupy. (It will taste very sweet, after cooked in oven it isn't so sweet). Remove pumpkin from the oven and spoon mixture in to cleaned pumpkin. Replace pumpkin top and bake 1 hour or until inside meat of pumpkin is tender. When serving, scoop out pumpkin and serve alongside (it tastes a lot squash).

jamies french bread

2 1/2 cups warm water
2 tbs yeast

3 tbs sugar

2 tbs white vinegar

Combine all into a bowl, stir just a little until sugar is dissolved. Let sit on counter until it is root beer float bubbly (15 min)

In a separate bowl mix

1 tbs salt

6 cups flour

Boil a small pot of water

When bubbly mixture is ready add flour mixture and

1/3 cup oil

Mix ingredients by hand into a ball (2-5 min)

Put pot of boiling water and bowl of mixture into the oven to let rise (double in size, 30 min)

Punch down ball and let rise again (can do this 2-3 times but just once works)

Grease counter, take out mixture and break into 2 pieces. Shape each one into a french bread loaf, cut slits on top (about 5). Put onto cookie sheet. Beat one egg and brush outside of bread. Let rise for 30 min. Bake for 30. min at 375 degrees.

*Jamie's resemble more of a french bread loaf. I am still trying to figure out how to make them more long and not so fat...

no bake cookies

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
3 tbs cocoa powder
1/3 cup butter

boil in saucepan
add 1/2 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups oats

scoop onto wax paper to harden

home made icecream

2 quarts half and half
2 cups sugar
4 eggs (beaten)
1/3 cup vanilla (a little less if pure vanilla)
1 can evaporated milk

Combine ingredients with beaten eggs, pour into ice cream machine.
Eat immediately!

bruschetta n cheese-stuffed chicken

1 can Italian-style tomatoes

1 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup chopped basil

1 pkg. stove top stuffing chicken flavor

4 boneless chicken breasts

1/3 cup roasted red pepper Italian dressing

Preheat oven to 350. Combine tomatoes, 1/2 cup of cheese, basil and dry stuffing mix; stir until moistened.

Place chicken breasts into a zip lock bag and pound them with meat mallet (I used my rolling pin) until flattened to 1/4 inch. Place chicken on cutting board, fill with mixture, roll up and place in baking dish seam side down. Drizzle with dressing. I placed remaining mixture around chicken to bake also.


Bake 40 min or until chicken is cooked through. Add remaining cheese to top and bake another 5 minutes.

* I think this turned out really pretty. It was a little tart for our taste. I may try another dressing flavor (ranch?) next time...

Katelyn's Cake

I wanted to make Kate a cake that looked like a present. I just used rolled fondant for the ribbon. This was a fun and easy cake.

Cole's and Mom's birthday cakes

These are the cakes we made forMom and Cole's farm birthday. for the pig cake..i used two round cake pans (one large..one a bit smaller)the large one was the body, and the smaller one was placed on top for the head.the feet are two cupcakes...i covered the whole thing in pink frosting..then used strawberry whoppers to cover it all :)i used m&m's for the bottom hooves..and the snout and ears..pink snowballs that you get on the cookie isle :)the snout is a whole one..and the ears are one cut in half..the eyes are brown whoppers..and the nose holes are m&m's as well. The tail is a piece of licorice string the sheep cake..again, same thing for body and head..ears are a cupcake cut in half..and feet are again, two cupcakes :)i covered it all with white and brown frosting..(white for the white part, brown for the brown) :)and then used mini marshmallows for the white, and coco puffs for the brown parts :)junior mints for the eyes,whopper for the noes,and licorice again for the mouth :)

These instructions are all from my friend Kara who also made a cow cake. You can check out the cow cake and her pig and sheep cake here at kara's party blog!

for the cow cake...same thing..big round cake for body, smaller round cake for head..i used 2 cupcakes for the legs, and one cupcake cut in half for the ears..after frosting it all i covered the whole thing in m&m's and chocolate skittles (i couldn't find any candy that was white and light brown..i finally found the chocolate skittles though!)..the middle of the ears are pink orange slice candies..the mouth is a shoestring licorice and the nose holes are whoppers

Maya's Birthday!

This is the cake I made for Maya's 6th birthday. To bake the cake, I used two boxes of cake mix. I used two 9 inch round cake pans for the bottom layers and two 8 inch round pans for the top. The pink and brown balls are strawberry and chocolate Whoppers. The decorations on top are just heart suckers and long candles. The drizzled chocolate on top is hard shell icecream topping so it wouldn't continue to drip. This was a really fun and simple cake to make. I hope Maya liked it!

Castle Cake!

This is the first "theme" cake I attempted. Emmalee wanted a castle cake but her party was themed Strawberry Shortcake. This is what I came up with. I baked three box cakes using two rectangle baking dishes. The top layer is two layers stacked. The towers are two regular ice cream cones put bottom to bottom then dipped in white chocolate. The tops of the towers are sugar cones dipped in white chocolate then rolled in pink sprinkles. The light pink ones on the top are regular ice cream cones dipped in white chocolate and rolled in light pink sprinkles placed in the cake bottom down, then I filled them with marsh mellows and put sprinkles on. I then stuck marsh mellows around the edge of them using frosting. All the rest of the decorations are using frosting. To decorate cakes, I typically just put frosting in a plastic ziplock bag and cut the corner depending on the size I want. I did use a tip to make the strawberries on top of this cake though. Emma was turning four so I found long skinny candles and cut small holes in the top of the sugar cones and poked the candles through the bottoms. You could put candles just through the top tower, through all five or just be creative depending how old the child is turning! This cake looks intimidating to make, but I promise, it was so easy! It did take at least four hours to make though. So leave yourself plenty of time. Even consider baking the cake one or two days ahead and freeze it wrapped in plastic wrap.

Beef Noodle Bowl

8 oz linguine

3 C broccoli

2 C carrots, peeled and sliced

2 tsp oil

1 lb beef steak, cut into strips

1/4 C asian toasted sesame dressing

1 tbs teriyaki sauce

Cook pasta as directed, adding vegetables to the boiling water for the last 2 min of pasta cooking time. Meanwhile, heat oil in large skillet, add meat and cook 4 min or until browned on all sides. Stir in dressing and teriyaki sauce, cook 2 minutes or until sauce is thickened. Drain pasta mixture; place in large serving bowl. Add meat mixture, toss to coat.

Serves 4
Total time 35 min

*We really enjoyed this and Kevin isn't usually a fan of stir fry (he even took the leftovers for lunch the next and raved about it later). Next time I will cook the veggies longer with the noodles as they were harder then we like. I will also add more dressing and teriyaki sauce.

Kraft Magazine Winter 2008

Taco Cheesy Shells

This one is like a Hamburger Helper but ten times better!



1 pkg. shells and cheese (I used WF brand instead of velveeta)
1 lb ground beef
3/4 C sour cream
1/2 C water
1 pkg taco seasoning
1/2 C Salsa






Prepare shells and Cheddar according to package
Brown beef, season to taste and drain
Add taco seasoning and water to beef and simmer for five minutes
Mix sour cream and salsa into meat mixture
Add prepared shells and cheese
Serves 4

This is a quick, easy meal...