recipes & a reminder

Sometimes I get into a bit of a f.u.n.k in the kitchen.  I mean, I have to prepare three meals all before 3 pm, so I hate spending the majority of my day in the kitchen.  Especially when I'd much rather be doing something else, like playing with Callan or working on a project.  But we have to eat, so I suck it up.  I didn't say I don't complain about it (from time to time) though.

Meal planning is one of my least favorite things to do.  It stresses me out.  I have no idea why.  It takes me forever.  As if choosing a meal was such a tough decision.  Gah.  

Baked treats on the other hand... hey, that looks good, BAM!, made.  Like these cupcakes.  I was in the mood to bake yesterday so I flipped through a few pages of cupcake recipes on Annies-eats (Annies-eats NEVER fails).  We had a bit of eggnog left in the fridge, so I whipped up half a batch (six) of these eggnog cupcakes.

If you're a fan of eggnog, make these.  They're pretty darn delicious.  The buttercream frosting is fantastic.  I did leave the rum out of the recipe so Callan could enjoy these, too.  These would be great for a holiday get-together.  Or a Thursday afternoon.

He doesn't complain too much when I make frosting.  Beater licking, new favorite past-time.

I pulled this recipe for "best-ever chicken fajita chowder" out of a Taste of Home magazine from the February/March 2011 issue.  So it's been sitting around for nearly 2 years and I had yet to make it.  With "best-ever" in the name, you'd think I'd have made it a little sooner.  Well, I don't have another chicken fajita chowder to compare this one to, so this one really is "best-ever".  We ate it for two meals (dinner, two nights in a row), and then the rest went into the freezer.  I'd make it again.  I even wrote it out on a recipe card.  I only do that for keepers.

I'm not usually a huge meatball/loaf fan, but this is another one of those recipes I pulled from a magazine (Better Homes and Gardens, May 2012), and hadn't made yet.  Despite not being a meatball lover, these spicy apple-glazed meatballs are really good!  I did modify it slightly, though.  Just a teensy dash of cayenne pepper (versus the 1/4 tsp the recipe calls for) to the meat and to the glaze, and then I diced up half of an apple (that's what those cheese colored pieces are on the meatballs, in the picture below) and tossed it into the glaze as it thickened on the stove.  My little man is a ridiculously picky eater, and he downed several of these!  That makes them a keeper in my book.  Destined for a recipe card.

Please tell me I'm not the only one that has a stack of recipes pulled from magazines, and printed from websites, just sitting around...only a handful of them ever tried.  Have you tried any new recipes lately?  Maybe a recipe, or two, from that stack? 

Oh, and don't forget to enter the give-away!  Today is the last day, so head over and enter, if you haven't already!  The winner will be announced on Saturday!

pumpkin cupcakes with pumpkin spice cream cheese frosting

This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last time that I declare my love for pumpkin.

I have an entire board on Pinterest that links me to delicious pumpkin recipes that I attempt to bake and cook my way through every Fall.

On Saturday morning, I opened up one of those big cans of pumpkin to toss a few tablespoons into my pancake batter.  That left 7/8 of a can of pumpkin just sitting in my fridge begging to find it's way into something yummy.  A mostly dreary Saturday called for a little baking.

I turned to my pumpkin board for some direction.  Ina Garten recipes never fail.  She kind of annoys me, but she's got skills in the kitchen.  So, I went with an Ina pumpkin cupcake recipe paired up with a Skinnytaste pumpkin spice cream cheese frosting.  Ina's cupcake recipe includes a maple frosting, but I'm fresh outta maple extract, so a spiced cream cheese frosting came to the rescue.

I made a few itty-bitties and a few regular sized cupcakes.  They didn't disappoint.  And the frosting was beater-licking good.  

Have you whipped up anything pumpkin lately?

Maybe you can't stand pumpkin and you have a different favorite fall flavor?

What's baking, guys?