Cooking Thursday

Today's recipe is one that's been around for some time and I've probably even shared it before.  My daughter Heather was making these when we were there last week, and I decided they were a good Fall treat to share again.  I initially got this recipe at weight watchers. It's low cal because it uses pumpkin puree instead of oil.  These muffins are really moist and tasty and can be changed by using a different flavor of cake mix.  I usually make them chocolate for a treat, but this time of year, using spice flavored cake mix with the pumpkin is very good.

Pumpkin Puree Muffins

1 box cake mix (spice, chocolate, white or yellow)
1 small can pumpkin puree
1 cup chocolate or white chocolate chips, optional
Raw sugar, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put cupcake liners into cupcake pan. This recipe makes 18 regular size muffins or 12 large ones.
Stir together the dry cake mix with the can of pumpkin. This makes a very thick batter and isn't the easiest to mix together. You may use an electric mixer if you want.
If you are using the white or chocolate chips, stir them into the batter.
Scoop the batter into the cupcake liners. Sprinkle the raw sugar over top if desired.
Bake for about 30 minutes, testing with toothpick to be sure they are done.

Wordless Wednesday

Fun with our girls

Last week we had a fun time with Alaina and Ruby. We started with a walk down our road, where one of our neighbors has a pumpkin wagon.

The girls had fun picking out a pumpkin to take home.

They found some good ones.

It was a nice evening and we spent a little time outside.

Our next project was Bubble painting.  It involves painting a pattern using watercolors on plastic wrap, then blowing bubbles and putting them on the wrap. Next, you place a piece of watercolor paper on top and let it dry.

Unfortunately, the bubbles didn't leave the pattern they were supposed to, so the girls decided to outline what they saw in the patterns.

Here's their finished products.

While the paint was drying we did a fun experiment.  I had seen something with suggestions on strange food combinations that tasted like something else, so we tried a few.

Here's what we started with: a lemon, a tomato, a cucumber, a banana, an avocado, cinnamon and sugar.

Combos - cucumber and sugar was supposed to taste like watermelon. It kind of did, but the crunchiness of the cucumber threw us off.  Banana and avocado was supposed to taste like ice cream - maybe just a little. Lemon and cinnamon was supposed to taste like coke. This amazed us - it really did!  Tomato and sugar was supposed to taste like strawberry.  We didn't think so!  We ate this as kids, so it didn't seem like a funny combination to me.

Here's our fearless tasters!  They weren't actually too fearless, there was some concern about some of those combinations.  But we had fun!