Easy Pumpkin Muffins

Today I thought I'd share a super easy "recipe"  that"s been passed around among all of the ladies of my family this fall.  I always say that "quick and easy" are my middle names in the kitchen, and the same is true of most of my family, so this has been a big hit with each and every one of us.

Ingredients:

• Spice cake mix
• 15 oz can of  pumpkin
• add-ins, if desired--your choice of raisins, dates, chopped nuts, chocolate chips

One of the things I really like about this is the super simplicity of the ingredients list--cake mix and pumpkin are all that's necessary-no eggs, no oil, no "nuthin", just cake mix and pumpkin.  The add-ins are just lagniappe--that little something extra that just adds to the deliciousness. 

Step 1--open the cake mix and dump it in a bowl.
Step 2--open the pumpkin and dump it in, too.
Step 3--mix it together.  I use a big metal spoon.

At about this point, you will start to doubt the veracity of this--it looks like there will never be enough moisture to make this into anything edible, but if you just keep stirring....

...you will end up with a sticky dough that looks like this!

And now is where the fun begins--you may add some additional spices, if you'd like--depending on the cake mix used, I sometimes add pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, allspice, or nutmeg, just a teaspoon or two, total, of spices.  The day I made this batch, I totally forget the extra spice.  You might notice the pecan halves--I would advise chopped pecans, but I was feeling exceptionally lazy this day and just left them alone.  I didn't measure, just added a handful.

Same here, no measurement, I just added a handful of chocolate chips, and stirred them in.

Spoon batter into a paper lined muffin tin. The original version of this called for making 18 muffins, but they come out a little small, so I decided to make only 12, and I liked the size of this batch better.

Bake at 350, for 15-25 minutes, according to the size of the muffins you make.

The dough is really sticky, so I didn't try to smooth it out at all....

...so the resulting muffins are bit rustic looking--what in the food world I guess we'd call artisan.

Variations:

I've made this recipe 3 times, each time slightly different, but each time delicious.

The first time I used a carrot cake mix instead of spice cake, which had carrot slivers and raisins in it, and I added a few chopped nut, made 18 small muffins, and added a simple powdered sugar and milk glaze to the top.

The second time I used spice cake mix, and added chopped dates and nuts, made it in a 9 x 13 pan, and added a cream cheese and powdered sugar glaze.

And this time, as you can see, I used the spice cake mix with chocolate chips and pecans, and no glaze.

I haven't tried it in a loaf pan yet, but I think that's my next experiment. All you have to vary is the cooking time.  Use your judgment and insert a toothpick to check for doneness.

I also think you could use a plain cake if that's all you have, and just add some extra spices--pumpkin pie spice, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon--I think it would be great no matter what you add!

Until next time, good cooking, and good eating!

This post linked to:

Weekend Re-Treat
Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farm
Show and Tell at My Romantic Home
Weekend Bites at Simple Living and Eating
See Ya in the Gumbo at Ms enPlace
Penny Pinching Party at The Thrifty Home
What's Cooking Wednesday at Buns in My Oven

Pumpkin Cake Squares

Pumpkin Cake Squares

Besides church suppers, I think the next best place we southern gals get our quick and easy recipes is from our families--mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, cousins, you name it.  You know how some people won't share their "special" recipe?  Not my family.  If one of us finds something yummy to make or eats something delicious, we share!  This recipe came about that way!  My aunt found it in her newspaper and tried it, then passed it along to my mom, who passed it along to me.

They both have "quick and easy" as their middle name in the kitchen, too!  A good, Southern tradition!

When I first heard of this, I thought it was like the pumpkin pie cake that I've posted on here several times before, but this one is totally different, but just as easy and just as good, if not better.

Ingredients:

• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1/2 c + 2 T melted butter (separated)
• 3 eggs
• 1 15-oz can pumpkin
• 2/3 c evaporated milk
• 1/2 c + 2 T sugar (separated)
• 2 t + 1 t cinnamon
• whipped topping (optional)

Measure 1 cup cake mix, and set aside to use for the topping. 

Combine remaining cake mix with 1/2 c melted butter and 1 egg until crumbly. Press into a greased 9 x 13 inch baking pan.  Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Then turn the oven down to 350.

Meanwhile, mix pumpkin, 2 remaining eggs, 1/2 c sugar and 2 t cinnamon. Spoon mixture over the baked layer.

For topping: combine reserved 1 c of cake mix, 2 T melted butter, 2 T sugar, and remaining 1 t cinnamon in a small bowl.  Sprinkle the topping mix over the pumpkin mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes

Allow to cool (yeah, right!), cut into squares, and serve with whipped topping.  (I think vanilla or cinnamon ice cream would be really good, too!

Until next time, good cooking, and good eating...

This post is linked to:

Meatless Monday at My Sweet and Savory
Church Supper at Everyday Mom's Meals
Sweet and Savory Sunday at Cookin' for the Seven Dwarfs
See Ya in the Gumbo at Ms enPlace
Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farm
The Weekend Re-Treat at the Best Blog Recipes

Freezer Cooking/Baking Day, Part 2

Well I didn't get everything done that I intended, but I got a good head start on some things, anyway.

Here's my afternoon in pictures:

I tackled cooking a fresh pumpkin for the first time.

(Special thanks go to Kristi from Run the Earth, Watch the Sky for her hints on twitter and the link to her post on cooking pumpkin!)

I'd read somewhere that the smaller ones are best for eating, and have more flesh per pound inside, so I bought a small-ish (4.5 lb) "pie pumpkin". After washing it, the first task to was cut it in half. I expected it to be similar to cutting into a watermelon, but it was much harder than that--a tip I forgot 'till afterwards--microwaving for a minute or two will sometimes soften them up a bit.

The inside looked just as I was expecting--seeds and fibrous stuff. I was not expecting to be so hard to get out--I thought it would be like a cantaloupe, where the seeds and stuff just kind of slide out...

...but it took a steak knife and a spoon and my hands and lots of scraping to get the stringy stuff out.



The next step is to put the pieces cut side down on a baking sheet with an edge--'cause the juice does run out a bit. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour...



You can press on the rind with the back of a spoon to be sure it's soft. (Please don't look at the state of my oven--note to self--add Easy Off to my grocery list)

Let it cool 'till you can handle, then remove the rind/skin and throw that part away--this step was easy after it was cooked.

Some recipes/tutorials say to run it in your blender or food processor, but I just mashed it with a potato masher...

...and ended up with just over 4 cups of mashed up pumpkin.

After the pumpkin was done, I took the seeds, which I had rinsed and allowed to dry for awhile, and roasted them in a slower over for about 45-50 minutes. I added a tablespoon of butter and little salt and stirred them around a bit after the butter melted. I stirred them about every 15 minutes while they were cooking, then at the end I sprinkled about a tablespoon of sugar and some pumpkin pie spice and stirred them up, then let them cool down. They're good, they taste a little like kettle corn with the sweet and salty.

Overall, it was a fun experience, although a little more labor intensive than I realized to remove those insides! Money wise, I'm not sure it was any cheaper to do this than to buy the canned stuff--$3.49 ($.78/lb) yielded a quart of mashed pumpkin and about a cup of seeds. I'll have to do some comparison pricing to see what I find on that! Someday when we can actually live in our little house in the country I'd like to try my hand at growing a few--getting the pumpkins for free would make it well worth the investment of time and effort--otherwise, I'm not so sure.

Some of this will be used in a pie, hopefully tomorrow, and some will be frozen to make pumpkin bread a little closer to the holidays.

While the pumpkin was baking, I put some chicken on to cook--these are boneless, skinless thighs, which I buy at Sam's Club. They are just as easy and convenient to use as boneless skinless breasts, but less expensive and I think tastier. I've done this before with leg quarters that I buy on sale, this just happens to be what I have on hand right now.

My seasonings of choice, also from Sam's, are my old reliable Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning, or Tony Chay-Chay's as we say in our family, dried onion flakes, and heaping tablespoon of chicken stock paste.

Add whatever seasonings you like, bring to a boil, then reduce heat slightly, cover and simmer 'till the chicken is cooked all the way through. Once the chicken was thoroughly cooked, I removed it from the heat and let it cool for awhile...

...then removed the chicken and diced it up. This yielded about 4 1/2 cups of diced chicken, some of which I used to make a chicken pasta dish for supper, and the rest I froze.

I also ended up with two quarts of stock. I'll use that later this week--I've been wanting some chicken and dumplings ever since my Mom told me she cooked some last weekend, so that may be on my plan for later.

By the time I did this, washed and dried a load of clothes, and vacuumed, it was time to start supper--fettuccine cooked in some of the chicken stock, mixed with a couple of handfuls of diced chicken, a can of cream of chicken soup, and several cheeses, then baked for 30-40 minutes while the kitchen was being cleaned up--my own version of Chicken Tetrazinni!

Stay tuned tomorrow for the next installment of freezer cooking/baking day.

This post is linked to:

The Penny Pinching Party at The Thrifty Home

Until then, good cooking, and good eating!