Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I grew up having these cookies just about every fall so to me it's never officially fall until these delicious cookies are made and eaten. So after a long night and being a little under the weather the last couple of days it sounded like the perfect opportunity.

 I've decided to share this yummy recipe not only because I love it so much, but I'm starting to try and take pictures of some of my favorite recipes I make so one day I can make a cookbook with the pictures. After seeing that you can make cookbooks on Blurb it's something I've been wanting to do sometime; as ambitious as that sounds. We'll see how long it takes to do :)

So the recipe...

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups shortening or butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 cups pumpkin
4 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 pkg chocolate chips
1 cup walnuts

Blend butter and sugar. Add eggs and pumpkin. In a separate bowl shift together flour, soda, salt and cinnamon, then add to pumpkin mixture. Add chocolate chips and nuts and mix all together. Spoon onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 8-11 minutes.

While the cookies are cooking mix up the frosting and frost cookies when cooled.

Frosting

1/2 cup brown sugar
3 TBSP butter
1/4 cup milk
2-4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Heat sugar, butter and milk. Mix in powdered sugar and vanilla until it's the consistency of frosting.

Enjoy!

Stay tuned for a post about my fun trip to Oregon last week to visit my sister!

Bread and Smoothies!

Yes...breads and smoothies have been a large part of my diet as of late. Mia still is also sharing in my smoothie kick who also asks for one multiple times a day. We usually only make one a day, but lately I've already craving another by the afternoon so I'll make another. Looking on the bright side, I would say this craving is a lot better then my daily oreo milkshake I had while pregnant with Mia :)

As for the breads, I am also always craving homemade bread of some short however I don't really cook  a lot when Eric is away and it's just Mia and I. Now that he has been home more lately I seem to always be making some kind of bread!

Anyway I though I'd share some recipes that have been some real hits and that you should seriously consider making yourself :)

First up on the list is homemade bread. I finally got brave and tried my hand at making my own bread. I grew up on fresh, homemade bread and am always craving it however, in past experiences I have had awful luck with homemade rolls and bread. After finding a roll recipe that is impossible to fail at (even if I don't let it raise for the full amount of time) I decided why not move onto bread.

Honey Whole Wheat Bread (Recipe HERE)

In this recipe she grinds her own wheat, but since I don't have a wheat grinder I just used whole wheat flour from the store. If using store bought flour you don't need nearly as much!! Luckily the first time I tried it I didn't put all the flour in before mixing it before I found that out. Also my dough wasn't as sticky as her's and it still raised really well and tasted great! I am now finding myself eating way more bread then usual!

Texas Road House Rolls (Recipe HERE)

While we're on the subject of breads, I just made this copycat recipe for Texas Road House Rolls tonight and they were Ah-Mazing! I must admit I've always had a weakness for these rolls when we go to eat at Texas Road House and end up eating at least 4-5. Now we can skip the cost of eating out and have them right at home. We even made the cinnamon butter they serve with it too. Yum!

Chocolate Chunk Banana Muffins (Recipe HERE)

Ok so obviously I'm on a little bit of a carbo load lately,so thank goodness these are more on the healthy side! The recipe is for banana bread, but I just make the recipe as it says and put them in muffin tins and cook for about 15 minutes (It makes 12 muffins). What I love about these is that for as "healthy" as they are they are delicious and they help fill the need for sweets when having a sweet-tooth craving. A few substitutes I do are I use coconut oil instead of safflower oil and I use dark chocolate chips instead of chopped up dark chocolate. And what makes these even better are nuts!

I hope you enjoy these recipes as much as I have lately! :) Have a great week!

P.S. Everything for Livy's room is almost complete! I'm so excited to put it together along with some new updates to Mia's room, including her new bed we made. We just need to make the headboard and paint! Pictures to come soon!

Party like it's the 80's!!!

For Eric and Tyler's 25th birthday Annelise and I threw them an 80's surprise birthday party! Can I just say, even though I was not born in the 80s I still love that decade full of neon colors, and some of my favorite music and movies! I'm not  fantastic at keeping secrets from Eric just because I am a horrible liar so he found out prior to it but it was still really fun! Thanks to all the family and friends who came to celebrate with us! 

We had a snack bar of one of the boy's favorite foods...chili cheese fries and nachos. Then we had a bunch of different candies from the 80's. I love how the cassette tape food labels turned out! It really added to our 80's theme.

I really wished it was a dress-up party, but we decided not to. I still dressed Mia in her 80's outfit anyway and Sophia was sporting her's as well.

One of my favorite things from the party...an 80's photo booth! I didn't get to making all the props I wanted to since Mia was sick all week, but the clothes were awesome. Somehow we ended up with a little of the 70's in it as well...nonetheless really fun!

Annelise and her sister Tiffany made a rubics cake which turned out really cute!

The Birthday Boys!!

For the party I made this Chex mix my family makes every Christmas season. It takes seconds to make and is absolutely delicious so I thought I would share the recipe.

White Chocolate Chex Mix

4 cups Crispix cereal

3 cups Cheerios

2 cups pretzels

1 lb. M&Ms

1 lb. White chocolate (almond bark in baking section at the store)

Melt white chocolate, pour over cereal, etc. Spread on foil to set.

Food Favorites of the Week

I can already tell it's going to be a difficult semester if it's only the second day and when I should be doing homework, I'm blogging, playing with Mia, getting my hair done, being social...pretty much anything else but homework. Oh these next couple months are going to be interesting!

Yep, that's right Eric and I have both started school this week and one of us was more excited to start then the other...wonder who that could be? ;) Regardless for my less then excited attitude to go back to school, my first day of classes wasn't all that bad, except after only being gone for less then 4 hours I had to come home and hold Mia pretty much the rest of the night until she went to bed. I missed that little girl!!!

Anyway, on to the real reason I am posting, I just wanted to share with all of you my new favorite foods for the week! Yes, they are that amazing, worth blogging about.

Food #1) Homemade Soft Served Chocolate Ice Cream

Of Course one of my favorite foods would be something involving chocolate! Anyway, for Father's Day Eric' grandma gave him one of these:

Hamilton Beach Half Pint Soft Serve Ice Cream Maker

We've loved this little ice cream maker. It makes the perfect amount of ice cream for a night treat and it's SO good! Usually we just make the vanilla ice cream and add fresh strawberries, which is also to die for, but yesterday I tried the chocolate ice cream and it was like making Ben and Jerry's at my house and for anyone that knows me, I LOVE Ben and Jerry's! You can buy these half pint ice cream makers at Walmart for $30 and you won't regret it if you do!

Food #2) Baked Zucchini Fries

Two words to describe these... nutritious and delicious! I got this recipe from Our Best Bites for a side dish for a BBQ we had the other night and we loved them so much I'm making them again for dinner. They are crispy and flavorful. We dipped ours in ranch dressing.

Hope I've convinced you to give these favorite foods of mine a try! And please, let me know of any recipes you like, especially that involve garden foods! Eric and I love trying new recipes!