Pumpkin Cookies

We tried another fall recipe today, and it received rave reviews by everyone. These cookies are like a portable pumpkin cake. I adapted this recipe from a Food Network recipe.

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter, softened

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 cup pumpkin

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream the softened butter and sugar together with a mixer. 

Add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla. Beat until mixed. 

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. 

Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture. Stir with a spoon until combined. 

Drop rounded tablespoons on a greased cookie sheet. 

Bake at 375 degrees for 11-12 minutes. 

After baking, move cookies to a cooling rack. Let cookies cool for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, mix 1/2 cup powdered sugar with 1 tablespoon milk. Spread the glaze over the cookies. 

Football Name Plaque

This is a very quick craft you can do with the kids on a busy night. The kids picked what color they wanted their football to be, and I cut it to resemble a football. 

Then we cut strips of white paper and used a glue stick to attach them to the football. 

They wrote their name and "#" and applied their choice of stickers. 

Football Activity Wall

The boys have been wanting to do endless football crafts, so we decided to make a football-theme activity wall. This wall went together very quickly with the help of a few supplies from Joann Fabrics.

Whenever we go to a craft store and the paper is on sale, I let them pick out a few of their favorite pieces to add to our collection. Of course they pick out paper that resembles every sport they can find. So, we didn't have to look far to find paper that looked like a football in our stash.

I cut a football template out of scrap paper to use when cutting the football paper.

Using a white paint pen, I put football lines on each of the cut-outs. I added a number (1-15) on the footballs. This number will correspond to the activities we do each day.

In our paper stash we also found paper that resembled a football field, so we used that as the background. I cut out goal posts out of yellow cardstock.

We added the footballs around the paper. The football in the goal post will show the activity we do for the day. 

Here are the activities: 

Cork painting

Visit an apple orchard

Go to a local school football game

Football name plaques

Football hand prints

Make homemade applesauce

Make tissue paper hand print trees

Collect leaves and make toilet paper roll leaf creatures

Make a paper plate football mask

Make a football windsock

Make a leaf wreath

Make a candy apple bar

Make fall-theme sensory bags

 Pumpkin craft

Make spiders out of thumbprints

Apple Cheesecake Bars

Ingredients: 

2 cups flour

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup butter, softened

2 (8oz) packages cream cheese

1/2 cup sugar, plus 2 Tbls., divided

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

5 small apples, peeled, cored, and chopped

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Steusel: 

1 cup flour

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup quick oats

1 stick butter, softened

**Adapted from a Paula Deen recipe

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Using a fork, cut the softened butter through the flour and brown sugar in a bowl. Press the mixture in a tin-foil lined 9X13" pan. Bake for 15 minutes. 

Note: To soften butter quickly, put the stick (still in the wrapper) on defrost in the microwave for about 30 seconds. 

Meanwhile mix cream cheese and 1/2 cup sugar on med-high speed. Add one egg at a time, mixing between each addition. Then add the vanilla. Pour the cream cheese mixture over the warm crust.

Peel, core, and dice about 5 small apples. (I had Gala apples on hand.) Mix the apples with the cinnamon, nutmeg, and 2 Tbls. sugar. Spread the apples evenly over the cream cheese mixture. 

Using the fork method again, cut one stick of softened butter through 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of brown sugar, and 1/2 cup quick oats. Add the struesel to the top. 

Bake for 30 minutes. 

You could drizzle caramel topping on the bars, although it isn't needed. This dessert is amazing! 

Football Crafts

Sunday NFL games begin today, so we did another football craft. This was very easy and the boys really liked how they turned out. 

To make brown paint, I mixed orange with black. Add the black a little bit at a time. 

The kids painted jumbo shells with the brown paint. Then we added white paint lines on the top and wrote their favorite teams on the sides. 

Monster Wreath

Here is an incredibly easy wreath to make for the Halloween season that only cost $10-15. I started by buying two yards of tulle from Joann Fabrics, a Styrofoam ring, styrofoam eyes, a piece of white foam, and a scrap piece of fabric.   

You can also buy tulle by the spool, but when that isn't on sale, it is cheaper to buy it by the yard. I folded it over a few times until the strips were about 16 inches long. Then I cut the strips about 2 inches wide. 

I tied the strips around the wreath using the square knot method (right side over left, pull, then left side over right side, pull) 

I tied all of the strips around the Styrofoam ring. Then I put a toothpick in each of the Styrofoam balls. I stuck the balls in the wreath with the toothpick. Using black paint, I made little dots on the balls to represent eyes. 

I cut some teeth out of the foam piece and hot glued it to the wreath. 

To make a bow tie, I cut a piece of fabric 7 X 4 inches. I folded it over (hot dog style)  and hot glued it together. 

Then fold it over (hamburger style) and hot glue it together.

Then I took a rubber band to hold it together in the center.

Finally I cut another small strip of fabric (about 4X2 inches) and hot glued it around the center. Cut off any excess fabric. 

Hot glue the bow tie to the wreath.

Here is the final product. To hang it on the wall, I hot glued a strip of white tulle to the top of the wreath and hung it on a nail. 

NFL Shakers

In honor of the NFL opening night tonight, the boys decided to make noise makers of their favorite players' teams.

These were a very quick craft that made them extremely happy! 

We started by coloring rice to match each of their teams. One of the boys like Payton Manning, so we colored 1/2 cup of rice blue and 1/2 cup of rice orange. The other one likes Robert Griffen III so we did 1/2 cup of rice red and 1/2 cup yellow. (To color rice, pour 2 teaspoons of rubbing alcohol in a jar with a few drops of food color. Add the rice and shake until the color is incorporated. Pour the colored rice on a baking sheet lined with paper towel. Let it dry while you make the rest of the shaker.)

Next we searched for team logos on google. When they picked their image, we printed it out on their choice of cardstock paper.  

Then we cut out the image and taped it around a pop bottle. Using a funnel, we added the colored rice.

Back to School Pancake Breakfast

 On the first day of school, I surprised the kids with special pancakes.I started with my pancake recipe:  http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2013/02/pancakes.html. I poured some of the batter in a bowl and added a couple of drops of red food coloring. I scooped a little bit of batter in a different bowl and added two drops of green food coloring. I poured the red on the pan and added a little bit of green to the top for a leaf. When the pancakes were done, I placed a little piece of bacon at the top of the pancake to represent the stem. Then I made a 5 for my 5th grader and a P for my preschooler.

Football Team Brownies

To kick off the start of college football, I decided to create some food that represented one of the games we were watching. 

I used a small baking pan (about the size of a 9X13 pan) to make the brownies. It took about the same cooking time as a regular 9X13 inch pan. This pan worked well because the edges weren't high and the cookie cutter was easier to maneuver. 

I cut out footballs and two helmets. I added white frosting to the footballs. For the helmets, I had some colored chocolate melting discs. I spread the melted chocolate on the helmets and added sprinkles to make the helmets resemble the two teams. 

Peach Coffee Cake

Here is another recipe I tried with my extra peaches.

This is adapted from Allrecipes.com.

The batter:

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup canola oil

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup sour cream

3 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

The topping:

6 large peaches, peeled and diced

3 Tbsp. butter, melted

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 Tbsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. nutmeg

4 Tbsp flour

The glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

3-4 Tbsp milk

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Peel and cut up the peaches. 

Prepare a 9-inch spring form pan with cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, beat eggs on medium speed for about 1 minute. Add the oil, vanilla, milk, and sour cream. Beat for about 2 minutes. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar). Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until well incorporated, but don't over mix it. Pour the batter in the pan. 

Combine the peach mixture. Pour the peach mixture on top of the batter. 

Bake for 1 hour and 5-10 minutes. The middle will be a little soft set.

Take off the spring form pan and drizzle the glaze on top. 

Roasted Peach Streusel Muffins

While trying to find something to do with all the peaches I had, I came across this recipe at http://www.healthy-delicious.com/2013/07/roasted-peach-muffins-with-cinnamon-struesel/ and made some modifications to it.

4 large peaches, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
3 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
5 Tablespoons butter, melted
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

For the topping:
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 Tablespoons butter, melted

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Peel and cube your peaches. Place them in a baking dish. Roast the peaches for about 30 minutes. 

 Meanwhile, mix the dry ingredients in a bowl (flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, baking powder, and baking soda)

 In a separate bowl, wisk the eggs, yogurt, vanilla, and butter.

 Add the wet ingredients to the try ingredients and mix until just moistened.

When the peaches are done roasting, increase the oven temperature to 375 degrees. Add the roasted peaches to the muffin batter. 

 Fold in the roasted peaches.

Divide the batter into cupcake liners. I got a full 24 muffins. Mix the streusel ingredients and sprinkle on top of the batter. 

Bake for about 20 minutes. These are best served warm.