Random Photos & This Week's Meal Plan *UPDATED*


*UPDATED to add the Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin recipe and a link to my (well, my mom's) lasagna recipe (see the very bottom of the post for the lasagna link.)  :)  It's delicious!

Hm.  Hesitating to post this at all, because these photos appear blurry, yet they weren't so on my phone.  Sorry.  

Pumpkin muffins with cream cheese are the kids' favorite muffins so far this season. This past weekend I tried two varieties, and you can see what their new favorite appears to be:

Regular on the left, and chocolate chips added to the right.  We began with twelve of each.
Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins (makes 12 muffins)

Mix:
1 2/3 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or more if you prefer)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin
8 T butter (I actually used 1/2 cup of applesauce and 4 T melted butter)

Then take about 4 oz of cream cheese and in a bit of sugar (maybe up to a Tablespoon?).  Optional: If you want to add chocolate chips, add them to the cream cheese mixture.

Fill the bottom of the (greased or paper) muffin cups with a heaping spoonful of the batter, then add a dollup of cream cheese mixture, then add another spoonful of the batter to sandwich in the cream cheese mixture.  Bake at 350 for 15-18 min. 
~

And this is what our window box looks like this season:


I discovered these small pie pumpkins at the grocery store for a little over a dollar apiece, so I brought five home and set them on the table with sharpie markers and this note: 


Preparing dinner for tonight, which was Pumpkin Chili. I tweaked the original recipe a bit, omitting the green chilies and one can of tomatoes and opting for more pumpkin and some beef broth.  It was very good!


And here's our meal plan for the rest of this week:


*My recipe for lasagna is in an older post called Sauces!

8 comments:

  1. Ooooh, I love the pumpkin ideas. Is your recipe for the pumpkin muffins on your blog? They look YUMMY and I'm in the mood for 'fall' type foods!! Thanks. Renee renee@schwendi.net

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    1. Thanks for commenting, Renee! I will add the recipe to the post!

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  2. Love your menu! Please do share your pumpkin cheesecake muffins and your "big batch lasagna". I just made a crockpot full of homemade spaghetti sauce and lasagna sounds delicious.

    The font you asked about is called Madina and it's a script font.

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    Replies
    1. I'll add the recipe above, Tamara! I'm pretty sure I've posted my lasagna sauce recipe before. I will add a link to that post above, too. I just make sure to triple or quadruple it while I'm making it so that I can have some on hand in the freezer. Or if I'm REALLY organized, make up some pans of lasagna to put into the freezer.
      Thanks for the font information!

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  3. Lovely garden window box! And those muffins look yummy. Cream cheese really makes me happy and so does baking with pumpkin. I'm intrigued by your pumpkin chili!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, sweet Rebecca! Cream cheese makes me pretty happy, too.

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  4. We had chili this week, too... with pumpkin cornbread!

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