All things pumpkin

In the span of a week we have made (and eaten) three pumpkin-containing, baked goods. The first was an easy pumpkin muffin kit that was dessert after dinner and breakfast the next morning. The second was a pumpkin pie. Why pumpkin pie already? Well, because Matthew came home from school with a paper saying it was his favorite fall dessert. What does a mother do when you learn your child's favorite fall dessert? Make it, of course.

I also had the realization that our oldest child, Jacob, is a mere 7 years from the flying the coop age and that means I have a very small window between the age of him wanting to be in the kitchen with me and learning to cook and then reaching the all-knowing, he-never-hears-a-word-I-say age, so I must get busy on teaching this child to cook. Where do we start on learning to cook? Dessert, of course. So Jacob and I made a pumpkin pie in the middle of last week, just because. I bet money on him making pumpkin pie early in his courtship in a few ahem, 20 years.

After hearing the jealousy rage in the house over Jacob making the pumpkin pie and listening to comments such as "why did you let him do it? why didn't you wait for me (or us)? that is so unfair!" it was quickly decided that another baked good containing pumpkin must be baked. Thankfully, I remembered a recipe that I made several times last year around this time that was delicious. Here is the recipe we made up thoroughly followed, more variations are listed below.

Pumpkin Spice Cake

1 box spice cake mix
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk
1 egg (actually, I was lazy and dumped in a bit of Egg Beaters)
1 15oz. can pumpkin

Mix this all together, either by a mixer or with a whisk (if you're trying to find toned arms under the flab, like me.) You can bake it in any kind of pan you'd like; we chose a bundt pan. Bake at 375 until you think it's done a tester inserted comes out clean. We put ours on a pretty cake stand to make it seem like it was a lot more work than it truly was and drizzled with some leftover vanilla tub frosting from the fridge homemade icing.

Variations:
-Add only 1 can of pumpkin to the cake mix; the batter is thick but it still turns out wonderfully. (This is actually the Weight Watchers recipe. We made it this way last year because I was on more of a diet kick...well, diet with a cake mix.)
-Add 1 cup of water instead of 1/2 water, 1/2 milk.
-Leave out the egg (or Egg Beaters) all together.
-Add applesauce instead of the eggs; maybe 1/4 cup or so.

Making it the way we did or making it with any of these variations will turn out about the same. Omitting the liquid will make it more muffin texture (which is our next "cooking lesson") and making it with more liquid and egg will make it more cake-like texture.

Falling back

Finally it feels like fall here in Georgia. We woke up to a brisk 53°, the kids ran around here for the third morning in a row wondering if I'd somehow shut off the sun's rays to this part of the Earth and we even watched a woman walking in the neighborhood with a coat and stocking cap on. I literally had to chuckle at that; it was 60° by that time and the people this far south think we might actually see some frost soon. The projected low for tonight is 45°, I wonder if we will see bed sheets covering the flower beds tomorrow morning on the way to church. I should watch the news tonight, they might tell me to keep an eye on my pets and ederly. Try out MO and IA folks, they walk when it's freezing...literally.

Emmy had a soccer game this morning and they finally got in the groove and spanked the other team. Emmy played well and got a goal of her own; I think the soccer Em of last year finally showed up. We spent the afternoon enjoying fall activities. We made our own caramel apples and the kids reminisced the entire time about the times we made the apples in TN with our wonderful friends. After that we moved on to homemade pizza and we enjoyed a blanket picnic in the living room while watching a movie.

Our moments with chaos today:
*Jacob freaking out after putting on a pair of jeans. These are the same exact jeans he wore all last spring. We tried every brand and the boy can only wear 10S, Levi Loose Straight. (I buy my underwear a K Mart) But now they are too baggy in the groin region and we watched and snickered as he ran around the house in his own world grabbing his crotch while attempting to hold the jeans off the nether region. Reasoning didn't work; he wore shorts to the soccer game and then complained he was cold.
*All the kids were told to brush their teeth before bed. Instead, Jacob was waving his arms and shaking the glutes like a drunk 21 year old girl at a club. Yea, great visual.
*Before bed Matthew was building with Lincoln Logs, Jeramie and Emmy were taking turns setting up dominoes and I look over and see Jacob on his back with both legs straight in the air doing the synchronized swim routine, except out of water. I just had to watch; maybe he'll be a choreographer some day.