CategoryRecipes

The pumpkin muffins were great! I’m so incredibly pleased.

The flour seems to make a slightly denser muffin than the wheat flour I usually use. I also ran out of baking powder making them and dumped the rest into the batter hoping it was enough. I’m not sure if that’s why these were a little denser or if it was the flour. They’re usually extremely light and very springy. If I hadn’t eaten the original version in the past, I never would have known anything was different. They were absolutely delicious.

I found a whipped cream cream cheese icing recipe on Pinterest, and used that to top the muffin with. Guess that makes them cupcakes now, but that’s ok. They were really light and not too overly sweet. Just enough to satisfy a pumpkin spice craving I had.

Esther helped me make pumpkin spice muffins tonight.

I’ve been craving pumpkin spice, so stopped at the store to try a new gluten free flour to make something. I bought the Krusteaz brand, since they were out of any other brands. It’s supposed to substitute 1:1 for regular flour, so I started with a half batch of the muffins for myself to try. We made a full batch of regular muffins for the rest of the family.

We use the King Arthur Flour Pumpkin Donuts recipe, but make them into muffins instead (I don’t have enough donut pans). The recipe makes about 15 or 16 muffins.

They’re still cooling, so we’ll see how they turn out. I want to make a whipped cream cream cheese icing to go on top of them too, but haven’t found a recipe for that yet.

Jo asked if I would post the recipe for chicken and artichoke casserole. Since it’s from a cookbook and the recipe is posted online, I figured I’d post the link to it.

Chicken and artichoke casserole

I usually use the whole container of mushrooms (a small container), and a good 3+ cloves of garlic. Yummy!

The other day, Mommyof8blessings asked if I’d share the recipe for my iced coffee. Unfortunately, I usually just dump things into the glass and eyeball it.

Here’s what I use though:

1-2 packets sweetener (I prefer Splenda)
generous splash of liquid French vanilla coffee creamer
equal parts coffee and milk to fill the glass
handful of ice cubes to chill it

Any flavored creamer would work, but I prefer the vanilla. Vanilla isn’t my favorite for hot coffee, but it is for iced. I’ve also used powdered milk for the milk portion of this, and it’s turned out fine that way as well.

A few people have asked if I’d share my dill pickle recipe. This is the recipe my grandmother used for years, and she recently told me it’s the recipe her grandmother always used to use. She said she liked it because the ingredients are per jar – making it really easy to make pickles as your cucumbers are ready, instead of having to wait until you have a lot at once.

These pickles also have to age for a while. Mine will sit at least 6 weeks, but longer wouldn’t hurt.

Dill Pickles
Makes 1 Quart

1/2 to 1 Tbsp salt
1 cup white vinegar
1-2 heads dill
1/2 tsp. powdered alum

Put salt, vinegar, and dill in bottom of can. Add cucumbers and more dill, finish filling with boiling water and seal up.

Since I’d never made pickles before, I wasn’t convinced that the brine alone would be enough to preserve the pickles. We ran the jars through the water bath canner for 15 minutes (based on another pickle recipe we found). I’m still not 100% sure that’s the best way to do it, but I’m curious.