'Tis The Season: Pumpkin & Spice

With the cool and crisp air these past couple of weeks, I found myself yearning for the warmth of the kitchen and the flavor of pumpkin. The two just seem to go together.

A quick hop on over to Pinterest and I found a couple of recipes to give a try. Since they were all scrumptious and turned out, I thought I'd pass along the recipes.
First, there was the Pumpkin Swirl Bread that made three loaves and was a big hit at our house. Full of (canned) pumpkin goodness and the cream cheese swirl, it was a winning combination.

                                      


Then there was the  Pumpkin French Toast we made after church one Sunday. It definitely was the perfect addition to our brunch and ideal for a fall morning.

We decided to double the ingredients the recipe called for (except the bread) in order to use the whole can of pumpkin and have plenty for everyone.

All you need is:

14 (or so) slices of bread
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or use a dash of each:cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and ginger)

Whisk together eggs, milk, pumpkin and spice. Fire up the griddle, start dipping and cook!

Serve with butter and syrup.Or, if you are like me, a little butter and a sprinkle of sugar.

Our last pumpkin recipe came from Reed's co-worker and is a perfectly sweet Pumpkin Crunch dessert. Really easy to whip up in a hurry and full of scrumptious fall flavor. We served ours warm after supper and we were out of whipped topping, but I bet that would've kicked up the yum factor even more.


Ingredients:

1 package yellow cake mix
1 large can (30 oz) pumpkin pie mix (not canned pumpkin!!)
1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)
1 cup melted butter
whipped topping (optional)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9x13 pan. Combine pumpkin, eggs, sugar, evaporated milk and salt in bowl. Pour into pan. Sprinkle dry cake mix evenly over pumpkin mixture. Top with pecans. Drizzle with melted butter. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until knife inserted comes out clean. Cool completely. Serve with whipped topping. Refrigerate leftovers.

Now are bellies are full of pumpkin and we're jumping into the feeling of fall. Just in time for the return of some sixty degree weather that's ahead for this week to make it feel like summer all over again.

However, the naked trees tell a different story.