Pumpkinpalooza: Pumpkin French Toast Bake & Pumpkin French Toast Muffins!

I know...I know, I am a little behind on the pumpkin posts but I promise the one that I'm giving you today makes up for my absence! I always love combining my love for breakfast with my love of pumpkin. Pancakes are my first love, but French toast is my other breakfast passion. So I decided to combine the two and make a fall breakfast or any time of day really, a pumpkin French toast combo that takes the cake! Get in the kitchen now and bake up these pumpkin delights for your family! Mine will be enjoying some this Saturday morning before a pumpkin picking trip. The best way to start a beautiful fall day: French toast and pumpkin!!!!  

This week’s Pumpkinpalooza recipes are:  Pumpkin French toast muffins and also a bonus recipe of Pumpkin French toast bake!

Pumpkin French toast muffins

1 large loaf of French bread, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (about 12 cups of bread)
1 12.5 oz can of pumpkin puree

2 cups milk
6 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Topping:

1/4 cup cold butter
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon.

2. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin, I add muffin cups for easier clean up but it works just as well with cooking spray. Add about 1 cup of bread cubes to each muffin cup. Carefully pour pumpkin and milk mixture evenly over each muffin tin. You may need to press down on the bread cubes after you pour a little mixture and then pour more. Pour slowly, its messy. Cover the muffins with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours.

3. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. To make the topping, in a small bowl, combine butter, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt. Mix together with your hands or cut in with a pastry blender, until you have a crumbly mixture. Add a handful to the top of each muffin carefully, this can get messy too.

4. Bake for 25 minutes or until tops are golden brown. Let muffins cool for 5 minutes. Remove from pan and serve with butter and maple syrup, if desired.

Yields 12-16 muffins

To Freeze:

Prepare your muffin tins with the bread and the pumpkin mixture. Be sure to put then into muffin liners if you freeze. Just so you are not taking up one of your muffin tins.  Let them set and you can freeze them for up to six months.

To eat:

Defrost the muffins overnight, place them in the muffin tins, add your topping mixture and bake 25 min. Enjoy

Pumpkin French toast bake

*Same ingredients as pumpkin French toast muffins

Directions:

1. Cut the large loaf of French bread into 1 in pieces. Put them into a greased  9x12 in baking dish. Add the entire pumpkin, milk and egg mixture to the bread. Let sit in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours, just like the muffins.

2. When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Pull the pumpkin and bread mixture from the fridge and add the topping mixture.

3. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 min or until the crumb topping is golden brown.

Serve with butter and maple syrup if desired

Serves 6-8

To freeze:

Prepare the bread, add to baking dish. Prepare the pumpkin, milk and egg mixture. Add to the bread. Place into the freezer for up to six months.

To eat:

Defrost overnight, preheat oven to 350 degrees, add the topping mixture and bake for 30 min until golden brown

Cook with love,

Pumpkinpalooza: Pumpkin Pancakes!

Pumpkin Pancakes

I would have to say that my next favorite thing other than the fall season is breakfast!! Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, and for good reason;  it's just delicious! So with that, I have found and perfected a pumpkin pancake recipe that will have your house smelling amazing and make you smile this pumpkin season.  Pancakes just hold a special place in my heart, they remind me of being a kid and make me happy! You can make them any size and shape, or just leave them alone and add toppings!!  Whatever you desire or however you like them, I promise you’ll clean your plate with this recipe! It is a must try and will maybe even become a Halloween or Thanksgiving morning tradition!

Cook with love,

  

Ingredients

1 ½  cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ tbsp. brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
¾ tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
Dash of ground cloves
1 cup milk
½ cup pumpkin puree
1 large egg
2 tbsp melted butter

Directions

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt and spices.  Mix together the milk, pumpkin puree, egg and butter.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk together just until combine. (the batter may be lumpy and its ok)

  Heat a greased skillet or griddle over medium heat. (freezer friendly tip: let the griddle get hot on med heat for at least 5 min before adding your first ½ cup batter)  Once the skillet is hot, add a ½ cup scoop of batter to the pan.  Leave alone until bubbles begin to form on the top surface.  Carefully flip and cook the second side until golden brown! Continue this step until the batter is gone.  Serve with warm syrup and enjoy!!!

To Freeze: allow pancakes to cool, wrap individually with wax paper and then store in a freezer bag. Date and label

To Eat: Defrost completely, heat in the microwave on high 30 sec to 1 min for each pancake

Pumpkinpalooza!

So it's that time of year again! Yup, pumpkin season!! Yoga pants, fall bags, pumpkin spice lattes, Uggs, leaves changing and pumpkin picking!  Fall is my favorite time of year and with that I love to get in the kitchen even more and bake up some of my fall favorites for me and my husband (who never minds the taste testing)!!  During this fall season I am going to share with you some of my favorite pumpkin recipes: cakes, pies, smoothies and more!! Be sure to sign up to follow by email so you don't miss any of these recipes...who doesn't love pumpkin?!

 My first recipe is one of my all- time favorites and has become a Thanksgiving morning breakfast must have in my house! Freezer Friendly will have a Thanksgiving day go to meal plan, but I needed to bring this recipe to everyone’s attention early on in the season.  I guarantee that it will be made at least five times before turkey day!!  My first Fall Favorite pumpkin recipe is: Pumpkin Bars!!!

 I found this recipe a few years ago when I wanted an alternative to pumpkin bread and I have been in love ever since. I have made up my own topping for these bars. I got the idea from my pumpkin mousse trifle recipe which layers ginger snaps, whipped cream and pumpkin mousse, yea I know, why didn’t I start off with that but I swear this is just as yummy.  I don’t put the whipped cream topping on them unless I am making them for company or for a special occasion. I typically do not have the patience to wait for them to even cool let alone make the topping for them before I eat half the pan!! So try them both ways but make sure you make the topping because its delish! Enjoy these easy cake bars with a cup of pumpkin coffee and I promise your fall season will be started off right!!!  

Cook with love, 

Pumpkin Bars

Ingredients

-4 eggs

-1 2/3 cups granulated sugar

-1 cup vegetable oil

-15 oz can pumpkin

-2 cups sifted all purpose four

-2 tsp baking powder

-2 tsp ground cinnamon

-1 tsp salt

-1 tsp baking soda

(recipe adapted from www.foodnetwork.com/pauladeen)

Whipped cream topping

- 1 cup heavy cream (cold)

- 2 TBP of powdered sugar

- 20 ginger snap cookies crushed

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. 

Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth.

I usually place the mixing bowl and whisk attachment in the fridge at this time to get them nice and cold for the icing.  Spread the batter into a greased 13 by 10 in baking pan. Bake for 30 min. Add both the heavy cream and powdered sugar into the mixer and whisk on low to incorporate both ingredients then whisk on high until you see peaks. After the whipped cream is ready, fold in your crushed ginger snaps. Spread evenly over the bars, cut and serve. Or you can cut the bars then pipe the whipped cream over each bar to make it pretty!!

To freeze:

I would typically not freeze this batter  I would try to make it fresh. But I have opened up cans of pumpkin puree before and not used it all and have frozen the remaining and that thawed perfectly.  You can also make the bars, cut, cool and then freeze them.  Wrap each bar tightly in plastic wrap then place in a bag or tightly sealed Tupperware container.  You could freeze the icing though, make it in large batches then freeze left overs or doubled batches for future use.  To thaw icing:  Place in the fridge only, do not place on the counter because it can spoil, allow it to be smooth enough to spread.

Husband Approved Breakfast Sandwiches

So Meghan and I are in Florida, actually escaping the heat wave that's at home believe it or not!  Meg has mentioned before how we made sure to stock our freezers with husband approved meals before we left....otherwise they'd go hungry or live off of take out wings and burgers. 

I made my hub some yummy breakfast sandwiches so I could be sure he was eating all of his meals while we are away!

Here is my super simple recipe for the breakfast sandwiches.  They freeze pretty well and can be adapted in many ways.  Meg has used my recipe before to make them for her hub, and when she does hers, she likes to whisk the eggs with a bit of veg first, and then bake in muffin tins.  Take this quick and easy recipe and make it your own and please come back and let me and the girls know how you make yours for your family to enjoy!!

Freezer Breakfast sandwiches

-1 dozen of English muffins or mini bagels
-1 dozen eggs
-Your choice of bacon, turkey bacon, breakfast sausage or thin cut pork roll ( enough to make 12 sandwiches )
-Your choice of cheese 1/2lb ( I used American but I have used cheddar before and they came out equally as delish)

To Cook:
1.Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 12 cup muffin tin with non stick cooking spray. 2. Crack your eggs into the muffin tin. Cook in preheated oven for 10 min or until the eggs starts to separate from the pan.
3. On a cookie sheet with a wire rack on top, place 12 strips of bacon and cook that along with the eggs, the bacon takes about 15-20 min on the same temp. For the sausage, pre-cook that on the stove top and set aside. If you decide to do the pork roll, it is already cooked so I have that ready for the end and assembling.
{I let the eggs and bacon or sausage cool slightly before starting the next step.}
4.Take the cooked bacon, sausage or slices of pork roll, cheese, English muffins or bagels and eggs and start to layer however you please. 
To Freeze:
After each sandwich is assembled, wrap each in tin foil or you can vacuum seal them individually. Label them and stick them in the freezer bag with the date on it.
To Eat:
To reheat them, make sure they are thawed and I put them right into my toaster over on med/high heat for about 5 min. If you do not have a toaster oven, you can also place them in the microwave for a min on high. They toast or heat up nice and ready to enjoy!

Cook with love,

Sweet Summer Time

It's HOT!  It has been sweltering here the last week or so.  Super hot days, followed by muggy, thunderstorm filled nights.  My garden certainly isn't complaining!  The hot weather is the inspiration for my post today.  When we say "freezer friendly" or "freezer cooking" that doesn't just mean dinners!  Meghan Loc makes a mean breakfast burrito, I make homemade egg "McMuffins" for my hub and today I've made a snack/breakfast/healthy dessert to keep in my freezer.

I made yummy Greek yogurt "Popsicles."  So super easy and the combinations are endless!  I got these super cute and tiny popsicle molds from my grocery store not too long ago.  I made these pops with vanilla Greek yogurt, Kashi Go Lean Crunch and  some Berry Greek Frozen Yogurt I had already made in my freezer/

I simply layered a scoop of the vanilla yogurt, some Kashi, some Frozen Yogurt and then more vanilla yogurt.  I popped the lids on and they are currently sitting in my freezer!  Really the possibilities are endless...you could add fresh fruit, jelly, granola, any kind of cereal, any kind of yogurt...

Frozen Yogurt Breakfast Pops
1-2c of your favorite yogurt (I used vanilla flavored Greek Yogurt)
4 TBSP of Kashi Go Lean (or granola)
4 TBSP of Berry Greek Frozen Yogurt

Berry Greek Frozen Yogurt (Jamie Oliver)
1 cup yogurt (I used plain Greek, but use any that you have)
2 cups frozen berries 
2-3 tablespoon honey 
A few Mint sprigs

Blend in food processor until smooth and creamy.  

Here they are mid freeze:

I promise a better picture of the final product...still working on that camera!

Stay full and cool!