Pumpkin Recipes & then some...

Ok..so I got this hair-brained idea of cooking my own pumpkin this year, you know instead of the canned stuff?? I only did after seeing the price of the canned stuff and almost dropping it in shock...wow I really am lazy that I can't do this myself, why have I never done this before? I know so I will never be a Martha or Julia, sue me.
So while out this year shopping for Halloween stuff I spy the pumpkins I wheel my cart over there and picked out the best one I could find. I don't really know what you look for exactly when picking one out to cook. Do you thump them like a watermelon or what? I took my best guess and picked a cute one. I did give it a few good whacks just for good measure. There was an older gal there that gave me the strangest look so aparently it's not the way you do it. Whatever! I resisted the urge to carve it by drawing a face on it with a magic marker and a BOO for good measure. I know, let it out...awwwww!
So last night I'm thinking this is the night that I'm baking that sucker & making me some pie. After hacking it in half and scooping out the seeds which is fun BTW I tried to fit it in the oven. Ummm, it's too big. Naw, it can't be too big! It was, not that I let that stop me. After adjusting the racks to see if I could get one slice on one rack and the other underneath I just crammed them both in side by side. The touched the sides of the oven and because one was tilted, a teeny bit on the top. I got a little smoke to come out before they shrank down while cooking but heck, what's a little smoke? Right? After about an hour or so I took them out of the oven and let them cool a little. I got a huge mixing bowl full of pumpkin. I'm not totally sure what the heck I'm going to do with all of it. Pumpkin Pie is my husbands all time favorite dessert so that's on the list but hopefully this stuff will freeze well. This is a recipe for a pumpkin quick bread or cupcakes I found that is only 2 ingredients & it's so yummy I love it. It's also low fat because you don't use oil and eggs.
All you need is:
 1 Box of Cake Mix, any flavor (chocolate is a personal favorite)
15 ounces of pumpkin puree.
You mix them both together and spread them in a greased (cooking spray) loaf pan or muffin tin, and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. It takes a little longer than typical breads and cakes so the toothpick is the best judge. I usually check after 30 minutes on a loaf and 15 minutes on cupcakes and add a few minutes as needed. These are very dence, but that is ok, you can have a smaller piece to save calories and satisfy your sweet tooth at the same time.
Happy Cooking my pumpkin loving friends.
Love, Me

Road Trip to Yellowstone National Park

I call Shotgun!!
I made reservations today for our Road Trip! We are planning on going to Yellowstone National Park. We will go through the East Entrance and then up to West Yellowstone to spend the night and ending up in Idaho Falls before heading home.
I always look forward to our Road Trips. In the early years when we were still dating when we had a long weekend we would wake up and say what do you want to do? I don't know what do you want to do? Lets get in the car and just see where it takes us. Some of our best memories were on those trips. Nowadays....I make reservations. We have a little more money to work with so I try to find unique or special places along the route to stay instead of staying at those places where there is more dirt on the dusty cobwebs blowing out of the fan that is stuck in the window above the headboard than in the flower pot outside. (true story)
I do LOVE out of the way places and have found some that we have planned vacations around to visit again.
One thing that I'm also looking forward to is the food that I will pack in the car, it seems a little silly to be that excited about the crap we eat when we go on these trips. We have really cut back on processed foods and since we both need to drop some weight the thought of a donut and possibly squeeze cheese has me a little giddy. (:ha:)
Whenever I know these road trips are coming up I always get this song stuck in my head.
See you in the vacation photos!
Love, Me