Coco's Candied Pumpkin

As promised in Saturday's post, here is the recipe for my mom's candied pumpkin. Once you have made the candied pumpkin you can freeze it and use it for just about anything, pumpkin bread, empanadas, pies, your imagination is the limit. Please excuse the picture. I realize it's not a very nice picture but I wanted you to have an idea of what the pumpkin should look like when it is done.

 Ingredients:
3 lbs. standard pumpkin
1 1/2 sticks cinamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 box (16 0z.) dark brown sugar
1 cup water

Cut pumpkin in half to scrape out guts and seeds.  You can reserve the seeds for making toasted pumpkin seeds. Cut the halves into 2 inch pieces.  Do not remove skin.

Place all ingredients in a large saucepan over medium to high heat and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and let simmer for about 2 hours until liquid has reduced and become syrupy and pumpkin is tender.

If you are going to use the candied pumpkin right away, let it cool completely.  You can store in refrigerator in an airtight container for about a week.

When you are ready to use, remove skin with a spoon and mash it up.

I like to eat it a few pieces, skin and all, with a glass of milk.  Hmm hmm hmm.

That's it!  It so easy and oh so yummy.

And now for something else that's orange, here's Red Beard taking a little nap by the warm stove.  He looked so cute and cuddly.

Oh, sorry to wake you from your tenth nap of the day, Red Beard!

Pumpkin Pancakes

One of our favorite weekend breakfast treats are homemade pancakes. They are so easy to make, so versatile, and you really can't mess them up. You can add just about anything to the batter.  No matter what flavor I am making, I always like to add a tablespoon  or two of sour cream.  The sour cream gives the pancakes a creamy and fluffy texture and it adds an undertone of sourness that goes so well with the sweetness of the batter. 

Last night my mom gave me some candied pumpkin that she had made so this morning we had pumpkin pancakes. Here's what you need fo the pancakes:

1 Cup All-Purpose Flour
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 Teaspoon salt
1 Cup Coco's Candied Pumpkin (will post recipe soon)
1 Tablespoon Melted Butter
1 Cup Milk
1 to 2 Tablespoons Sour Cream
1 Egg

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
In a separate bowl, mash up the candied pumpkin with the back of a spoon (like the picture below), add to it the melted butter, sour cream, and egg and mix it up.
Add the wet ingredients to dry ingredients and add milk. Whisk until well combined.  If the batter is to thick, add milk a tablespoon at a time.  If it is too thin, add flour a tablespoon at a time.  Do this until you have the consistency you like.

My range has an awesome griddle that I have only used for pancakes.  I do not butter the griddle but I spray it lightly with butter flavored cooking spray.  I use a small ladle to ladle the batter onto the griddle.  This makes approximately 6 inch pancakes.

Once the batter is bubbling and it looks cooked around the perimeter of the pancake, flip them and cook briefly on the other side.

I like to add a small dot of butter as they come off the griddle.  Hmm.  Don't they look yummy?

The leaning tower of pancakes

I like my pancakes with honey instead of maple syrup and a little sprinkling of walnuts.

Hope you make this recipe.

Alec's Yo Gaba Gaba Birthday Party

Is there a kid in this country that is between the ages of 2 and 5 that is not crazy about Yo Gaba Gaba? I don't think so. My nephews Luc and Alex are obsessed. As promised in a prior post, here are some pictures of Alec's Yo Gaba Gaba birthday party:

Jeanette found this on-line and asked me if I could make one like it.  I wasn't sure if I would be able to but it was very easy.  The kids loved it.

 

 

 

 

I found this pattern on sew fearless and thought it was a great idea so I made a Brobee and Muno version for the boys.  I think they came out very cute.

Happy Birthday, Alec!  We love you!
Thank you for the fun party.

Mateo's Birthday Party

We heart mustaches! 

 

That was the theme for Mateo's 14th birthday party.  Mustache parties are very trendy these days and I thought it would be funny to have a mustache party for Mateo especially since he really has a mustache!

For the cupcakes, I made shapes of mustaches and hearts and the word "we" from candy melts to say, "We heart mustaches."

Edible Jackson Pollock: Pretzel sticks "splattered" with melted dark and white chocolate and butterscotch.

Cari made these adorable sugar cookies.

Grandma Nacha:

Grandma Coco:

We played "Pin the Mustache on Mateo."  That was fun.

I know it's cliche to say but they grow so fast!

And I'm Back

You've been there before.  There was something really important that you had to say to someone but you never got the opportunity and the chance just lipped away.  The longer you waited, the more awkward it felt to bring it up.  Seconds become minutes, minutes become hours, and now you don't even know what it was that you needed to say or maybe now you have even more to say and you're not sure what you should say first.

That's what happened here.  With my little blog.  With you.  I lost the momentum for posting.  Each passing day made the distance grow farther and made it that much harder for me to come back.  But I'm back and if you have been following my blog, you know that I do that from time to time.  I stray, but I always come back.

I'll start with some pictures of our Halloween porch since that is the most recent event. 

 The kids: Jason, Ethan, Jackie, Nico, and Mateo.

 Dressed to the nines, but too bad they are tied to a tree.

 I didn't have a decoration for my door so I made this one up, quickly.  It's just a small broom.  I added a flower and some labels made with tag cards that read, "The Witch is in!"

 Our porch at night.

Beloved sugar skulls.