My Day in the Kitchen

It has been a crazy baking day!

(I know you’re digging the ‘Meghann Apron’ circa 1993)

My Mom had this desire to bake today, so thats how we spent our day – baking up a storm! Now we just need to figure out what to do with all our freshly baked goodies. Any volunteers to help take it off our hands?

First up on our to bake list: Pumpkin Spice Mini Cakes

Recipe Courtesy of Southern Living

Pumpkin courtesy of this little guy

We couldn’t find canned pumpkin at our Publix so we made our own!

This was my first time using an actual pumpkin. It was a pretty cool process.

After cutting, steaming, cleaning and processing we finally had pumpkin ready for baking!

The only downside to using the fresh pumpkin puree was out watery it becomes, therefore my pumpkin mini cakes don’t look quite as dark as they should.

Oh well. The bite I tried still tasted great.

Especially after I added the homemade Carmel Glaze.

Holy Yum! The glaze made these taste like pumpkin donuts. Yum!

Don’t worry we didn’t let the seeds from the pumpkin go to waste.

I baked them at 350 for 20 minutes with a little seasoning salt.

I managed to snack on a few while we continued to bake.

Next up was a batch of Pumpkin Surprise Cookies using this recipe I found online.

Wow! These came out great!

With the cookies I compensated for the watery pumpkin and used more then the recipe called for. Worked like a charm.

Sampling the fruits of my labor.

We ended our baking day with an Apple Pie.

This was more my Mom then me. She makes the best apple pie!

Before the baking extravaganza I did fill my belly with a great lunch in hopes that I wouldn’t nibble too bad during all the baking. Of course it didn’t work. I still had my fair share of finger lickings and samplings along the way.

Lunch consisted of left over Kashi Pizza from Thursday night

And the other half of my Butternut Squash Soup from lunch on Thursday.

I topped the soup with a handful of these dried veggies that had been in my cabinet for far too long.

The dried veggies were interesting. I’m not sure I thought they went well with the soup though, maybe I’ll try the rest as a salad topper.

After spending all day baking in the kitchen, my Mom and I had no desire to cook anything for dinner. Instead we headed to a local favorite of mine, Kloiber’s, for a quick, light meal.

For some odd reason I was really craving a nice juicy burger, but when I saw the chili on the specials board I quickly changed my mind and had a cup.

I asked for extra onion. I promise there was actual chili underneath all the onion.

With the chili my Mom and I split the Chicken Avocado Salad with dressing on the side and no croutons.

Don’t ask me why the tomatoes are on the side.

My portion.

I’v had this salad here before and I swear it came with more vegetables last time. This version of the salad was a bit plain for my taste.

Despite nibbling on sweets all day, I couldn’t resist sampling the Apple Pie when we returned home.

I had a small slice of the apple pie, as well as a sliver of a homemade pumpkin pie my Mom had made earlier in the week.

And at that point I was officially stuffed.

Hopefully all those sugars and carbs are enough to push me through my 14 mile run in the morning. I’m running all 14 miles all alone and I’m a bit nervous. Luckily, its one of my favorite routes to run around my parent’s house and I know I can conquer it. WIsh me luck!