Back and Healthy

It feels like ages since I last blogged! Last week I was fighting off a cold that thankfully, was not too horrible. It did however leave me with no energy to do much.. my house got the worst of it :( One thing I did make sure to do was make dinner, I needed a good meal at the end of the day.

I guess i'll just jump into everything you've missed out on....

Pumpkin Butter! I heard about this on a different blog and thought I could manage it. The recipe is from all recipes, and what I love about it is that you can change the quantity. I should have done that cause I can't go threw it all.. it's about to make it's way to my garbage! It was so yummy with toast and butter. I'd like to try apple butter but so far the only one i've found has to be done in a crock pot which I don't have. One day.

YUMM!!!

I had already planned on making Chicken noodle soup, it just seemed to work out perfect that I was feeling under the weather. My friend Mikey has the flu pretty bad right now, so I took her some since her husband has been underway the last few weeks. The soup turned out good, I was just disapointed that I over cooked it and the potatoes turned into there own soup and made it really thick. I also thought I shredded the chicken big enough so I could pick it out of my bowl.. not so much, I had a hard time making sure I wasn't eating any meat. This of course came from one of my fave blogs for the love of cooking!

Friday was my friend Ashley's 23rd birthday, so at her request I made her the double decker pumpkin pie. Since we have no money to get her a card I tried writing "Happy Birthday" on the pie ha

I'd say she likes it :]

After we dropped off Ashley's birthday pie we headed up to Huntington Beach to meet up with our friend Haysel. They're friends of ours from Virginia, they are stationed in Texas right now but Haysel and the kids our back home in Cali for a few months. Haysel is staying with her mom who lives in Palmdale so we decided to meet half way. It was so good to see them [[well minus Erik he had to go back to Texas before we could see him]]!!

While we were waiting for Haysel and the kids we got some Del Taco and got some grilled chicken for the dogs. I love this picture of Ellie ha!

I guess now that Leiian is in school Julyssa has been really needy, I didn't mind :]

Frank is like a big kid when he's with them ha

Walking Ellie. The dogs did so good, we were so suprised and happy.

Last week I found these fall recipes at for the love of cooking, and thought they seemed worthy of trying. The first one we tried was maple and brown sugar acorn squash. It wasn't too bad! It was one of those things that I don't know if i'll make again, but we eat alot of it because it was okay.

The second one I made was baked butternut squash. Mine looks burnt, but it's because I accidently put on WAY too much cinnamon. I was pretty excited about this one because it smelled so good cooking, but for some reason it wasn't fully cooked when it was done. I could have kept cooking it but with the way it already looked because of the cinnamon I was afraid of actually buring it. I would like to try this one again.

Last night for dinner I made campanelle with roasted vegetables and marinara. OHHH it was so good! I thought I had asparagus so I can't wait to make this again but with all the ingredients!

I don't know why but last night before cooking dinner I decided I wanted to make banana bread since i'm always looking for a good recipe. This one was pretty tasty, but since I only have one loaf pan and it was being used for the apple pumpkin bread {keep reading!} I thought it would be okay to cook it in a small pan. It did work okay, but the middle didn't get cooked fully. So I just cut around the gooey parts and sent the rest to work with Frank.

Along with the banana bread I made Apple Pumpkin Bread since I had some pumkin mix to use up. Again I should have used two loaf pans but instead made one HUGE loaf. And again the middle didn't cook. This one got me upset because I checked to see if it was done and the knife came out clean. Well when I turned it to put it on the cooling rack this huge glob of dough fell out and the middle started to invert. This is one I really want to try again cause the few pieces I was able to salvage were so good! I loved the chunks of apple in it.

Halloween night after I posted the double decker pumpkin pie I went and made Apple Butter Pumpkin Pie, since it wasn't leaving a few hours after I made it like it normally does... I ended up eating just about half of it :( At least it was good ha.

Have you ever had the Baked Ziti from Olive Garden? I love it but can only ever eat such a small portion that it's pointless to order it. I thought i'd give it a try on my own the other day. I found this one at cooks.com. It wasn't bad, but it was still too heavy for me to stomach so i'm not too sure if i'll make it again. But it was worth trying!

PUMPKIN COOKIES!! oh these were so moist and yummy... hummm I got these at Seasonal Recipes and would love to make some more right now!

So good....