I was pretty happy to have Scott come home this weekend. He finally arrived home late Saturday night after a month in Texas. While it might seem like he was gone forever..it hasn't been forever but he was gone for 2 weeks, he was back for 8 days, and then it was 4 weeks. So definitely not the definition of a long time. But still. Kinda seemed that way. I maintain that long trips (2 months or more) are easier than counting by days or weeks.
This meant I got access to my old computer. I was able to retrieve my Columbus vs. Pilgrims powerpoint, complete with real Mayflower-replica pictures. So, of course, I spent a lot of time browsing through my old Toshiba. It's actually really nice and then I remembered the reason for my upgrade to a MacBook: the Toshiba won't hold a charge and won't work unless it's actually plugged in.
I did find some interesting documents, lesson plans, and pictures and it was nice to take a walk down memory lane. This is a screen shot of some menu-planning I found from 2011.
I was an efficient little menu planner. There were 3 months of menus that look like this. The strikethrough clearly means "ACCOMPLISHED!" I mean, I was baking sugar cookies that looked like states and continents. I don't even know who I am anymore…
As you can see, I used to be quite organized. I gave myself deadlines. And I don't know what the asterisks mean. Some sort of secret organizational code, perhaps? There's a lot more of them as you go through the document. "Re-blog" meant re-do for the blog because the first showcased terrible pictures. When I showed this to Scott, he just laughed and then we said, "What HAPPENED?" at the same time.
I digress.
This is a recipe for a healthy-ish fall bread that can serve as breakfast, a snack, or dessert. I actually left the recipe completely sugar-free and just put a homemade cream cheese icing on top, but you can make the call on that. I'd say a half cup of brown sugar would work just fine in there. Of course, I highly recommend frosting, or at least peanut butter or something, on the top. I made it over the weekend as a way to use up some gala apples, canned pumpkin, and extra frosting I had leftover from cookies the week before.
I followed all the food-blogging steps: created the recipe, constructed the recipe, photographed the recipe, blogged about the recipe. I'm definitely trying to get back in the groove here.
Pumpkin Apple Cake
makes one 8x8 pan
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup apple butter
1/4 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1 T. vanilla
Combine all the wet ingredients with a mixer.
Then, in a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients:
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 T. pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 cups flour
Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl.
Pour into a greased 8x8 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. I used a convection oven and it took longer than I thought it would. However, that also could've been the 6,000 foot elevation here. I recommend starting to check it around 25 minutes. You could also use a loaf pan and baking time would increase to about 45 minutes. Just check the middle with a butter knife or skewer before taking it out.
I digress.
This is a recipe for a healthy-ish fall bread that can serve as breakfast, a snack, or dessert. I actually left the recipe completely sugar-free and just put a homemade cream cheese icing on top, but you can make the call on that. I'd say a half cup of brown sugar would work just fine in there. Of course, I highly recommend frosting, or at least peanut butter or something, on the top. I made it over the weekend as a way to use up some gala apples, canned pumpkin, and extra frosting I had leftover from cookies the week before.
I followed all the food-blogging steps: created the recipe, constructed the recipe, photographed the recipe, blogged about the recipe. I'm definitely trying to get back in the groove here.
Pumpkin Apple Cake
makes one 8x8 pan
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup apple butter
1/4 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1 T. vanilla
Combine all the wet ingredients with a mixer.
Then, in a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients:
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 T. pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 cups flour
Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl.
Pour into a greased 8x8 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. I used a convection oven and it took longer than I thought it would. However, that also could've been the 6,000 foot elevation here. I recommend starting to check it around 25 minutes. You could also use a loaf pan and baking time would increase to about 45 minutes. Just check the middle with a butter knife or skewer before taking it out.
