Pumpkin Oat Scones

Starbucks has amazing scones, but they're huge and usually have tons of calories. Which is fine, if you're eating a scone for a meal, or if you split it or save some for later. But let's face it: you're going to Starbucks for a fancy drink and you're planning on eating the whole thing. That's why you're there!

If you look up a recipe for scones with the intention of making them at home, and, theoretically, lower calorie, I think you'll still be disappointed. Most recipes I found were still pretty hefty in calories.

So, I adapted a recipe to make it a little lighter. They came out fantastic! Around 100 calories, and not the size of a piece of birthday cake.

Pumpkin Oat Scones
(recipe and nutritional information)


Ingredients:

1.5 cups wheat flour
1.5 cups oats
1 tbs baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup pumpkin
1/2 - 3/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Combine dry ingredients, then add in wet ingredients. Mix until just combined.
2. Split dough into two balls. Roll each ball into a disk about 1/2" thick, and cut into 8 slices.
3. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.
   

I also made some apple butter in the slow cooker. The two were an amazing match. (The apple butter was also an amazing addition to a boring oatmeal packet, but I digress.) But, I'd recommend freezing half until you want them; I ended up throwing out quite a few because they got moldy. Sad times, but I'll be making these again!

Halloween

Ah, Halloween. Such a great holiday on it's own, on top of kicking off the Holiday Season.

The holiday weekend kicked off with my work party. I love potlucks where people take great pride in what they bring. You have never seen so much food in your life! I made a giant candy corn cupcake cake for my contribution.



We started the holiday proper with the annual Pumpkin run, and reminisced about the previous years when 3.1 miles seemed like crossing a continent. Even though a 5k has become a "light" run for me these days, I didn't feel so great that morning. I still did extremely well, but I missed my PR and 3rd place in my age division by five seconds. Ouch.

In fact, I'm sort of embarrassed about it. First, that I didn't keep up my continuous improvement. And then second, that I was upset about my time at all. Four years ago, breaking 30 minutes was my ultimate running goal. This year I did 27:53. The lesson here is to make this motivate me to work harder for next year!

Afterward, we had some celebratory pumpkin spice lattes and finished setting up the house for wine and Halloween candy tasting. It was a spur of the moment idea, and it came out well!


Even though the day was supposed to be about candy, I made a veggie platter and bruschetta. I'm happy to say while there was candy left over, the healthy stuff was gone! I have such smart friends. I also made popcorn balls and apple chips, although these were both fails. The apple chips were in the oven nearly all day, and never quite got crispy. The popcorn balls turned into a solid ball when I put them in a bowl; I didn't have a candy thermometer to check the temperature. But I'm sure these will appear in the future - they were much easier to make than anticipated!

When it got dark, we handed out candy to the neighborhood kids. My favorites were the under-five set; you can immediately tell they don't know what's going on yet, and they're not sure if they want to be a part of it. Too cute! We gave out candy until we ran out, except I discovered another two bags today! Those will have to go to the Operation Gratitude drive.

I used leftover cake batter from the cupcake cake to send candy corn cupcakes to work with the husband. From what I hear, they went over pretty well. And they do look rather cute, if I do say so myself.


I hope your Halloween was fun, happy, and safe! Now, on to Thanksgiving. I can't wait!

Party Ideas

A while back, we had a little get together at our house. I don't want to call it a party, so we'll just leave it at that.

There were a lot of people, so we just got one of those giant sandwich trays from Costco. Love those, by the way. They're always a win.

Now, no event at my house is complete without me cooking something.

Bread is pretty simple to make, believe it or not, so I made a couple of loaves with garlic mixed in, and topped with tomatoes and olives to serve with cheese. Yum. Too bad no one really liked olives.
Then I had the creative idea to serve a simple, easy, but unique dessert. Smores!

Yes, I know most of the fun of these is getting to play with fire in a semi-dangerous situation, but it was mid-day and there were a lot of people. And yes, these are just marshmallows dipped in chocolate and rolled in crushed up graham crackers. And ... they sort of look like little mushrooms. Which would be cute for a garden themed party right?

But I swear I set out a couple of plates of these (LOTS of marshmallows) and they were all gone.

Chickpeas!

So I'm scrolling through foodgawker after work one day and see a photo of a popcorn bucket full of crispity, crunchity chickpeas. Really? A healthy alternative to chips?

Essentially, you flavor the chickpeas however you like, and bake them at 400 degrees for 40 minutes, stirring periodically. I couldn't decide between sweet and spicy, so I put honey and cinnamon on one half of the can, and olive oil and cayenne on the other half.

Forty minutes later I had these. I tried a hot one of each, straight out of the oven. I think the sweet ones were a little overcooked, and they didn't taste very sweet. The spicy ones were a little better, only because they were flavorful.

Imagine a flavored nut mix. That's sort of what these taste like.

I'd make them again, but not be shy on the seasoning. And I'd make more! Time to invest in some dry bean bags, rather than my oh-so-convenient cans.

**edit: Still totally love these. I went out and bought a couple of bags of dried chickpeas, but they are a PAIN in the BUTT. Sure, they're cheap, but you really have to plan ahead, and that's just not something I'm going to do.

It's looking at me.

One day I came home from work, and wanted a snack. Specifically, bread and butter. Most people would probably just get a slice of bread and eat that but me? I have to make some skillet bread.

Everything was going fine until I flipped it onto a plate ...



I ate it anyway.