Happy Thanksgiving!  Eric and I will be celebrating with my family, but from ages 18-25 I was single and on my own for Thanksgiving.  Sometimes I’d go to a restaurant with another single friend.  Sometimes I’d be invited to celebrate Thanksgiving with a friend and her husband.  A couple times I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for a few other single friends.  One thing everyone seemed to agree on was that there’s no point in cooking the HUGE Thanksgiving recipes for just 1-4 people.  It’s too much food, time, and expense.  So I thought I’d share a collection of recent recipes I’ve posted that are perfectly sized for a newlywed (or retired) couple, a few single friends, or cooking for yourself.  They’re also EXTREMELY affordable.  The entire meal you see below is under $5 a serving!

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I am a big fan of pumpkin pie, it’s on of the few food items I think is great for any meal.  I especially love making it with fresh pumpkin puree because there’s just something so right about knowing I really made it all from scratch.  (Wanna know how to cook a whole pumpkin and make your own puree?)  I thought about sharing a pumpkin pie recipe for the holidays, but really, they’re everywhere.  So I decided to change it up with something everyone loves…ICE CREAM YOU SCREAM WE ALL SCREAM FOR PUMPKIN PIE ICE CREAM!  Whew!  Got that out of my system.  This is a great dessert option for someone who isn’t confident in pie making.

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Would you vote for me to get to demo my recipe at the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival? Just click Buzz It for my Shrimp Alfredo Baskets.

We have a fun tradition that we’ve started with Eric’s family of doing some kind of  food “craft” for different holidays.  Many of you voted for our gingerbread house contest (we’ll have another one this year so make sure you vote again!), and there’s also been a Peeps diorama day for Easter.  But our most recent was, of course, a pumpkin carving day.

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Would you vote for me to get to demo my recipe at the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival? Just click Buzz It for my Shrimp Alfredo Baskets.

Happy Halloween!  I know several of you are carving pumpkins today, tomorrow I’ll show you Eric’s and my amazing pumpkin carving job.  It’s awesome!  Maybe you’ve noticed that grocery stores are dropping the price of their pumpkins starting today.  We got a giant pumpkin for free from our CSA, but I also bought some smaller ones to use in the kitchen.  Did you know that you can use every part of the pumpkin?  If you want to make your own pumpkin puree, the small sugar pumpkins work best, but this year I even used a small carving pumpkin and found it still tasted pretty good in my pumpkin bars.

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I LOVE pumpkin. It’s such a fun color, has this great earthy sweet taste, and is great for baking. I had some leftover pumpkin from my bundt cake and so decided to make some pumpkin crunch bars.

In Hawaii, Starbucks has a bakery that makes food exclusively for them. One of my favorite items was the pumpkin crunch cake. I remember a crunchy crumbly bottom, a smooth creamy and cheesy pumpkin layer, and a whip cream/cream cheese layer. I decided since I’m not the most experienced baker, first I’d try following a recipe that sounds similar.

I went with a Kraft recipe, and it was very yummy. Next time I’d make half the crust amount and do a whipped cream/cream cheese layer on top. I improvised the recipe a little, and only made half, making it in a loaf pan. Because it was a little thicker in the loaf pan I had to bake it 30 minutes instead of 25.

All in all, I was really happy with the bars (so was Eric). It’s great with whipped cream and a sprinkling of cinnamon (not a dumping like in my picture below!) Can you tell I’m loving my new camera?

Pumpkin Crunch Bars

serves 10

Ingredients

3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar, divided
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 stick cold butter
1/2 cup old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats, uncooked
1/4 cup chopped Pecans (I crushed mine instead of chopping)
1/2 cup Cream Cheese, softened
1 egg plus 1 egg white

1 cup canned pumpkin

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp ginger

Instructions

HEAT oven to 350°F. Line loaf pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides; grease foil. Mix flour, half the granulated sugar and all the brown sugar in medium bowl; cut in butter with a fork until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in oats and nuts.

RESERVE half of oat mixture; press remaining onto bottom of prepared pan. Bake 15 min. Beat cream cheese, remaining sugar, eggs, pumpkin and spice with mixer until well blended. Pour over crust; sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture.

BAKE 30 min.; cool 10 min. Use foil to transfer dessert from pan to wire rack; cool completely.