…but LOVED:
Author: DJones BranchingOut
Pushing 50 and it's time to try a few (maybe... 365?) new things.
This blog is not about reinventing oneself or one's life, but about how much fun one can have while going out on a limb and branching out.
Kicking anxiety's butt one day at a time, yeah!
Pumpkin Season!!!! I’m Way Ahead of You All… and a Pumpkin Bar Dessert Recipe to Share
…this is the time of year that everyone’s love affair with spices catch up with my year-round favorite flavors. I love all the warm spices that make the rounds every Autumn. Pumpkin spices in my coffee? Thanks a latte! Cinnamon spiced cereals? Yes, please. Throw it all into my grocery cart. May I have one of everything?
I bought the Trader Joe’s jar of Pumpkin Butter… always wanted to do something with this stuff. A little web searching came up with a blog that crossed the Williams Sonoma “Ooey Gooey Pumpkin Bars” with the Trader Joe’s ingredient at 1/6th the price.
And The Husband Sayeth: “It is good.” Good, my foot, these bars are GREAT. Thank you Sheila at SweetBakedLife.com for your Pumpkin Butter Dessert Bars– a delicious dessert that is too good to be served only one season of the year. Sheila made a few changes to the original recipe to the ever popular Williams Sonoma dessert so the proportions work with the slightly smaller jar of pumpkin butter from Trader Joe’s. Thanks for doing the work, Sheila, your recipe is dee-lish!
I followed her recipe nearly exactly, substituting a spice cake mix for the standard yellow butter cake. I also omitted the cinnamon in the topping… good call. The cake mix could stand on its own spices. The bars took less than 20 minutes to mix, layer up, top off with crumbles, then only 45 minutes to bake.
Served warm topped with ice cream or eaten out of hand, these are going to be in my regular rotation- any season, any occasion, any time.
Reduce? Reuse? Recycle? Plea for Craft Suggestions!!
Short Story: I need suggestions! What would you crafty, clever, creative people do with a bunch of small, glass 5 ounce jars?
I don’t just want to just put them in the recycle bin, and there are no lids for the jars (they come with a foil lid).
Ideas? Please??
Long Story: When we moved back to the West Coast, I knew that it meant losing Traders Point Organic Creamery, a local gem in the Indianapolis area. Here’s a secret: with enough whining, pleading, and repeated requests, dairy managers just might start carrying Traders Point for you, too. After only a few begging sessions from me, my favorite Midwest yogurt became available here, thanks to the fabulous Whole Foods dairy manager.
At first they carried just the quart jars in plain, Mango Banana, and Wild Berry flavors. Then, a few years later, the best flavor in the world (seriously, The Best, I would never exaggerate in a million years), Raspberry arrived but only in 5 oz glass jars.
Now I have a LOT of 5 oz glass jars.
Pinterest searches have turned up nothing, by the way. That surprised me.
Somebody Stop Me…
…I don’t have TIME to start watching another TV series! But, BBCA is replaying a bunch of Classic Doctor Who, and I’m curious to take in some of the series that used to scare me when I was little, ha!
So far I’ve caught episodes showing the creation of the Daleks and another with #4 regenerating.
Anyone else think that Sarah Jane is a bit milk-toasty? Meh. Those were the times, I guess. I prefer the butt-kicking Martha Jones companion…
Cabo Chips Churro flavor… Missing Something…
I picked up a bag of Cabo Chips at a grocery store near the beach recently, and broke them out last night for a taste testing.
Cabo Chips, Churro flavor… made me think of that side served by Taco Bell back in the 1980’s. I used to work at a Taco Bell in high school and one of my jobs was to fry all the tortillas for the taco salads and those fabulously cinnamon-y Cinnamon Crispas. If you think that they were not worth remembering, just do a search on Facebook and see how many people would like to see these cinnamon-dusted fried flour tortillas make a glorious comeback.
Honestly, I was hoping that the Cabo Chips would taste like the Cinnamon Crispas I used to fry up… but, it was not to be. While the bagged treat tasted nice, Cabo missed the boat with these by not using flour tortillas.
Too bad!
With corn tortilla chips the flavor just isn’t quite right.
Not bad, but not quite right.
branching out... on a limb 