Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

So when I decided to make these muffins this morning, the only thing I realized I didn't have were milk chocolate chips (who'd of thought?!) and the pumpkin purée. The chocolate chips were easy enough to find, but the pumpkin purée proved to be harder to find. I went to four different grocery stores before I found a can of pumpkin purée. Sigh....how was it so hard? Apparently, it has been a bad year for pumpkins.
Anyways, pumpkin purée problems aside, there's a fall recipe that I want to share with you all! I haven't had goo luck with muffin recipes in the past, but this one actually turned out really well, so I'm excited!! I'm writing this as I watch a marathon oh 'The Haunted' on Animal Planet. This recipe is for a batch of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins, which a perfect not only for fall but for Halloween because of their orange and black coloring!

Ingredients
1 3/4 cup flour
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup canned puréed pumpkin
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup milk chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400F and grease a muffin tin for 12 muffins.
Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk,  oil and pumpkin until smooth.
Fold in your chocolate chips. Use as many as you want, depends how chocolaty you want your muffins to be!
Scoop evenly into your muffin tin. (For this you can also use smaller muffin slots if you want, it's up to you and depends how many muffins you want to make.)
Bake for 20-30 minutes.
Best when they are warm, but delicious no matter what!

For me, this recipe made 12 good sized muffins.

I am sorry that my grammar has been going badly over the past few posts, that's what I get for typing on an iPad instead of my computer and for not double checking my work after...apologies!

Love,

Sara :)

Carved Pumpkins 2013

Yesterday I posted about the pumpkin farm and today I'm posting about what happened post-pumpkin farming. Pumpkin carving, whether we mean to or not, always tells something about the one who carves it. For instance, a person who carves a Pokemon into his or her pumpkin has probably just bought the most recent DS game or is a collector, plus they've got some sort of talent to be able to carve something like that. I too would like to think that our pumpkins tell a little bit about the people who carved them. My pumpkin (the first picture) is of a surprised pumpkin face with my own hands on the sides as if its hands are on its cheeks in shock and surprise. It feels this way because of the other three pumpkins, which include a Bat-signal for Batman, a big-eyed cat, and a wolf howling at the mood. With that combination, who wouldn't be a little shocked? It is I suppose a bit like seeing the superheros together...you got Batman, Catwoman, and....Wolfman?

And night time wouldn't be any less scary, although my pumpkin is starting to look a bit like a scarecrow or a witch or a mix between the two....but hey! It was a spur of the moment carve! I was the only one who didn't plan out what I was going to carve. 

I still say that one of the best parts of carving the pumpkins was not just the carving of them but also the removing of pumpkin guts, as well as having coffee and good talks with friends and family. These both were in abundance the night we carved pumpkins.

Love,

Sara :)

Picking Pumpkins 2013

When I was younger, my family used to go out and get pumpkins for carving at local pumpkin patches and I remember loving going out on the tractor rides and picking my pumpkin off the vine. However, as my family grew and stuff began happening, it got harder and harder or my family to go out and do these things such as picking out pumpkins and even picking out Christmas trees (not to mention my mother turned out to be allergic to the real trees), it even went so far as my family didn't carve pumpkins this year for trick-or-treating! Well, this year is my first year back from college and Matt and his family ensured that I started out carving pumpkins for Halloween. But first we went out to get pumpkins this morning at a pumpkin patch about 20 minutes away. I was brought back to my childhood memories of running around and finding the perfect pumpkin.

This is the small group of us who went out this past Saturday to pick pumpkins. Wen ended up with quite the haul of pumpkins, both big and small, and gourds. We got four pumpkins to be carved and each pumpkin was less than $10, which is quite awesome and is why we go to this particular farm I guess. My pumpkin was 27 lbs, and I got three miniature pumpkins that I may paint later on, one of them being white! I love the white pumpkins because they always look the coolest! I'll post pictures of the carved pumpkins next! But I hope that you all are enjoying fall (if you have it, parts of Minnesota and I hear New York already have snow!). Fall is definitely my first or second favorite season because of all the colors and going pumpkin harvesting just adds to the colorfulness of the season! I look forward to hearing about your fall traditions and how Halloween goes for you.

Love,

Sara :)

Pinning Pumpkins

I've seen painted pumpkins before on Pinterest for Halloween, but they never seemed to be as big as they are this year! People are really getting creative with this different version of decorating for Halloween. I do understand the draw for like younger kids: less of a mess for the parents to clean up, but it still stands that I have found myself more and more interested in trying out one or some of these new pumpkin ideas myself this year. Now, I haven't done my Halloween decorating yet this year, but I will be getting on that as soon as I have a day off of work...so next weekend? I'm not sure when that will be exactly, but when I do get to my pumpkins I will for sure share them with you! For now, here are some painted pumpkins that I have been pinning on Pinterst lately!

From here

From here

From here

From here

From here

Also, you can follow me on Pinterst here.

Lastly, Matt just got Pokemon X and is very unwilling to go to bed tonight even though he works early tomorrow morning because he wants to play :P It's amusing and adorable!

Love,

Sara