Easy Autumn Breakfasts! French Toasts, Pancakes and Waffles

I told you all last week that I'd post a great Pumpkin French Toast recipe, sorry I couldn't do it. Soooo instead of just one, I have 3 recipes for you!!! I love y'all.

First up: Pumpkin French Toast. I found a pin on the ever so great Pinterest for Pumpkin French toast. How easy is that? Made some for my son's breakfast and he DEVOURED it!



Ingredients
About 4-6 slices if bread- your preference-whole-wheat or white
1/2 cup milk (almond, dairy, soy- i used vanilla soy milk)
1/3 cup pumpkin puree
1 egg
3 tablespoon of sweetener of choice- (I used maple syrup)
1/2 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spices (or a 1/2 tsp worth of nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves)
a pat of butter or coconut oil (for that brown flavorful crust!)
A pinch of salt

Directions:
Allow bread to dry out on a plate overnight.
The next morning, or whenever you make this, mix all ingredients except for the butter/coconut oil and the bread. Pre-heat skillet or griddle to medium heat. One piece of bread at a time, soak the bread in the pumpkin mixture per side until the bread feels slightly spongy. Cook in skillet for about 3 minutes per side. If you're making a lot, preheat oven to about 100C-200F and add the  cooked french toast to a sheet pan or any oven-proof dish. Repeat until you're done! Top with whatever you please! We topped with maple syrup. I also love fruits, or confectioner's sugar!


Next, these are pumpkin pancakes I made using annie eats recipe. I added pecans, and just used 3/4 cup of whole wheat white flour from King Arthur's Flour. HEAVENLY and it freezes quite well!!!



Last but not least, my favorite recipe from this weekend- Sweet Potato Waffles with Homemade Blueberry Glaze!!! YUMMM! Found this recipe from the Mayo Clinic. I Made a few changes to my taste. Enjoyed by all!

Ingredients

For the syrup
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
6 tablespoon honey
Pinch of ground cinnamon

1/3 cup peeled and diced sweet potato, or 1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup 1% milk (or any milk of you choice)
2 tablespoons coconut oil

2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 egg
Directions

To make the syrup, in a saucepan, combine the blueberries, lemon juice and zest, honey, , and cloves. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer until the berries burst and the juices are slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Frozen berries may take slightly longer to thicken. Set aside and keep warm.

If using sweet potato, bring a small saucepan half full of water to a boil. Add the sweet potato, return to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until very tender, about 10 minutes.  (I roasted a large sweet potato for 45 minutes)  Drain and puree in a food processor or mash with a potato masher until smooth. Set aside. If using pumpkin puree, reserve.

In a small bowl, sift together the flours, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and ginger. In a large bowl, whisk together the milk, sweet potato puree, coconut oil, egg brown sugar. Add the flour mixture and stir just until combined.

Place a baking sheet in the oven and preheat to 225 F. Preheat a waffle iron. Spoon or ladle about 1/2 cup batter into the waffle iron, depending on the size of the iron. Spread evenly and cook according to the manufacturer's instructions. If the batter thickens, thin with a little soy milk. Transfer the waffle to the baking sheet in the oven to keep warm. Repeat with the remaining batter to make 6 waffles. Serve topped with the syrup.

ENJOY!!!!!

Simple Simple Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

My boys love pumpkin!!! I woke up early Monday morning to make them  breakfast mostly featuring pumpkin. Here's one and I'll post the other tomorrow!

My husband love this pumpkin pie smoothie


Simple Simple Pumpkin Pie Smoothie
Serves 1
1/2 cup pure pumpkin puree (or any squash you have handy)
1/2 cup coconut milk (any milk you want)
1/2 of a banana (frozen for a thicker cool smoothie)
1/4 cup frozen raspberries or any berry (i used this to make it sweeter omit if you want use the sweetener of your choosing)
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin  pie spices
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon flax seeds (optional)
1 tablespoon wheat germ (optional)
I didn't put any sweeteners in this. But you can put a tablespoon (or your taste) of any sweetener you choose. Maple syrup or brown sugar would be awesome in this!

Directions:
Add each ingredient to blenders in the order listed. Blend to your pleasing. Add more or less liquids if desired!

Hope you all enjoy!!!!

Sorta Wordless Wednesday- It's Autumn, y'all!

I love Autumn, it's my favorite time of the year. The clean-ish crisp air, the beautiful auburn leaves, the chilly breezes, wearing jackets again (well we were wearing coats this summer, but let's not get into that we're talking about fall!), pumpkins, sweet potatoes,  women walking around in cleavage revealing dirndls and men in leather overalls, beer and wine fests and a shit load of orange stuff! I freaking love this time of year! We have 3 birthdays in this house from Sept-Nov, we have Halloween where the children work.....erm go trick or treating so mommy and daddy can pig out on their hard earned candy, and my favorite holiday THANKSGIVING! The last few autumns we had some hard times, but for whatever reason, we never let it get us down. From September to December 31st I am pretty much happy most of the time. Anyway, this is supposed to be wordless Wednesday. Please forgive me, I don't have my dSLR right now, this summer along with a bunch of other electronics in my house, it suddenly stopped working. So we're working on that, in the meantime, check out our fall decor. It's not really looking like autumn outside, so be bought it in, plus I am not creative enough to go out and make  real sticks and leaves looks nice.

 I should be posting more regularly! I have so much to share. I may do a Deployment Sunday so I can share stories and photos from our eventful 6 months without the husband. The children and I traveled all over Germany so look out for that :)


OK I'll shut-up!

Starting School is a sign Fall's a'coming! My son started Kindergarten at the DOD school here. He is so ecstatic. His father is German and he is fluent in the language, but he didn't like the German kindergarten he went to. He complained that no one spoke English, I told him that you can speak German and we live in Germany! Oh, well. He is a lot happier in the Elementary school on base and he has a little girlfriend. She'd always give him hugs which he "hated" and now he loves her to chase and she's his 'favorite' best friend. So sweet. Anywho, here's his first day off the bus.

It's not really looking like Fall yet....yeah I know today is the first day. But we've been buying autumn stuff for the house since August when they were first on display. I have issues. I really freaking love Fall.

 Yes a Mass (beer glass) is totally fall decor :) Who am I fooling, it's there year around- #lazy.

We used to keep a pumpkin outside our door, but every year someone steals it after Halloween. I was thinking about putting some kind of firecrackers inside and they'd get a bit surprise, but I think keeping it inside would result in significantly less jail time. :D

This is from the parade preceding the Wine fest in my town. We didn't go because we had other plans and the days following it was rainy and cold. I have photos from when I went last year on this blog:)

Blocked street! Yeah, lets go the other way.

I hope to post more frequently soon. Thank you for reading! Next up, check out my fall recipes! I've only been blogging little over a year so it's not totally overwhelming. A lot of sweet potatoes, though! Tschuess!!!

Easy Pumpkin Pie Muffins

It's officially Autumn!

Welcome to my home!

I am so excited about all the produce of the season! But, I must confess. I cheated. Yes, ladies and gentlemen I cheated. I had to! My husband is currently away as most military members are, so I had to make quick with what I had.

My friend Becca and I planned a baking day last week and we both agreed pumpkin would be the perfect thing to bake since it's the first week of Autumn! Between the two of us we have 5 children under 4, so we decided canned pumpkin was the way to go this time around! However, while shopping at my friendly commissary,  I found that there was NO canned pumpkin. All that was left was some canned pumpkin pie filling! So, I searched the commissary for some fresh pumpkin with the intent to roast, season and puree it myself. Guess what? No pumpkins!!! I was so upset, because here I am at 7:30pm with three hungry, tired, rowdy children and all I have is canned pumpkin pie filling! So I looked at the ingredients list to see if I can maybe alter a recipe a bit, and then I saw that there was a recipe for muffins I had in mind on the back label.  I love challenges, so I bought it. I checked out the website and everything seemed pretty easy so I went to bed.

So yesterday we were ready to bake, and I saw that I read all-purpose baking flour as all purpose flour! Shoot! After a brief panic session, I found a great pumpkin muffin recipe and altered it a bit. Boy, were these delicious!! And soooo easy. The girls loved helping, and my son loved eating them! So it wasn't much of a kitchen disaster after all. I love when there's a light at the end of the funnel. Get it? OK, no more jokes. On to the recipe!

The Pumpkinator

Pumpkin Pie Muffins with Pecan Crumble Topping

Adapted from American Food Recipes 

For the muffins:

3 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup butter, melted

1/4 cup light brown sugar 

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup cream

1 1/4 cup canned pumpkin pie filling

For Pecan Crumble

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup softened butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F and oil muffin tin or add cups. Makes 12 muffins

For pecan crumble, mix all ingredients except for pecans with your hands until you have a crumby texture. Stir in pecans then set aside. 

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream sugar and butter until creamy with whisk or mixer. Add eggs and vanilla until combined. Alternate adding flour mixture and milk and cream until combined. Gently mix in pumpkin, and be sure to not over mix!

Evenly distribute muffin batter then add crumble. A batter and sprinkle fairies does the trick well!

Bake for 30 minutes or until tops are golden and toothpick comes clean when inserted in the middle. 

Happy Eating!

Kid Approved! 

These muffins were so moist with the perfect crunch from the topping! A must try for sure!

Enjoy!!