Cooking/Baking frenzy

I got inspired yesterday to hide my horrible hair in the kitchen where there are no mirrors. I stopped by a cool kitchen store on Newbury Street after my French class and found a couple fun cookie cutters. I also roasted a small sugar pumpkin the other day and wanted to use the innards so I made my mother's famous pumpkin bars. I'm not sure where she got this recipe but I'm going to share it!

Pumpkin Bars

1 1/2 Cups Whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 Teaspoon Baking powder
2 teaspoons Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup mashed pumpkin, cooked or canned
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/4 raisins

Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt & soda. Add pumpkin, milk, oil, vanilla, eggs.
Beat at med. speed 2 minutes
Stir in raisins
13 x 9 " pan, grease bottom only
350 degrees for 25-30 minutes
Frost with Butterscotch frosting immediately after taking out of the oven.

Butterscotch Frosting
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tblspn butter
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar, sifted.
1-2 Tblspn milk
1/2 teas. vanilla

Combine brown sugar and butter in small saucepan, place over low heat and stir and cook until butter melts and sugar is dissolved.
Stir in powdered sugar, milk and vanilla. Remove from heat and spread.

I ran out of brown sugar part way through and instead of doing the smart thing and walking to the store 4 blocks away, I found that you could "make" brown sugar by adding molasses to white sugar. I did this for the cake part, which was fine, but then I also did it with the frosting and now it tastes a little molassey. It may not be noticiable that this is a bad thing to somebody who has never had the bars before, but to me they taste a little funny. Not like my mommy's. But everything tastes better when your mom makes it, doesn't it?

Then I made sugar cookies in the shapes of pumpkins and cats. Even though Frenchie got home from work very late I forced him to get his creative juices flowing and decorate with me. He definitely rose to the challenge.





These are mine, not quite as impressive


For dinner I made chili again, this time using the recipe that Lauren recommended. I had ground beef instead of chuck but it was still amazing. I served it with Trader Joe's new Organic Corn Chips. They are like Fritos except without the gross trans-fat stomach ache that follows. Definitely not healthy but really good with chili. I highly recommend them. We also tried TJ's new Simple Times lager, their new cheap beer. It was not that good but sort of counteracted the extreme sugar we were surrounded by while decorating.