Pumpkin Waffles

It is officially the season of everything Pumpkin...lucky us!  Pumpkin spice is one of my favorite flavor profiles and seems to make things I love taste just a little bit better.

I like mine with a little frosting drizzle instead of syrup.  The recipe for the drizzle is below.

So...no need for further introduction...

Pumpkin Waffles

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 eggs
2 cups of milk
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
1 can pumpkin puree

Directions:
In a large bowl mix the flour, baking powder. sugar, salt, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

In a medium bowl whisk together the eggs and milk.  Add the cooled butter and continue whisking.  Add the vanilla and pumpkin puree and whisk until well combined.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dried ingredients and whisk until well combined.

Cook in a waffle maker set to the longest cook time (around 4-5 minutes is what I usually do).

When the waffle maker cook time is over remove the waffle and top with frosting drizzle or syrup.

The waffle will be crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.  Yum.

Makes 5-6 Belgian Waffles.

You can freeze leftover waffles (if there are any) and reheat in the toaster for later enjoyment.


Frosting Drizzle

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
Mix the ingredients together and drizzle over waffles.

An Apple A Day...

When we lived in Wisconsin we had a beautiful old apple tree in our backyard that produced an insane amount of apples.  Like Strega Nona's pot, the supply of food from my tree was never ending.  For several weeks every Fall we would pick apples and make fantastic creations with our bounty.  My favorite by far though was always making apple sauce...

I am not a canner...I worry too much about food safety and was paranoid that I would not get it right and kill us all, so I almost always just made my applesauce for the refrigerator or freezer (except the one year when my expert canner friend offered to come over and help me...thank goodness for people who know things that I do not).

After trying a few different ways to make applesauce, I realized that my favorite is skin on, no sugar, touch of cinnamon, true perfection.

I love Texas, but I really miss my apples...

Elizabeth's Applesauce  

Ingredients:
However many apples you have (usually 3-5 pounds works best), cut from the core in a large dice
1-2 cups of water, you can always add more if needed
2 cinnamon sticks

Directions:
Place the apples into a large pot and pour in 1 cup of water.  The water should just cover the bottom of the pan around the apples.  If the water does not quite cover the bottom of the pan add an additional cup of water.  Bury the cinnamon sticks in the apples and place the pot over medium high heat.  When the mixture starts to bubble turn the heat down to medium low and simmer.

Cook the mixture until the apples are quite tender and then remove the pot from the heat and let it cool for 5-10 minutes.  When the mixture has cooled removed the cinnamon sticks and discard them.
Place an immersion blender into the applesauce and blend until you reach your desired consistency.  Spoon the applesauce in freezer safe jars and put them in the freezer until you are ready to use them.  (Make sure that you leave at least an inch of headspace for possible expansion during freezing.  They can also go straight into the refrigerator if you plan to eat it immediately...

But...

I feel that I would be remiss if I did not mention that the absolute best way to eat this applesauce is warm from the stovepot.  Try it, you won't regret it.

(NOTE: If you do not have an immersion blender you can use a potato masher, or you can put it into a regular blender.  If you put it into a regular blender you need to cool it for an additional 10-15 minutes and use caution as hot items in blenders can cause burns.)

Rice Krispie Treats For Adults...And Kids...

I have an unhealthy obsession with Rice Krispie Treats...like a six year old girl style love for this bad for you treat.  My friends used to wonder if I had some form of arrested development, but eventually they gave into my problem and started buying me the super big kind that you can get at the gas station whenever they saw them.  I found over the years that I was willing to try almost any version that I could find of this delish goody, but they always fell a little short of something that I would actually serve at a party...for adults...like next to the tarts and the cheescakes and all of the other adult food.

Enter my insomniac idea...

I was laying in bed the other night going through the thousand things on the "to do" list and I remembered that I have to make the regular version of Rice Krispie Treats for my kids' school next month.  For some reason, with my eyes closed the treats looked different in my head than they normally look in the pan.  They had pretzels and m&m's and marshmallows, oh my!  And so was born this creation...

Adult Rice Krispie Treats

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons of salted butter

10 ounces of marshmallows

6 cups of Rice Krispies

1/2 cup of broken pretzel pieces (not smashed, just broken)

1/2 cup mini marshmallows

1/2 cup mini m&m candies

Cooking spray

Directions:

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium high heat being careful not to burn it.

When the butter is melted add the marshmallows and stir until they are all melted.  If the marshmallows start to bubble, turn down the heat. 

When the mixture if fully melted, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the Rice Krispies.  Stir for 20-30 seconds, and then add the pretzels, marshmallows, and m&m candies.  Continue stirring until combined.

At this point spray the bottom of a 9x13 pan and turn the mixture out into the pan.  Spray a piece of waxed paper and use it to press the mixture evenly into the pan.  At this point the recipe looks like chaos...there are broken shards of everything...just ignore that and keep going.    

Wait 10-15 minutes for the treats to cool and then cut and serve.  Eat slowly and enjoy feeling like a kid again :)

These can also be frozen to savor later.  If freezing, cut the treats and put them on a sheet pan covered with parchment paper.  Freeze for 4-6 hours and then place in large ziploc baggies.  Freeze for up to two months.    

Give Away--Penzey's Spices!

Please leave a comment below telling me what your favorite spice is to be entered into a drawing to win this awesome pack of Penzey's Spices!

Penzey's is in no way sponsoring this, I just wanted to share some of my favorite spices with my readers and viewers!

You can enter through Friday at noon.

Happy eating!

XO,
The Kitchen Tart

Bored With Lobster...

This is a photo of me sometime in the 1980's at the ripe age of three or four looking thoroughly bored with lobster..

For those who grew up in any area of the country other than where I did (New England) this may be an unthinkable situation, but there were times where it was less expensive to buy lobster than steak...and I think that this must have been one of those times.

Additionally, I grew up spending many summers in Maine with my grandparents, and my grandmother felt it her duty to provide her guests with as much lobster as they wanted (which as you can imagine probably made her have a facial expression similar to mine at times).

So...let's get creative with the things that you can do with lobster...

Jamie Oliver has a recipe for lobster mac and cheese that will make your family and guests think that you got it from a fancy steak house.

You can make lobster pizza.  My grandmother did this once or twice and I have to admit that while interesting, it was not necessarily my favorite.  I do not remember my grandmother's having bacon on it, but this recipe from the New York Times includes that as a tasty additional treat.

This lobster risotto recipe from Williams-Sonoma will likely leave your mouth feeling like it has just experienced heaven.

...but I always fall back to the thing that has always left me with a smile...a simple, New England style Lobster Roll.  No extra filler.  A buttery bun.  Cains mayo.  Here is the recipe...


New England Lobster Roll

Ingredients:
1 lb. freshly picked lobster meat, chopped
Cains mayonnaise to taste
2 New England style hot dog rolls
2 Tbsp. Butter, softened

Directions:
Move your oven rack to the top position and turn the broiler on.

Place the picked lobster meat in a bowl and add a spoonful or two of Canes mayonnaise.  You want to lightly coat the meat, but you do not want the mayonnaise flavor to overpower the flavor of the lobster meat.

Butter both sides of two New England style hot dog rolls.  Place them under the broiler with one of the buttered sides up.  Watch the buns carefully and remove them when they start to brown.  Flip the buns and repeat the same thing with the other side of the bun.  Remove them from the oven when both sides have a nice buttery yellow center and crispy light-brown edge.

Place half of the meat in each of the two buns.

Stop here.  Do not do anything else to the food.  Except, of course, eat it.