Sweet and Kickin' Pecans

Welp, I am doing another mini-sugar detox right now. This time for 2 weeks before I'm off to Buffalo for a family member's wedding. I find detoxing is so much easier when you have a lot of items on deck, especially snack type food. One of my favorite go-to detox snack is nuts, but sometimes just eating plain nuts gets boring, so I decided to get a little creative and spice things up a bit.

The bag that inspired it all

My inspiration came from the back of a bag of pecan halves I got from my local Albertson's. Their recipe included corn syrup and sugar, so I had to make a few modifications to make my version 21DSD approved. I was a little nervous as I wasn't sure what exactly was a good substitute for corn syrup (and I am sure I could have just Googled it, but I was feeling lazy) and I wasn't sure how to balance out for omitting a half a cup of sugar (again, probably could have Googled it, but what's the fun in that?). Also, because I've never cooked nuts before.

I was pleasantly surprised with the results as there were quite a few moments of panic (Can you really use coconut oil instead of corn syrup? Where's my pure vanilla extract? Oh no! The butter just exploded in the microwave! Was that too much cinnamon? Was that too much cayenne pepper?). But my worries were unfounded as the final product was delicious.

Sweet and Kickin Pecans

16 ounces pecan halves
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 350.

Line a cookie sheet with greased aluminum foil. In a large bowl, mix together pecans, coconut oil butter and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and mix until well coated. Spread onto the cookie sheet and bake for 5 minutes. Stir and continue baking another 5 minutes. Spread pecans onto parchment paper and let cool.

Pumpkin Crumble Muffins

I found this recipe on a blog that I follow, High Altitude Bakes. I thought the muffins looked awesome, but then I realized that the recipe called for hazelnut - and I can't stand hazelnut (which is really unfortunately because I really love the idea of Nutella). I decided to modify the ingredients to my own liking, which was fortunate, because it turns out that both my MIL and SIL don't care for hazelnut either. I was nervous about the results, since the original recipe calls for 1/2 cup of ground hazelnut. A HALF CUP! Yikes. Fortunately, my modifications worked out just fine.

On Christmas morning, my husband and I got up early to make breakfast for his family. He did most of the work, but I did contribute these muffins. And these awesome outfits:

My FIL ate one of the muffins the night before, which I found out while I was arranging the muffins on the tray for our buffet breakfast. I would love to say that the design was on purpose, but it was purely by happy accident.

The amount of crumble made for this recipe is enough for 2 batches so I saved the leftover crumble and made these New Years Day. They were so good still warm from the oven that when we ate them throughout the week we heated them up in the microwave.

Pumpkin Crumble Muffins

Crumble:
1 stick butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

In a saucepan, melt butter. Add sugars, flour and spices. Mix until flour is moistened and mixture presses easily into crumbs. This makes enough for two batches, so you can refrigerate the leftovers and use the next time (or for something else).

 Muffins:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/3 cup canola oil

1 cup canned pumpkin

2 eggs

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Grease muffin tin (12 count). Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl. In a mixer, mix together oil, pumpkin, eggs, spices, sugar and vanilla. Fold in the dry ingredients until just combined. Place batter into muffin tin in equal portions. Cover with crumb mixture. Bake for 15-22 minutes or until the tops spring lightly when touched.

Pumpkin Bread

First, I need to explain why this post is so delayed. Especially since I am so backed up on my posts (and there are quite a few pumpkin treats). But, I feel like I have a very valid excuse. I was on my honeymoon! Yes, I got married over 11 months ago, but when you elope, especially right before Christmas, there's not much time to plan, let alone time for, a honeymoon. So there you have it, my extremely valid excuse for being an absentee blogger.

Wanna look like a rock star this Thanksgiving and not have to do a lot of work for it? Then this, my friends is the recipe for you. It's super easy and super tasty and I was even told it was "better than Starbucks'." Yup. I got the recipe from my favorite high altitude tome. I've made it a few times and it's always a hit!

**Update - In my haste to get this post out, I forgot to include this awesome picture of my friend, Angela, enjoying a piece of pumpkin bread topped with a Frosted Pumpkin Cookie. Apparently it was delicious this way.

Pumpkin Bread

1 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin
1/3 cup water
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups sugar

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine dry ingredients (excluding the sugar) and set aside. In a mixing bowl, mix pumpkin, water, eggs, oil and sugar together until smooth. Add dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Pour into a greased 9x5 loaf pan. Bake for 60-65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

A Day in the Life

I work for the federal government, and two weeks ago I deemed "non-essential" and was furloughed during the shut-down. I was getting stir-crazy (don't worry, there has be PLENTY of baking I'll be blogging about) and complained to my husband about it. He suggested that he plan a day for me and since I was running out of things to do, I readily agreed. So yesterday, I had a Ryan Day. Here's what was on the agenda:

 

Here's a break-down of how it went:

9:30 - run

10:15 - shower

Outfit for the day (per instructions):

10:30 - coffee and imgur

I wasn't sure if "Coffee - Dunkin" meant drink Dunkin Donuts coffee or drink coffee with Dunkin, so I did both:

 10:50 - Breaking Bad, episode 1

 Ryan put Breaking Bad on the list because he has been wanting to get me to watch the show and I have no interest (yes, I realize this makes me weird). My thoughts on this episode? The scene of Walt and his wife in bed after his surprise party was extremely uncomfortable. Yeah, not much else to add.

12:00 - Breaking Bad, episode 2, beer #1

I figured I'd just go ahead and get Breaking Bad out of the way. After episode 2 I was still not interested in the series. Ryan told me a just need to watch two more. I have a feeling after two more episodes, he'll just tell me to watch two more until I've watched the whole series. No thanks.

1:10 - lunch, beer #2, imgur

 Here's a snidbit of a convo between Ryan and me at this point:

Ryan:

how is it going?

me:

Making grilled cheeses

I'm drunk after one beer so I need foods

Ryan:

nice.

this pleases me

me:

haha

I was going to order pizza but it was just soooo complicated

My stomach had not been feeling well before I had started my day, but I decided to go through with the day anyway. That, combined with the fact that I hadn't had anything in my stomach, cause me to go from 0 to drunk in one beer.

1:30 - Army of Darkness, beer #3 and 4

 

2:10 - Soup

Yes, straight from the container (yes, I heated it up).

This is how Army of Darkness went:

me:

Army of Darkness takes place in medieval times?

am I watching the right movie?

Ryan:

oh yeah

me:

okay

me:

are you sure this isn't Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

...

me:

I thought he had a saw for an arm?

or is this not Ash

Ryan

good lord what are you watching?

me:

oh

now he does

I swear he didn't have it before

Ryan:

yeah he didnt have it on for long in the begining when he was a 'slave'

me:

oh

so...it just magically came back?

Ryan:

the wizard guy gives it to him

me:

this movie is confusing

because beer

my confusion is partly because I took a bathroom break and didn't pause

I can't back that up

I didn't know what was going on before I went to the bathroom

...

me:

he swallowed a tiny version of himself and now he has two heads?

I'm not asking for me, Dunkin wanted to know

...

me:

omg the animation is TERRIBLE

it's like claymation?

no, claymation is better

And some of my favorite lines from the movie: 

"You know, your shoelace is untied."  

"Yo! She Bitch…Let's go."

"I've got a bone to pick with you." 

"Buckle up, bonehead, cause you're going for a ride."

3:10 - NAP

4:25 - beer #5 and imgur

 

4:40 - The Last Starfighter, beer #6

I could see why my husband loved this movie as a kid. A kid gets a high score on an arcade and then is recruited to fight in an intergalactic war. I'm sure every time Ryan played one of his games he thought it might be the day he got picked to join space war. While watching this, Ryan came home and we ate leftovers and my Ryan day was complete. I was sad I didn't get to play any video games, but overall, I think the day was quite successful.