Gooey Butter Pumpkin Cake

This blog post is going to be about a dessert….one of my favs, in fact.  But first I have to mention something about hair….my hair, in fact.  ( Am I allowed to use “in fact” like that in a sentence?) 

I have fairly curly hair.  Back in the day when I was a cosmetologist, people used to want a perm just like mine….but mine wasn’t a perm.  It was totally cool in the 90’s to have big curly hair like mine.  But now it’s just a mess.  Here’s a picture of me and my hair in Hawaii.

Sometimes I try and straighten my hair.  It’s pretty cool when I do that, but it takes me about an hour and that makes me crazy.

Mostly I just throw it up in a messy pony.  Like this morning, when my husband and I took the dog for a walk and I was thinking it looked pretty good…..ponytail with loose curly tendrils gently blowing in the breeze.  My husband even commented, “Nice hair.”  Evidently, I missed the sarcasm in his voice because when I looked in the mirror when I got home, this is what I witnessed……

Looks like I need a cup of coffee and some of the Gooey Butter Pumpkin Cake that I made last night, for breakfast.

Gooey Butter Pumpkin Cake

TGFPD (That’s Thank Goodness for PaulaDeen)

Printable Recipe

Ingredients 

Cake:
1 18 1/4-ounce package yellow cake mix 
1 egg
8 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:
1 15-ounce can of pumpkin
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened 
3 eggs 
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 16-ounce box powdered sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

To make the cake, combine all of the ingredients and mix well.  Pat the mixture into a lightly greased 13x9-inch baking pan. 

Prepare filling:
In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and pumpkin until smooth.  Add the eggs, vanilla, and butter and beat together. Next, add the powdered sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and mix well. Spread pumpkin mixture over cake batter and bake for 40 to 50 minutes.  Make sure not to over bake as the center should be a little gooey.

Serve with fresh whipped cream.  

Making a bad hair day better.....one blog post at a time.  Enjoy!

Linking up with:

Autumn Risotto with Chicken and Cranberries

The air is beginning to get a little bit cooler here in Japan……less humid.  I can’t wait to take the girlies down to the Tama River and get another great photo like this one…..

Or this one....

What is wrong with my family?

This weekend though, we have a swim meet (GO STINGRAYS!) and another typhoon headed straight towards us.  So, no autumn walks along the river for us.  I think I am just going to have to hunker down and bake….or cook…..or bake.

This recipe is simply perfect for fall.  Savory with a hint of sweet…..rich and creamy with a nutty crunch. 

Autumn Risotto with Chicken and Cranberries

(via my friend Anna and Pampered Chef)

For this recipe you may very well need a Pampered Chef Deep Covered baker.  You can order one HERE.  It is made entirely within the Baker in the microwave.  I suppose you could finagle a way to do it in the oven, but why?  Just get one!  You will love it, I promise!

Printable Recipe Here

Ingredients:

1 cup dried cranberries

2 cups hot water

1 med. Onion

1 cup uncooked Arborio rice

1 tbsp olive oil

2 ¾ cups chicken stock

¾ cups dry white wine

½ tsp each salt and pepper

½ cup blanched slivered almonds

2 stalks celery

2 oz cream cheese

2 cups cooked chicken or turkey breasts (I use a pre-cooked deli chicken)

¼ cup finely chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Combine cranberries and hot water in a small bowl; set aside.  Coarsely chop onion and combine with rice and oil in the Deep Covered Baker.  Microwave uncovered on HIGH for 2 to 4 minutes or until onion is translucent.  Add stock, wine, salt and black pepper; microwave covered, on HIGH for 13 minutes, stirring once halfway through.

Meanwhile, toast almonds in a pan, stirring frequently until golden brown.  Slice celery into small crescents.  Cut cream cheese into cubes.  Drain cranberries in a strainer.  Carefully remove baker from microwave and add chicken and celery; stir.  Microwave covered on high for 3 to 8 minutes or until rice is and risotto appears creamy.

Carefully remove baker from microwave.  Add cream cheese and almonds; stir until cheese is fully incorporated.  Fold in cranberries.  Garnish with parsley if desired.

It's Pumpkin Seed Time!

Pumpkin Seeds!!! Yum!

I know, I know.  I told you I hated carving pumpkins….but I broke down and bought two pumpkins just so I could make some pumpkin seed recipes.  Guess what?  Two pumpkins just don’t generate enough seeds for two separate recipes.  %$@&!  What did I do?  My neighbor (HI SHERRY!) has four kids AND four un-carved pumpkins sitting on her porch AND she just had her wisdom teeth pulled.  This woman needs me and I need her seeds!  So, here I am with a large knife and five children on my back porch……to make a long story short, I ended up with 4 cups of seeds. Recipe #1 is from my good friend Theresa…..hence the creative name….

Theresa’s Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients:

·        2 cups dried seeds

·        2 tablespoons melted butter or margarine (come on people…use the real butter!)

·        ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

·        Salt

This recipe is much much much better than your basic roast-n-salt type recipes.  If you do ANYTHING with the seeds, do this recipe.  For goodness sakes you wasted all that time digging the seeds out of the guts and drying them…love them a bit!

Directions:  Mix your seeds with the butter and Worcestershire sauce.  Thank goodness the spell check knows the word Worcestershire or else my brain would explode.  Spread those buttery wo’shired seeds in a shallow pan.  Sprinkle with salt.  Bake at 250 degrees for two hours stirring them occasionally.  They are done when they are brown and crispy.

Now for the great mother queen princess of all pumpkin seed recipes!  I found it in one of those church cookbooks.  I think that is why you can actually taste a bit of heaven in them.  There are very few foods that I think are, “taste of heaven” worthy.  Cheese fondue, red velvet cake, and these seeds are exactly what I am going to eat in heaven. 

Sweet-n-Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

 

Ingredients:

·        One cup dried seeds*

·        5 Tablespoons sugar

·        ¼ teaspoon salt

·        ¼ teaspoon ground cumin

·        ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

·        ¼ teaspoon ground ginger

·        Pinch of cayenne pepper to taste

·        1 ½ tablespoons peanut oil

You need to start out with dry seeds…..dry toasty seeds are the best. *To get dry toasty seeds, put them on a shallow baking stone or a shallow pan lined with parchment paper at 250 degrees for about 15 minutes.  Stir the seeds around and go 15 more minutes.  Stir again.  Then, turn off the oven.  Leave the seeds inside and go to the store and get whatever ingredient you are missing…..like cumin.  Stop at the salon and buy some shampoo.  The object is to leave your seeds in the oven for about 2 hours untouched.  They will toasty and dry when you get back!

Mix  3 tablespoons of the sugar, salt, cumin, cinnamon, ginger, and the cayenne pepper in a medium bowl.  Make sure it is a pretty bowl like mine.  If you need to, go to Poland and get a pretty bowl of your own.  These seeds deserve a bowl this nice.

Heat the peanut oil in a large skillet on high.  Add your seeds and the last 2 tablespoons of sugar to the oil.  You need to stay with your seeds and stir them constantly.  They will brown very quickly.  Cook them until the sugar begins to caramelize.  This sounds more complicated than it is.  Just pretend you are on Iron Chef and move and stir the seeds until they are nice and brown.

  Quickly, dump the seeds into the bowl with the spices and stir well to coat.  Let them cool or burn your tongue and try some.  You can store in an airtight container for up to one week but you won’t need to.  My one cup of seeds were gone in about 10 minutes.  

Just go and buy a pumpkin right now and make these or de-gut your neighbors like I did.  You can thank me later.https://sites.google.com/site/threegirliesprintablerecipes/sweet-n-spicy-pumpkin-seedshttps://sites.google.com/site/threegirliesprintablerecipes/sweet-n-spicy-pumpkin-seeds