Pumpkin Scones with Cream Cheese drizzle

Tea and Testimony was the theme of my MOPS group on Thursday and I signed up to bring three classic Tea items this month. Scones, for me, are super easy to make and I've figured out how to get them nice and moist too!

I'd planned on making Cinnamon Scones, Pumpkin Scones and chocolate biscotti. The Cinnamon Scones were easy and could be stacked on top of each other in a Ziploc since there isn't any topping, so to speak, on them. The pumpkin ones though, they were a challenge. The original recipe which I've tweaked and played with until I got it just right for my palate, calls for a double glaze!! One classic and then a spiced glaze drizzled on top after the first layer has hardened. They are amazing, but hard to pack up and travel with because the glaze softens and starts to ooze when it's covered.

This meeting was my first one in three months and I was super excited! A last minute scheduling change for my husband meant that we were going to have to take him to his New Jersey site, so we would have to leave the house at 4:30am {eek} at the latest the morning of the meeting. I'm  sure you're thinking I'm totally crazy for waking the kids up that early and trecking them 2 hours into another state and then taking them to a church function, but they're SO good about scheduling changes and being in the car!! {we drove straight through to Fairfield Bay AR...19 hours, this september}

I was even more thrilled that I was making these particular treats for the meeting because it meant I could make them ahead of time.

Wednesday afternoon, I was chatting with a friend about something completely unrelated; still thinking about how to make the pumpkin scones special. Then, a light bulb went off inside my head! My father-in-law makes a Paradise Pumpkin Pie which is like taking a classic cheese cake and topping it with a pumpkin pie. . . why couldn't I make my cream cheese frosting that I use on homemade carrot cake and thin it just a little to drizzle on the scones?

This has been one of the best, what if moments I've had in the kitchen in a while!! I didn't taste test any of them because I wanted to save them all for the ladies at church, but I was sure to snatch one at the breakfast on Thursday morning. Oh, my...so good!

Here's what I did:

Pumpkin Scones (adapted recipe from sweetpeaskitchen )

2 Cups flour
1/4 Cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground ginger
6 Tbsp cold butter, cut
1 Cup canned pumpkin
4-5 Tbsp half-and-half or milk
1 large egg

Cream Cheese Frosting for drizzle
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 Cup confectioners sugar
a splash of Vanilla extract
1-2 Tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

In a mixing bowl whisk together pumpkin, half-n-half(or milk) and egg. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Cut in butter with either a fork or a pastry cutter. You could use the paddle attachment of your stand mixer for this part too...
When the butter bits are incorporated and no larger than a small pea, you're ready to add the pumpkin.

Gradually fold the pumpkin mixture into the large bowl, making sure that all of the dry ingredients have been worked in. As you're doing this, it should start to form itself into a ball. If it seems too dry and isn't coming together, add 1 tsp of milk at a time until it comes together for you.

On a greased cookie sheet, pat the dough into a circle (I divided it into two circles) about an inch thick. Cut into even slices with a knife or pizza cutter.

Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown on the bottom and cooked through.

Once the scone is COMPLETELY cooled (it's so hard to wait, trust me I know!) you can put the drizzle on!!

Combine cream cheese and sugar, add vanilla and continue to cream together. Add ONE tbsp of milk. If it isn't creamy enough, add one TEASPOONFUL of milk at a time until it is nice and creamy but thick enough to hold it's shape.
Put cream cheese mixture into a plastic baggie and cut a 1/4 inch hole off an end of the bag...Now the fun begins!!

Drizzle the frosting onto the scones in any way you'd like! I went with a simple zig-zag pattern...



Enjoy!!

Burgers with Biscuit Buns

The weather here in Pennsylvania has been incredible all week!! May-like temperatures and since we Sprang Ahead, we have even more time to play out in the yard and even enjoy some Grilling!

Tuesday, I had been planning on making Belgian waffles and I wasn't budging on it. I had been thinking about those beautiful, golden brown wonders all day and no matter how nice it was outside, I was making them. Connor was completely shocked when I agreed to eating out back with our waffles. He's gotten so used to me saying no because it's been too cold or DARK outside, so he jumped at the chance to eat out there not caring what it was!!

We may have looked silly sitting at the table with our plates filled with waffles and fresh fruit, but we didn't care. There was a beautiful breeze and we watched the birds in the bird feeders while we enjoyed our waffles.

Coming inside, Steve and I agreed we should grill for the first time this season the next day.

Burgers! What's better than a plump, juicy, flavorful burger grilled to perfection and served up on a nice hearty bun? Can't think of much, except we didn't have any buns. Sure, we could have eaten them bun less again but I was really in the mood for a "real" burger.

I remembered this easy Drop Biscuit Recipe I had in my kitchen binder.They're quick (ten minutes or so to bake), easy and SO good. What if I made big biscuits and served up our burgers on them?

haha!!

It WORKED!! I was a little nervous because by nature a biscuit is dry and can crumble. These didn't. The bottom "bun" held up really nicely and the top began to crack a little towards the end but with how good it tasted, who cares!

Here's the recipe:

Easy Drop Biscuits (makes approx. 20 biscuits)

4 Cups of Flour (any flour of your choosing)
5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 C buttermilk (to make your own buttermilk, combine 1/8 cup of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar to 1 7/8 milk)
3 Tbsp. oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large bowl combine all dry ingredients. Add oil to buttermilk and pour into dry ingredients. Beat approximately 10 strokes with a spoon or spatula, making sure well combined. (will be sticky!)

You can either roll these out on a WELL floured surface and use a biscuit or cookie cutter to get uniform shapes or flour your hands and scoop them out and shape by hand.

Place on a greased baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes or until lightly golden brown.

This recipe can be easily adapted to suit gluten-free and dairy-free diets

I made these large to hold our burgers (which ended up shrinking so they looked kinda silly in those big "buns") and got 6 out of the above recipe.

You could serve just about anything on or with these biscuits. They're incredibly flavorful for so few ingredients and the best part is if you make a large batch of them, you can freeze them for future use. I love recipes that I can freeze. So handy for those days when it's 4pm and you say to yourself, I haven't planned dinner...

Do you have a Go to meal when you've forgotten to plan dinner?

A New Twist on Dessert

After hearing how many of you really liked the idea of Homemade PopTarts, I was super excited when my sister Leah emailed me another idea. This was using those poptarts!!

Pie. It's delicious, pretty easy to make, smells amazing...but sometimes you want pie without wanting to MAKE pie! The 9pm sweet tooth has gone from a pester in the back of your mind, to the only thing you can think about. You want something sweet and warm, maybe with a scoop of Ice Cream. Oooh, pie! But it's 9 o'clock in the evening. There's no way you're rolling up your sleeves, turning on the oven and starting to peel apples. Who wants to wait hours for it to bake and then cool enough to eat? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE pie! But when my sweet tooth won't back down, I am not staying up until midnight to satisfy it.

Here's the solution to that!! Take one of those magnificent little Homemade PopTarts from the freezer, or make a batch in the afternoon to have ready to heat in the evening. Cook it in the oven according to the directions in the link.
Slice it in half once it has cooled enough to handle, set in a bowl and top with your favorite flavor of Ice cream! Tada!

Since the poptarts are made with pie crust, if you use a jam like Blueberry or Peach, you'll have that rich, thick flavor that you find in pie filling.

When Connor and I set out to make these, we did make them smaller than the standard poptarts. Since I was thinking how sweet these would be as a party treat, I made them smaller so that they could serve a crowd and would fit nicely into a bowl. Of course, you can make them any size you want!

 I also experimented with making Tarts with the filling and the pie crust and they turned out beautifully.

Can't you just picture a nice Ice Cream party or Shower with a selection of two or three different tarts and a few complimenting flavors of ice cream? Everyone gets to create their own dessert.


For the mini Tarts:

1 store bought ready to use Pie Crust
1 mini muffin tin
a rolling pin
spoon
knife or Pizza Cutter
Nonstick spray or butter
Your Favorite Flavor of Fruitful Delights Jam



Roll the dough out until it's about half the thickness it started out as. I ended up with 12 after I combined the scraps and rolled them out.

Either spray with non-stick spray or butter the muffin tin to help keep the jam from sticking.

Cut the dough into 3 inch squares and carefully place into the mini muffin cups. Make sure to press the folds that you create to help keep the jam from oozing out.

Once all of your pieces are done, carefully spoon about a teaspoonful of Jam (I used Strawberry-Banana) into each.
(Note: if you have any muffin tin slots that haven't been used, fill them about halfway with water before baking.)

Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until the crusts are golden brown and the Jam is bubbling.

Remove while still warm, but cool enough to touch an edge of the crusts to help keep any oozage from sticking which will make removing these tasty bites quite challenging.

Now is the hard part!! Waiting until it's cool enough to eat!!

I served them warm with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream and they were so tasty!!

Sneak Peek: Strawberry-Banana Jam

So many people like Strawberry Jam. It's a classic for sure! How could it not, sweet, red, chunky and it goes so well with Peanut Butter.

Last year my husband asked if I'd make some different varieties. He'd blurt out a flavor combination and we'd think about it a while. Then one day he says Strawberry-lemonade. I liked the idea of this! It was a mix of sweet strawberries and tart lemons. The combination works beautifully as a drink, why not as a jam!

Believe it or not, it was my most popular of the Strawberry Jam flavors I'd sold last year. So once again the think tank went back to work to come up with another winning Strawberry blend and I think we've come across it!

Strawberry-Banana!!

The bananas are added at the end of the cooking process so they keep some of their shape, but spread well. As you take a bite there's a subtlety to the banana throughout with the bonus bite of a piece of ripened banana.

This is a beautiful blend especially when served as a Classic PB&J. Who out there doesn't love a little sliced banana on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Well, now it's already blended in with that sweet Strawberry Jam!!

If all goes as planned, Strawberry-Banana will be available for purchase by Memorial Day weekend. A great kick-off to a wonderful summer filled with fresh fruit and Jam.

A Healthy, Delicious smoothie! Yes, you can have both!

I have always enjoyed a good fruit smoothie. There's something so wonderful about blended yogurt and mixed fruits. But most smoothies are loaded with hidden sugar and calories unless their homemade, and even then they're not that nutritious.

So when I saw Money Saving Mom had added the Green Monster Smoothie from Iowa Girl Eats, I was quite intrigued. Cheryl has been really consistent in offering recipes from blogs and websites that are healthy and delicious. But when I first clicked the link...I wasn't so sure. This smoothie is pea green!! Spinach green, actually. That's because it has about 4 cups worth of Baby Spinach in it. Now before you go "eeewwww" (if you haven't already), trust me! It DOESN'T TASTE LIKE SPINACH!!

I read tons of reviews on this smoothie on both blogs and after seeing an amazing pattern of folks saying how unbelievably delicious it was, I was starting to come around. When I read a number of people say that they have their young children (between 2 and 5) who are so picky about veggies, gobble one of these up every day...I was ready to try it!

Spinach is an amazing little thing!! Packed full of nutrients that are so wonderful for keeping our bodies energized and healthy. I like spinach, always have but it seems to get lost in the veggie routine of broccoli, green beans, carrots and such. A shame really, but now that we've discovered this smoothie, Spinach is going to take a front row seat in our fridge! My wonderful husband makes routine trips to Produce Junction for fresh fruits and veggies for our family. Connor and Liam can easily go through 5 lbs of bananas, a container of strawberries and two containers of blueberries in a weeks time...having a store where the prices can not be beat on produce, we are grateful! They had baby spinach when he was there last and I actually had all of the other ingredients on hand.

As soon as I powered up the blender, the boys were in the kitchen asking what I was up to. I agreed to let them each have a sip of the drink when it was done. Well, they were chugging it down, so I gave them their own cups and silly straws (sorry it's Halloween cups, I grabbed the first thing I saw) and away they went. Connor went so far as to say "this is the best drink, ever!" I think that says a lot coming from a 4 year old.

I absolutely loved it!! It tasted like Bananas, with a hint of Peanut Butter. So good. I am planning on drinking one every day for a week to see how it helps with my energy levels and overall well-being. I'm confident though that I have found something that will be a regular in my morning routine!!

Here's the Recipe!!! Green Monster Smoothie

Try it! Feel free to add additional fruits to it if you'd like. I added some blueberries and I think I'll throw in another frozen banana to make it a little thicker tomorrow.

liam licking the smoothie off his lips!

Do you have a Healthy Smoothie recipe that you really enjoy? I'd love to hear about it!!

Coming up later : Sneak Peek: Strawberry-Banana Jam, How I juggle Jam and Kids, My 200th Fan Giveaway!

Comfort food to the rescue

Having two kids pretty close together has had it's challenges, just like anything in life. There are highs and lows and sometimes those lows leave us feeling pretty defeated. We as a family seem to be (for the first time ever) in a cycle of sick kids. Connor out of the clear blue developed RSV and a double ear infection at the same time. Three days later, little Liam wasn't himself, it turned out to not be sickness instead it's his two year molars. Around and around we have gone with the sniffles, dribbles and cranky kids, all of which seems to run relatively smoothly until Liam picked up a stomach bug. My heart broke for this little person, who wasn't afraid of what was going on to him. Steve and I were frantically trying to get him and his bed changed in the middle of the night and the whole time he was saying "okay" and "thank you". Even with his maturity and grace in this situation, for me, it felt like I'd been balancing all of my dishes on my head and this new "plate" brought the whole stack crashing to the floor.

Two days into his feeling icky, I too was feeling wiped out. I can't take this away, make him feel like himself and it breaks my heart seeing him so ill. Sleepless nights have been spent listening to the baby monitor for his stomach to change it's mind about what he'd eaten, even though all day he's kept his B.R.A.T diet food down.

Thursday, we decided we'd make Breakfast for dinner. There's something so comforting about having Pancakes, Eggs, French Toast or any of your favorite breakfast foods, for dinner. So at 11am, I was able to sneak away from the little ones and get the Bread Machine going on some dough for our favorite, Egg Bread recipe. I have tried using the Bread Machine for the entire bread making process, but have found the crust to be a little too crunchy. So I just use the dough cycle and then I let it rise and bake it in the oven.

Fresh, homemade bread is the BEST for French Toast!! You can slice the loaf to your desired thickness, the bread has a heartier consistency so it doesn't get mushy when dipped in the egg mixture and it tastes amazing.

Just the smell of cinnamon in the kitchen was renewing my spirits. Making me feel as though this last week hadn't been as hard on all of us as it had felt. Liam was given one slice, which he ate most of (which was great!), Connor ate 3 slices!! He was a hungry little hippo. A few hours after dinner, with our bellies full and our spirits high, we engaged in a fun game of "keepaway" with a plush basketball. They were chasing each other, blocking, tackling, whatever they could do to get a hold of that ball. It was a wonderful evening filled with smiles and lots of Laughter.

I am amazed at how a simple dinner of egg, flour, sugar, salt, yeast and milk could have such a renewing factor on this family's spirit. Comfort Food. Sometimes that's all it takes.

If you'd like my recipe for Egg Bread, please let me know. I'd love to share it with you!

Not your Grandma's Jam

This fall after we'd picked somewhere around 70 pounds of apples, I had my recipes all lined up of what I wanted to make. Of course there was Apple Butter and Applesauce (my kids LOVE my applesauce), even Apple Peach Jam. After all of that, I still had quite a few apples left so I went digging for something different! I came across this recipe in an old cookbook of mine and it sounded intriguing.

The apples were only slightly cooked, still skinned and cut into bite size pieces. Raisins and Walnuts were the other two main stars of this "Jam". I had to try it! The method of preparing this particular product was a bit different for me, but the end result was something extraordinary. I call it Apple Conserve and it is amazing when served with pork or lamb instead of Mint Jelly.

Having nut allergies in the family, I was very concerned about selling it in my Etsy shop, fearing someone may not see that it contains walnuts. The views of it have been wonderful and I've been amazed that I haven't just sold one jar, but someone came back for a second.

The out pour of support from both Etsy and Facebook has just been so wonderful. I really look forward to announcing the new flavors for Fruitful Delights 2012 season this April. I will have all of the flavors that I currently make, as well as a few new ones and I will also be making many of my flavors in Sugar-Free versions!

Check back on Friday for my post about Sandwich pockets...it was an interesting experiment!

What motivates me

As a parent, I want the best for my kids. And for us, that started with a healthy relationship with food. My kids have to fight genetics (diabetes runs in my family) and it was so important for us to lay a solid foundation for them when it came to food.

Meals that I make from scratch is one of the most important ways I can show my family that I love them, but it does not mean I have to slave over the stove for half the day. What it does mean is lots of fruits and veggies! Every day starts with a bowl of fruit, either with or without a whole grain cereal. They're kids, so they snack on things like animal crackers and Goldfish, not cookies and chocolate bars. I'd love to hope that when Connor is 12 and he's hungry between meals, he'd choose an apple or banana over a bag of chips...


We have a vegetable garden. Actually it's a few of them, scattered on our small piece of property, where we grow tomatoes, green beans and bell peppers. We also grow parsley, basil, chives and lettuce. It is so great to be able to make homemade sauce for spaghetti! I fill it with onions, tomatoes, fresh basil and parsley and when we have them in the fridge, carrots. I found making meals from scratch gave me control over how many veggies I could pack into each meal and that was so great!

bread maker ready to go!

So when my husband surprised me with a Bread Maker for our 5th Anniversary (I love practical gifts!) I was SO excited!! Reading article after article on the benefits of homemade bread from Money Saving Mom, I was amazed at how simple it was. One more thing I could do for my kids...what kid doesn't love a sandwich and now I don't have to worry about the bread having too much sugar in it.



Knowing how many preservatives, sugar and salt are in pre-packaged foods is what moved me towards starting Fruitful Delights. This is my chance to offer you all a little taste of the wholesome goodness that I offer my family.

Connor helping make scones

The world moves so quickly and it's so easy to get lost in it. Taking 30 minutes to make Homemade Mac n' Cheese (with steamed cauliflower thrown in) helps me slow it down and enjoy my kids while they're still young. Cooking is a great way to spend time with your kids too! You can teach them math, the importance of patience, hand-eye coordination and the joy on their faces when the meal is complete and they can see that they were a part of it, priceless!!
I hope you have a chance to roll up your sleeves and make something for someone special!