I've been quite busy these last few days, focussed on the running project and on Halloween. Ok, I'll be honest. Really, I'm spending too much time hunting around Pinterest. I can get lost in there like a toddler in a corn maze! There is SO much to see and do there! Crafts, recipes, decorating. Everything! But, I digress.
I did manage to try a new recipe this week. I made this Italian Sausage and Potato Casserole OMG! It was SO easy and it was so good! I made it exactly as directed and it was a breeze. Even I couldn't screw this up! My daughter didn't like it but she doesn't like tomatoes and apparently she's gone off sausage now too. But, Hubs LOVED it. He's usually pretty critical (kind, but critical) but this time, he had very little to say but he did make a lot of loving noises while eating it! He even went back for seconds! What a compliment. I served it with some nice fresh chunky bread to soak up the juice.
Hubs said this was a great "stick to your ribs" meal and he'd eat it again. Seconds AND a request for cooking it again = huge success! You should try it!
Since I am in training for a half marathon run in February, I am trying to eat healthier. The above recipe might not have been a "low fat" meal, but it was yummy and filling enough to have a small portion. I'm still on the low-fat-is-bland-and-gross team. But I'm trying. Smaller portions is a good place to start.
So tonight I'm making Sage Apple Pork Burgers with Caramelized Onions from Canadian Living. Sounds fancy but it really couldn't be easier. I'm not sure if this is "low fat" or "healthy", but at least it's not fried, not processed and it's new. I served it with a nice big salad and light dressing so it's better than what we normally eat and that's good enough for me.
I made the patties ahead of time just because. I pressed the patties between sheets of parchment paper, wrapped the stack in plastic wrap and left them in the fridge for about 3 hours. I did cook up a small one to taste right away just because the mixture smelled SO good. The sample I made right away was not nearly as tasty as the ones that sat for a bit. I think it was mainly that the flavours had time to come together (I'm sure there's a technical term, but I don't know it). It might have also been because the sample was fried in a small frying pan and the dinner ones were grilled on a cast iron grill pan. I can also say the carmelized onions were a must have!
I forgot to take photos of my casserole. But here are my burgers cooking on the indoor grill pan. Actually Hubs cooked them. I think he was afraid I'd set off the smoke alarm and truth be told, HE is our official Grill Master. 
Here's our dinner. A nice mixed green salad with a little vinagerette dressing and some carmelized onions to compliment it. Please notice the grill marks. Hubs did them :D Doesn't that look more healthy than a big ole beef burger on a bun? *********************************
On to challenge two for the day.
I notice on Pinterest that there is a repin of a repin of a repin.... and so you can see the same one thing 10,000 times. This week the one thing that keeps coming up is a 2 ingredient pumpkin cake. It caught my attention after repin 9, 065 because my daughter has a weird passion for pumpkin doughnuts from Tim Horton's. It's weird because she's a child that generally doesn't like a lot of stuff so for Jess and Pumpkin to be joined by "likes" is very very weird. Anyway, I am trying to get her to eat different things and especially to get more fibre in to her. I don't now all the benefits of pumpkin or if it's lost in canned puree'd pumpkin. But this 2 ingredient cake intriqued me and made me think "how hard can that be?" So for sure I have to try it, and blog it! Right?
The one pin I kept seeing repeatedly was for muffins over at Sweet Verbena's blog. So I did my own search for recipes and some say "canned pumpkin" stressing NOT pie filling, and some say "canned pumpkin" and some say "pie filling". At my local grocery store I could only find pie filling. I checked the ingredients because apparently the difference between pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie filling is that the puree is "pure" and the filling has "stuff" in it.
I selected E.D. Smith Pumpkin Pie Filling and Betty Crocker Golden Cake Mix. The pie filling contains pumpkins, sugar, vegetable oil, salt, spices (contains wheat flour), colour.
There is a recipe on Allrecipes.com and lots of reviews. Many people were adding eggs and water and other stuff. In the end, I decided to just go for it as it is and see what happens. That's kind of the whole point of my blog. We'll see what my foodie husband has to say about the recipe. He's the one that never follows a recipe exactly as written.
Having read the reviews, I decided to use my stand mixer because I expected it to be super thick. It was thick but a hand mixer would have worked fine. Another reviewer said that it didn't rise, and that it didn't change its shape at all. So I was expecting a gloopy mess. But then I remembered, I'm using pie filling and that's different. I have to tell you, it looked kind of gross in the bowl, but it smelled amazing! 
It was a bit thicker than regular cake batter. I didn't want to grease the pan, so I used parchment paper. That certainly makes for easy clean up and removal from the pan.  |
| This is how it went in to the oven |
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| Here is how it came out |
So you can see, it didn't move around much, and it didn't rise like a regular cake, but it dit rise a bit. I followed the regular cooking instructions on the cake mix box and it came out beautifully. Hubs came home and said the house smelled good. He thought the cake was just a golden cake. He didn't know there was pumpkin in it because I hid the can before he saw it and decided he wouldn't try it.
The recipe suggests a cream cheese frosting but Hubs doesn't like cream cheese. So plain, white Betty Crocker icing it is.
Over all, Hubs said it was good, but he's not a fan of the pumpkin flavour. He certainly ate his peice fast enough!
It's a little like spice cake. It's very very moist, but doesn't taste as dense as it looks. It has a very slight spice cake/pumpkin flavour to it. I think my daughter will like it. As for a 2 ingredient cake, it was truly 2 ingredients, plus the icing. If you like pumpkin you'll love this cake. Fingers crossed, daughter likes it.
