I {heart} Fall!!

The weather has been LOVELY here the last week. I haven't turned my A/C on at all. Its been great to have fresh, cool, crisp fall air blowing through my house all day.

Fall is my favorite season for many reasons. I love long sleeved shirts, sweaters, jackets, scarves, hats, long pants, the changing of the leaves, soups, breads...well I guess I pretty much love everything about fall. My favorite thing about fall is that I get in the mood to bake again. I started going through one of my favorite recipe books the other day and found about 50 recipes that I wanted to make. The benefit to you, is that I LOVE to share good recipes. There is an extra benefit if you live nearby is that I also LOVE to share yummy food and yummy treats! (There is an ulterior motive for this also-its so I don't weigh 400 pounds by the end of my baking season!)

So to start out with, I may overwhelm you. I have three delicious recipes to share. The first I made for dinner the other night. Now I have to tell you, that my child does not eat much meat. She will eat the occasional hamburger from a Wendy's kids meal, or an Arby's Jr. Roast Beef sandwich. I may even get her to eat a corn dog now and then. But, for the most part she won't eat it, especially chicken. Well, she liked this recipe. She ate almost 2 full helpings of it! I was pretty stoked and made a mental note to put it on the regular menu rotation.

Chicken Rolls

1 whole chicken
8 oz cream cheese
2-3 tubes crescent rolls
1 can cheddar cheese soup
Melted butter
Bread crumbs

Boil chicken until done. Remove meat from bones and either shred or chop (personally, I prefer shredded). Mix cream cheese and cheddar cheese soup together until smooth. Add chicken and mix well. Spread crescent rolls out and place a spoonful of chicken mixture in the center of each one. Fold crescent roll around chicken mixture to form a ball. Dip in melted butter and then roll in bread crumbs. Place on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350* for about 30 minutes. Serve with gravy.

This makes quite a bit (24 rolls), so if you don't like leftovers, or you don't have a large family, I would cut down the recipe size. For my family, I would probably only use 2-3 chicken breasts next time instead of a whole chicken. Or maybe not, since my hubby likes the leftovers :)

The next recipe was shared on this blog, which I contribute to from time to time. I made it for dinner last night, and it was a hit. It also makes a lot, and I'm wondering if it might freeze well.

Corn Chowder

1 stick butter
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 can chicken broth (14 oz)
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed (I put in 3, because I LOVE potatoes in soup)
2 cans Cream of Potato soup
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
4 cans yellow and white corn (I used just yellow)
1 pint (2 cups) half and half
8 oz cream cheese, cut into to small cubes
3 tsp Creole seasoning

Saute onions in butter in a pot. Add chicken broth and potatoes. Cook until potatoes are fork tender. Add soups and heat until warm and smooth. Add corn and heat through. Add half and half and cream cheese. Heat until cheese has melted. Add Creole seasoning.

This was a super easy and super quick soup. It made quite a bit, so its a good thing that we all liked it!

This next recipe I've had for a long time that I got from this website. It is a favorite of my husbands. I usually make it as a bread, but decided to try it as bars today and frost them. If I do say so myself, it turned out very tasty!

Pumpkin Spice Bread

2 cups canned pumpkin
3 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
3 1/3 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp ground cloves

Heat the oven to 350*. In a large mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin, sugar, water, vegetable oil and eggs. Beat until well mixed. Measure the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, nutmeg and ground cloves into a separate bowl, the stir until combined. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture, beating until smooth. *Grease two loaf pans and dust them with flour. Evenly divide batter between the two pans. Bake for 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for 10-15 minutes and remove from pans.

If you prefer bars to bread, grease a large cookie sheet and dust with flour and pour batter in the cookie sheet. This method only needs about 20-25 minutes baking time. (Stick a toothpick in the center to check for done-ness). I let the bars cool for about 20 minutes before I put this cream cheese frosting on them:

Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 stick butter
4 oz cream cheese
1/2 package powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Beat cream cheese and butter together until creamy. Add powdered sugar and beat well. The mixture will be really stiff at first, but will cream up. Add vanilla and mix well. If it is too stiff, add a little bit of milk.

I wanted a pretty thin icing, so I added about 2 tablespoons of milk to mine.

These bars would also probably be really good with some sort of streusel topping.

Next week I will share more recipes with you! Enjoy!!