Pumpkin Dip: Recipe Recipe Review

If there is one phrase to describe the Pumpkin Dip that I served a a little gathering at our house it would be "crowd pleaser".  Every single person liked the dip.  I'm glad it made so much and we still have some leftovers for a late night snack tonight.  Yes, I am already thinking about it tonight for dessert.

Stephen and I hosted the Peoplestown Neighborhood Fall Gathering at our house last night.  Yes, we're crazy to host an event at our house on a week night, but we didn't think we'd have a huge turnout, we're not the only ones with a busy schedule during the week, so we weren't too stressed about it.  I'll admit, I've been running around the house since Tuesday cleaning the place, but it was the first time we were inviting neighbors into our home, I wanted it to look nice.

The snack spread (shrimp were still staying cool in the fridge), Pumpkin Dip in the green bowl

It was a BYOB event and we asked people to bring drinks and/or a snack to share with the group, but we provided some snacks, too.  What we had was enough for the group since most guest showed up after dinner.  The big hit was the pumpkin dip, the shrimp cocktail and the pimento cheese dip.

I found the recipe for the pumpkin dip at Allrecipes.com.  Here is the recipe I used.  Super easy.  There are only 6 ingredients and they're all mixed together in a bowl with a hand mixer.  The recipe calls for Pumpkin Spice, but I didn't have any on hand so I added a few sprinkles of Nutmeg instead and it was delicious.  Don't be scared by the OJ Concentrate in the recipe, either - such a fun twist!  I tasted the dip before the OJ, so yummy, and then after, even better!  You can, of course, leave it out, but I think it adds a great, unexpected flavor to the dip.

I served the dip with apple slices and Graham Crackers - I don't know which one I liked more.  Great appetizer for a fall get together!

Uncle Shuck's Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze

The change in the weather from steaming hot and sticky Summer to cool, perfect days in the Fall is one of my favorite times of the year.  It's comfortable to drive with the windows down, and sometimes even too chilly.  The leaves are starting to change color around the house and with this change in weather comes three great holidays back to back to back - Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm glad they're spread across 3 months because if they all took place in one month I'd flip out.  I absolutely love this time of year.

Where's Stephen?

Strange, I love the Fall so much, yet I've never been to an official Pumpkin Patch and I've never done a corn maze.  For those of you reading in parts of the country that don't grow corn, this doesn't sound too crazy, but for those of us in Atlanta, a 30 min drive in basically every direction will bring you to a corn maze, pumpkin patch or haunted house.  After 9 years in Atlanta, I finally pulled into my first Pumpkin Patch.

A company that I work with quite often was hosting a day at Uncle Shuck's Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze in Dawsonville, GA so we decided it would be a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  We invited some friends of ours and off we went!

One section of the side of the corn maze

I was first shocked by the height of the corn stalks!  I mean, I see them all the time when I'm driving down country roads, but I guess I never got close enough to really take in how tall they are.  Uncle Shuck's also planted a loooong row of sunflowers the length of the edge of the corn field, such a cute touch.  The sunflowers were taller than me!

Quickly I noticed that the 4 of us might be the only ones there without a child, but that was okay.  We were there to feel like kids again, if only for an afternoon.

Our first stop was to check out the corn maze.  Can you believe this thing!!??!!

Source: Uncle Shuck's (The Pumpkin Maze wasn't there when we visited)

The two circles at the bottom of the maze are where you enter.  There are actually three mazes (not including the pumpkin maze) that start from those two circles - the Haunted House, the witch on the broom with all of her swirls below and a small maze between the two.  The mazes didn't connect.  To make sure you went through each of the mazes there were checkpoints for you to find on the map you were given.  Yes, we had a map.  No, that didn't make it easy. We still had to stop a few times to figure out where we were.

Deep within the corn maze

View of the corn maze from the top of the bridge - still didn't help you figure out where you are.

In each of the two big mazes, the witch and the haunted house, there are bridges that take you above the tops of the corn.  They were like home base once we got into the mazes and started walking around.  Based on the distances on the maps we had, if you walked to each checkpoint you walked about three miles.  CRAZY.

Yes, we had a map, yes we had to consult it multiple times

It looks like Uncle Shuck's has been creating corn mazes for 10 years now.  Click here to see all of their mazes dating all the way back to 2002.  The Indian in 2004 looks crazy hard!

Kid size maze... I think it's soy beans

After we walked through the maze for probably an hour, we sat down for some refreshments and to cool off.  There was a hay ride we could take through the farm, but we passed.  It looked a lot more fun for kids and since we didn't have one with us we avoided looking creepy.

Path of the corn maze. You have no way of telling where you are.

Not only was there a hay ride and maze, but kids could also do their own kid size maze, feed some goats and pick pumpkins from the pumpkin patch.  We left empty handed and didn't buy a pumpkin that afternoon, we typically buy them from churches.

We loved our time at Uncle Shuck's!

It was such a fun afternoon outdoors in the amazing Fall weather.

Hot air balloons!

To cap off such an awesome day we say hot air balloons on our drive home!  I'm not sure I've seen a hot air balloon since moving to Atlanta.  They used to fly over our house in Orlando all the time and I didn't realize until I saw them this week how much I missed them.  I may have acted like a 5-year-old in the car yelling, "OOOH!!! Hot Air Balloons!  Two!  No, THREE!" I was quite excited and glad I wasn't driving so I could take this teeny picture of them.

Pumpkin Pancakes

Saturday was the first day of Fall and also one of the first Saturdays that Stephen and I had together without morning plans in MONTHS.  We decided earlier in the week that Saturday would be Pancake Day.  We planned on staying in our pjs until after the Gator game at 12:20pm.  Knowing we had such an awesome Saturday morning planned really helped the last part of last week move by a little faster.

For the pancakes we used this recipe from Allrecipes.com.  There were 1400 positive reviews and over 70 people uploaded pictures of their pancakes so they seemed they'd be a safe bet for such a special morning.

The ingredients from the recipe are as follows, my revisions are in blue.

• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (canola oil)
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (whole wheat flour)
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice (didn't have any allspice, so we used 1/2 tsp nutmeg and 1/2 tsp ground clove)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (didn't have any)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• (added 1 tablespoon of sugar)
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• You know us, we like to change things up.  We also had some bacon and Jamaican coffee with our Pumpkin Pancakes.  The perfect Saturday morning.  The pancakes were dense, so we had to adjust the amount on the pan after the first three went on.  The whole wheat flour gave them a different texture than I assume the all-purpose flour would, but we like it better.  The recipe made about 10 pancakes so we put the leftover 4 in plastic bags in the fridge.  We had cheesy eggs and a pancake on Sunday morning, too.  Just a minute in the microwave and the day-old pancakes were perfect. 
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• PS - don't laugh at our bacon.  We had our panini press out from the night before when we made Cuban Sandwiches and we used it the next morning for the bacon.  It was perfect, but it made the bacon a little flat.  Don't worry, none of the flavor was lost.