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!

Crock Pot Challenge Meal #3: Sugared Pecans & Walnuts

Day #3 of my personal Crock Pot Challenge was a little bit different from the first two nights.  The "meal" I cooked wasn't started in the morning to cook all day.  It also wasn't a dinner, it's a snack.  I thought it was important to try a variety of recipes in the crock pot, so night #3 I went with Sugared Pecans & Walnuts.

The start of the cooking process - nuts in the crock pot with melted butter

I originally found the recipe on Pinterest and it linked me to the recipe on Food.com by user Gingerbear, added in 2003.  There are only two reviews of the recipe, one was positive, so that gave me a little bit of confidence.  Based on the smell that floated through the house halfway through the slow cooking process, they were going to turn out great.

Powdered Sugar added to the crock pot

You'll notice that the recipe calls for either Pecans or Walnuts.  Since I had some walnuts on hand, I doubled the recipe and used both the Pecans and Walnuts.  (Pecans were part of my grocery list for the challenge.) Yes, I have 2 pounds of sugared nuts.  Sometimes I act like a 10-year-old boy, and that sentence makes me laugh.  Read it again, doesn't it make you laugh?

They're done!  The spices have been added and stirred to coat the nuts

The whole process from start to finish is about 3 hours.  I started after our evening run and it was done before we went to bed.  While the pecans and walnuts were cooking it gave me time to prepare for the Stuffed Green Peppers that I'll be slow cooking tomorrow.

MMMM - so delicious.  I wish you could scratch and sniff the screen so you can smell what I'm smelling

On our very official Stephen Scale, these Pecans & Walnuts are absolutely Keepers and will be shared immediately with friends and co-workers.  These would be fantastic as a hostess gift or as a snack for Thanksgiving and Christmas house guests.  We'll definitely be making these again. And again.  And again.

I had to share this picture with you.  While I'm chopping veggies in the kitchen, it doesn't matter what veggies, and to be honest, I could just make a chopping noise in the kitchen, the dogs come running and wait for me to drop something.  They don't eat human food.  The closest they have come is a bit of carrot and they've never had that IN the kitchen.  I have no idea what Goose thinks I'm doing on the counter, but he's beyond excited to see if something drops.  At this point I was taking the caps off the green peppers and removing the ribs and seeds.  Silly puppies.  This is how they travel around the house, attached at the hip.

Goose and Mabel (in red) watching me chop green peppers.  Can you tell how fast their tails are wagging from this picture?

Goose is officially 8 months old now!  He is such a good boy.  It's cute to see how tired and cuddly he gets after 9pm when he wants to go to bed.  10pm Goose is a different dog than 6pm Goose.

My 14-day Crock Pot Challenge

Call me crazy, but I'm challenging myself to a new test.  I want to see if I can use my crock pot for 14 straight days.  One meal or snack a day will be made from the slow cooker.  Tomorrow, October 1, will be my first day. Some of the meals will give us a ton of leftovers, especially when there are just two of us eating together, but that should cover our lunches for half the month, too.

We did our grocery shopping this evening so that we have everything we need in-house.  I realized that I missed some ingredients for two of the meals, so those are going towards the end of the challenge so I have time to get back to Publix.  For the 12 meals I did shop for, we spent $140.  The ingredients I'm missing for the other two meals should come to about $10 total so it's safe to say that I will have 14 days of meals for $150.  I'm sure if we had shopped coupons and based meals on what was on sale we could have cut that down a little bit, but at close to $10 a day with a ton of leftovers, I'm not upset about it.  We also bought a few extra things while at the store, so it should take us even further than two weeks.  

Tonight I will cut and prep for meal #1 and I'll throw everything into the crock pot in the morning.  We'll have dinner as soon as we get home.  Hopefully, this will help us kick start our motivation to start working out again.  

To make sure that I wasn't running to Publix every evening or quitting the challenge mid-way through I made my list of meals.  Most are from recipes I found on the Internet, some are from a cookbook I have at home: Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook, Feasting with your Slow Cooker.

Source: Amazon

Here they are, if the recipe is online, I've included the link so you can follow along at home.  I'll blog about the experience along the way and I'll make my notes about the recipes at that time.  

1. Absent Cook Stew, book page 28
2. Pork Roast with Apples and Sweet Potatoes
3. Sugared Pecans
4. Stuffed Green Peppers, book page 123
5. Applesauce, book page 245
6. Egg & Broccoli Casserole, cook page 23
7. Minestrone Soup
8. Buffalo Chicken Sandwich
9. Greek Chicken
10. French Onion Soup
11. Mac n Cheese
12. Tomato Basil Parmesan Soup
13. Lasagna
14. Overnight Oats

Wish me luck!  Stephen is super excited about all of the food coming his way.