Pumpkin Spice Spice Baby Muffins #MuffinMonday

Pure pumpkin puree and cinnamon flavor a fluffy, tender muffin, topped with crunchy pumpkin seeds and a melt-in-your-mouth pumpkin spice white chocolate kiss candy. 

My self-imposed pumpkin moratorium is over. While a chill isn’t exactly in the air yet here in Dubai, I can finally see that there is hope for autumn and soup and pumpkin recipes. It’s been an extended summer of flights to family and friends and even having family visit me. Bless my mother; she came to Dubai in the hottest month to keep me company while my husband traveled on an extended business trip. We did see some sights, the ones that were inside and air-conditioned. Because that is what makes life tolerable when temperatures soar. The top temperature while she was here was, according to my external car thermometer, 52°C or 125.6°F. So, you are going to laugh at me but the current temperature of 34°C or 93°F actually feels cool. I know, weird, right? But it’s true, at least for the first five minutes outside. I am looking forward to the trend continuing. And I am finally baking with pumpkin.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups or 190g all-purpose flour or gluten-free flour blend
3/4 cup or 150g sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 15 oz can or almost one cup or 215g pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
2 eggs
1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For topping: 1/4 cup or 40g pumpkin seeds and 12 pumpkin spice kiss candies

Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and either grease your 12-cup muffin pan or line it with paper liners.

In one big mixing bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.  Set aside.

In small mixing bowl, whisk the pumpkin, eggs, oil and vanilla extract.

There you have the difference between brands of eggs here.

Fold the liquids to the dry mixture, stopping when they are just mixed if you are using all-purpose flour but stirring until completely and thoroughly mixed if you are using the gluten-free flour blend.

Divide the batter between your prepared muffins cups.

Push one pumpkin spice kiss into each cup and sprinkle the pumpkin seeds all around.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted next to the kiss candy comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Remove from the muffin pan and finish cooling on a rack.

Enjoy!

Spicy Ham and 10-Bean Soup

Spicy ham and bean soup is the perfect comfort food and it is best made in a slow cooker where the beans won’t catch at the bottom as they begin to plump out, soften and thicken the soup. 

Mix and match ingredients
If there is any recipe that is forgiving of mixing and matching and adding more or less of this and that, it’s bean soup. Especially bean soup cooked in a crockpot or slow cooker. I’ve given you some guidelines here of what I usually toss in but feel free to add a can of crushed tomatoes or more carrots or fewer chilies. Use smoked pork loin or sausage instead of ham. Up the amount of garlic or toss in some leftover caramelized onions if you’ve got some handy. It’s all good! Beans are best friends with just about every vegetable I can think of and using a mix of different beans means that the smaller, quicker cooking beans will essential dissolve as the soup cooks, thickening it beautifully and leaving you with a hearty bowl of comfort that sits well on a spoon and sticks to your ribs.

Crockpot potential - so much more than soup!
I use my slow cooker frequently in the summertime to avoid turning on the stove or oven but as weather gets cooler in the northern hemisphere, I start making soup. I know for a lot of families, soup is a starter course to be followed by the main meal but I firmly believe that a good, thick soup is a meal in itself, especially with some vegetables thrown in. I am delighted this week to be sharing a long list of wonderful Sunday Supper Slow Cooking recipes - from drinks to desserts - that can all be made in your crockpot. Special thanks to Christie of A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures and Heather of Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks for hosting this event. Make sure you scroll down past my bean soup to see all the links.

Ingredients 

1.1 lb or 500g assorted dried beans (A 16 oz bag will work fine as well.)
1 carrot (4 2/3 oz or 130g)
1 onion (about 3 1/2 oz or 100g)
3 cloves garlic
2 fresh red chilies
Olive oil
1 1/2 lbs or 700g ham
3/4 cup macaroni or small pasta of your choice – optional
Sea salt
Black pepper

Method
Start softening your beans by putting them in an heatproof bowl and covering them with boiling water. Put a plate on top of the bowl to hold some of the heat in and allow the beans to soak for one hour. This replaces the overnight soak that is often recommended when cooking dried beans.

While the beans are soaking, peel and chop your carrot and onion. Slice your garlic and mince the red chilies.

Cut the ham into chunks. This is an excellent use of the end bits you can often find discounted in the deli section of most supermarkets. I buy them and toss them, well-wrapped, in the freezer till it's time for soup. Another bonus of buying the end bits that are too small for the deli to slice safely is that, sometimes, they have spices on the outside or charred marks from the roasting, which add even more flavor.

Put a good drizzle of olive oil in the bottom of your crockpot or slow cooker and pile in the carrot, onion, garlic and chilies.

Add the ham and cook on high, with the lid firmly closed until the beans are finished their hour soaking time. If you have planned ahead and the beans are already soaked, everything can go in at once.

When the beans are ready, pour out any soaking water that was not absorbed and give them a quick rinse.

Add the beans to the pot and cover with fresh water plus an additional two or three inches above the beans. Give the slow cooker a good stir.

Put the lid on securely and cook on high for three to four hours or on low for five to six hours. Check your beans for doneness occasionally towards the end of the cooking time.

When the beans are sufficiently soft, and about half an hour before you are ready to serve, add the macaroni, if desired. Give it a good stir and cook on high, covered, until it is done. This makes a very thick soup, especially if you have added the pasta, so feel free to add a little more water, if you want to thin it out a bit. Personally, a soup I can almost eat with a fork is my ideal soup.

Taste your soup and add salt and some freshly ground black pepper to your liking. I recommend this step at the very end because some hams are very salty and there’s no way of judging ahead of time how salty that will make your soup.

Enjoy!

Are you a fan of cracking crockpot recipes? Have I got a link list for you!

Satiating Soups

• Amazing Slow Cooker French Onion Soup from Hot Momma's Kitchen Chaos
• Crockpot Caramelized Pork Noodle Soup from Brunch with Joy
• Crockpot Kielbasa Split Pea Soup from The Foodie Army Wife
• Crockpot Turkey Meatball Soup from Flour On My Face
• Slow Cooker Acorn Squash and Apple Soup from Rants From My Crazy Kitchen
• Slow Cooker Chicken, Spinach & White Bean Soup from Amee's Savory Dish
• Slow Cooker Chunky Chicken Tortilla Soup #GlutenFree from Sue's Nutrition Buzz
• Slow Cooker Kielbasa Soup with Kale and White Beans from The Messy Baker
• Slow Cooker Potato, Kielbasa and Spinach Soup With Gouda from Meal Planning Magic
• Slow Cooker Tomato Basil Soup from Noshing With The Nolands
• Spicy Ham and 10-Bean Soup from Food Lust People Love
• Three Bean, Butternut, and Quinoa Vegetarian Chili from Ruffles & Truffles

Scrumptious Mains (Breakfast and Dinner)

• Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken Sliders from Eat, Drink and Be Tracy
• Crock Pot Pork Chops with Apples and Figs from Cooking On The Ranch
• Crockpot Sesame Chicken from Casa de Crews
• Madras Beef Curry with Vegetables from Curious Cuisiniere
• Pork and Cabbage Stew from Kudos Kitchen by Renee
• Pork Chops in Gravy with Potatoes from Cookin' Mimi
• Slow Cooked Apple Pie Oatmeal from Life Tastes Good
• Slow-Cooked Country Pork and Veggies from Cindy's Recipes and Writings
• Slow Cooker Garlic Chicken with Artichokes from Bobbi's Kozy Kitchen
• Slow Cooker Lime Garlic Chicken from Peaceful Cooking
• Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef from Nosh My Way
• Slow Cooker Shredded Beef Tacos from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks
• Slow Cooker Spicy Peach Pulled Pork from Family Foodie
• Slow Cooker Tomato Basil Pulled Chicken from Cupcakes & Kale Chips

Satisfying Sides

• Scalloped Potatoes from Peanut Butter and Peppers
• Slow Cooker Caramelized Onions from The Dinner-Mom

Scintillating Sweets and Sips

• Slow Cooker Brownie Dessert from That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Slow-Cooker Kheer (Indian Rice Pudding) from Magnolia Days
• Slow Cooker Lemon Poppy Seed Cake from Ninja Baking
• Slow Cooker Rice Pudding from Killer Bunnies, Inc
• Spiced Caramel Cider from The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch
• Triple Rich Chocolate Cake from MealDiva

Savory Baking

• Slow Cooker Seedy Bread from Jane's Adventures in Dinner
• Slow Cooker Sourdough Bread from A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures

Lemon Mint Rosé Cocktail

A dry rosé wine fortified with vodka and some muddled mint, lemon and sugar makes a beautiful cocktail, extending the drinkability of rosé into the autumn months for rosé summer-only purists. 

Pink wine snob reversal
Until I started dating my future husband, I knew very little about wine. I don’t remember either of my parents drinking wine, except for a phase when my mom would buy Cold Duck – a sort of sweet pink sparkling wine made by mixing red wine with bubbly - or Mateus, a Portuguese labeled rosé that, even as a child, I understood was less than stellar in the wine category, the fancy bottle notwithstanding. As I reached an age where I could order wine in a bar, I always went for a crisp dry white, with the theory that a cheap white was usually more palatable than a cheap red, and wine-by-the-glass back then was invariably of the cheap variety. When we moved to Paris, I was shocked to find that the good-wine obsessed French drank pink wine during the hot summer months! And that it could be dry and not sweet. I became a fan of the pink.

As the summer days are waning and the autumn is coming on, unused bottles of summer rosé can be transformed into cocktails, extending their welcome refreshment into the next season.

Ingredients
Several fresh mint leaves
1 lemon wedge
1 oz or 30ml vodka
1/2 cup or 120ml rosé
1/2 – 1 teaspoon sugar (or more, depending on your taste for sweet drinks)
Ice

Optional garnish: sprig of mint

Method
Place mint, lemon and sugar in a glass and muddle well.

Add several cubes of ice to your glass and then pour in the vodka.

Add the rosé and stir. Garnish with sprig of mint, if desired.

Enjoy!