Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Enchiladas de Pollo y Queso


Two weeks ago on a Tempt My Tummy Tuesday I meandered over to Lisa's site and found this post about the best enchiladas she had ever made. I then followed the link to Newlywed's site and found her recipes for Sticky Chicken and Enchiladas de Pollo y Queso (Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas). Right then and there I decided I had to try those recipes.

That very night I made Sticky Chicken and my family loved it. I cook a whole chicken about once a week anyway, but I usually bake it or boil it. I had never actually cooked one all day in the crockpot. It was so easy!

I also like to rub down my chicken with rosemary, lemon pepper, or best of all Country Bob's Seasoning Salt. The trouble is I can only buy Country Bob's in certain Wal-Mart stores...not the two I frequently go to. The spice rub on the sticky chicken was made from spices I already had around the house and gave the chicken a great flavor.

As suggested, I saved the leftover chicken and the drippings (1 cup of them) from the sticky chicken and used them the next night for the enchiladas. Once again the recipe was super simple and super delicious. If we weren't on this blasted diet we would have eaten the whole pan (or the 'whole enchilada' if you like puns) in one sitting.

Both of these recipes were absolutely DELICIOUS! So if you missed them the first time here are the links again for:


And here is a little tip from me. I used to copy every good recipe I found on one of these carnivals and then paste it into a word document. That created a very random, very disorganized virtual cookbook. Now I've gotten smart (actually my computer crashed and I lost all of my recipes...at least until I get someone to reinstall everything on my new laptop) and I just save the post with the recipe in it to my favorites. I've created a Folder under the Links category that I call Recipe Links (I also have one for Scrapbooking and Card Links). I save the link and then I can click back to it anytime I want and get the recipe...plus I can surf around that site for more good ideas instead of wondering where the delectable treat came from in the first place.

Don't miss this opportunity to head over to Tempt My Tummy Tuesday or Kitchen Tip Tuesdays to find your dinner menu for tonight.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Manic Monday


Friday, March 27, 2009

Big Money! Big Money!


Ryker's favorite show on TV right now is Wheel Of Fortune. He can't get enough of it. We watch it every night at 6:30, much to Cainan's dismay. He claims the show lacks entertainment value when you don't know how to spell.

Ryker knows all about the prize puzzles and jackpot puzzles and bonus rounds. He thinks it's exciting to see what exotic location they are in each week. He roots for a specific player every episode and is upset when they don't win. You ought to see his excitement when someone spins the $1 Million spot on the wheel.

He is pretty good at guessing the puzzles, but he gets frustrated when I know the answer before he does. I must admit, I'm pretty good at the show. I almost always get the answer first in our household and oftentimes before the actual players. I am by no means saying that I would have any success on the actual show, however. First of all, I am not lucky, so I would be hitting "Bankrupt" fairly often and secondly I would be so nervous that I would forget everything I ever knew anyway.

It brings back memories of my mom doing the same thing to us. She could always get the puzzles when there were only like 3 letters on the board. It was extremely frustrating. (As was her ability to recognize any episode of Star Trek the Next Generation after 3.4 seconds of air time and exclaim, "Oh, we've already seen this one. Remember? It's the one where Worf meets that Klingon girl and sniffs her hand.") Of course, that was back in the dark ages when you had to pick R-S-T-L-N-E for yourself and that was all you got, when the categories were Place, Thing and Proper Noun, when Vanna actually spun the letters around instead of just touching the magic LCD panels, when we had to get up and turn the dial on the TV to change the channel.

Wow! A lot of things have changed for the better....except maybe Star Trek. It all went downhill after Next Generation. Long live Jean Luc Piccard!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

He's Our You


That has to be the best episode title ever. LOST rarely pulls lines straight out of the show for their titles, but this one was just too good to pass up. Sawyer's "He's our you." definitely gets my vote for best line of the night.

What we learned:

Little Ben is quite the humanitarian (bringing the sandwiches and all) but he developed his evil genius mastermind skills at an early age too, apparently.

Horace's intimidation methods are laughable when appllied to Sayid. "I'm going to take it to the next level." Oooooh, I bet he talks now. Come on Horace, you're a lover not a fighter.

When she gets all dressed up to seduce somebody Alana looks just like Jordin Sparks.

We have to add A Separate Reality to our LOST Books list. (How appropriate.)

Someone, my guess is Whidmore, hired Alana to get Sayid on that flight, while failing to mention to her that it would probably crash.

Mad scientists are somehow less intimidating when they have a southern accent.

Ben really shouldn’t wear hats.


Questions that were raised:

Is Ben really dead? (No way.)

Was it just my DVR dying or was the whole episode really “jerky” for everybody?

Is Sayid going to be wearing purple all season? Maybe he’ll get a jumpsuit soon.


Where is Farraday and what happened to him?

Where have I seen that drawling mad scientist guy before? I know he's been in some other show.

*Updated: The Mad Scientist is Larry from the Bob Newheart Show. You probably remember his brothers Darryl and Darryl.


Check out LOST Untangled at http://www.abc.go.com/ for a real laugh and a look at what Daniel Dae Kim (Jin) has to say about the significance of the books that appear on LOST.


Head over to The LOST Books Challenge to read more theories.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Popovers


In my constant dieting it is the bread I miss the most. So when I found this delicious recipe in my Weight Watchers cookbook I was really thrilled.

These popovers are like a very light and airy biscuit. They really rise in the oven as teh moisture in teh batter heats up and turns to steam. Be sure not to open the oven door and let any of the steam escape while they are baking.

Peppery Popovers
2 large eggs
1 cup fat free milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 t. salt
freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450. Spray a muffin tin with nonstick spray.

With an electric mixer, beat the eggs until frothy. Beat in the milk, flour, salt and pepper.

Spoon 1/4 cup batter in to each cup. Bake 15 minutes; reduce heat to 400 and bake until browned, about 12 minutes longer. Serve immediately.

Per popover: 86 cal, 1 g fat, 0 g sat. fat, 54 mg chol, 177 mg sod, 14 g carb, 0 g fib, 4 g pro, 46 mg calc. 2 Points
For more great tips and recipes check out Kitchen Tip Tuesdays or Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Manic Monday


Thursday, March 19, 2009

The System


My husband likes sports. Fantasy sports. (The only kind a 36 year old man should be playing. Just look at the scars on his ankle if you don't believe me.) Fantasy Football. Fantasy NASCAR. And now Fantasy Tournament Picks.

He has tried to drag me into his fantasy world little by little. Every year he drafts Kurt Warner for his Fantasy Football team just for me. (And I must say it worked pretty well for him last year. The Super Bowl and all.) Then he convinced me to join a Fantasy NASCAR league with him too. I'll admit that is fun. But this year he wanted me to do the Final Four tournament bracket thing too.

NASCAR is one thing. I follow NASCAR. I pretty much know what I'm doing. As a matter of fact I probably know more than he does because I actually stay awake during the races. But college basketball? I've watched maybe 2 games in the last 10 years. I have no clue who should, or will, beat who. But in a spirit of marital unity I created a team and made my picks. Of course, with absolutely no knowledge of the teams I had to resort to "The System".

I have developed a highly logical system for picking who will win any kind of sporting event, not just basketball. It is all based on the mascots. For example when the Running Utes of Utah come up against the Demon Deacons of Wake Forest it is clear that Utah will win. What kind of Native American warrior couldn't defeat some kind of crazed preacher?

Or even more obvious....the Sun Devils of Arizona triumph over the Orange of Syracuse. The Orange? They are just a color? Come on, have some creativity! Some match ups just really aren't fair. I fear that my husband's beloved Cardinals of Louisville are doomed when they come up against the Spartans of Michigan State in the Midwest Regional finals. Any Spartan worth his weight in gold could kill a cardinal with one hand tied behind his back.

But lest you think this is a simple system with predetermined results, I assure you it can get quite complicated. When a Volunteer from Tennessee goes up against a Cowboy from Oklahoma who will win? Both potentially have guns. Both are very determined and strong and outdoorsy. It's a tough call. Ultimately I went with the Cowboys because they have horses and the Volunteers will probably be on foot. And when I had the Missouri Tigers matched up against the Memphis Tigers I had no idea what to do. In that case, and others, I had to resort to other streams of logic.

There are some picks that I make with my heart and my head instead of my system. For instance, for the first round I just went with the higher rank in most cases, then I resorted to my system for the future rounds. I also had to pick some schools just because of their location. I had to let Pittsburgh get all the way to the Regional finals against Duke because my brother lives there...even though I'm pretty sure a Seminole could take down a Panther. Of course I had to take Missouri all the way (I mean ALL-THE-WAY) because my brother-in-law graduated from med school there and my sister and her family still live in Columbia (as does Carl Edwards, but I didn't even take that in to account...I promise *wink*wink*).

Of course I advanced Duke to the Final Four because they're Duke. Even I know how good Duke is. I remember Christian Laitner and the Coach "Crew-za-wew-ski" commercials. In honor of Brian's favorite team, I went ahead and took the Louisville Cardinals as far as I could before the aforementioned Spartans took them down. And finally, if I were to ever care about college basketball and have a favorite team I'm sure it would be the Fighting Illini, so I took them to the final too.

So that's it, in all of it's convoluted glory. I will admit that it will make watching hundreds of hours of basketball over the next two weeks much more interesting. "But how is it working for me?", you ask.

Well, the Illini let me down big time and totally screwed up my bracket all the way across. (I kind of expected that based on the raised eyebrows Brian gave me when I announced my Final Four selections. Also based on that incredulous look I have a feeling Missouri may not be the Champs this year.) But I am currently 12 for 16.

I didn't realize that a Terrapin could just pull into it's shell thereby defeating a Golden Bear, and having no clear idea of what an Aggie actually is I couldn't accurately determine if she/he/it had a chance of beating a Cougar from BYU or not.

Considering everything, I think I am doing pretty well.....better than Brian actually. But who's counting?

BTW, I'm not the only one with, shall we say, questionable Tournament picking strategies. Check out Shannon's post from last year about her interesting logic....and her husband's subsequent eye rolls.

Swagbucks

Would you like to earn free Amazon.com, Starbucks, or restaurant gift cards?

Me too. What a co-ink-i-dink.

I signed up for Swagbucks.com. Everytime I use their search engine I earn swagbucks. I can then redeem these for various prizes. It's that simple.

AND.......if you sign up for Swagbucks too I earn points everytime you do. Wouldn't that be great?

You can check it out and read all about how it works here.

It is super easy to use. You just search through their site instead of Gooogle or Yahoo or whatever. The search engine is powered by Google so you get the same content that you would with a normal Google search anyway. You can even download the toolbar so it makes it even easier....that's what I did.

If you are interested in signing up go here.*

*This is a referral link so you will be signing up under me and we both win!!!

Namaste


Lots of tension in this week's episode. Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Juliette....we're right back where we started 3 years ago.....30 years in the future....4 days ago....whatever. All of the pretending not to know each other and trying not to let anyone get killed creates a lot of tension too. You could cut the air with a knife for the entire hour.

This week's episode solved a couple of small mysteries. For one, I'm releived to find out that they didn't crash again....just more like had a rough landing. Secondly, the baby is Ethan. Makes sense. Gonna be hard to kill a guy you watched grow up, though.

Of course, I do still have some questions. Why didn't Sun disappear? Where is Farraday? Where did he go? What happened to him and what instructions did he leave for Sawyer and Juliette? What happened to Ole One Eye that used to run the Flame? I thought we might see him again. How did Sawyer have anything that would fit Hurley? A baggy sweatshirt is not sufficient.

LOL line of the night:
Dr. Chang to Jack: "Based on your aptitude test you'll be doing janitorial work."

And I must say, thank goodness for the jumpsuits. I don't think I could stand everybody wearing all those 70s clothes.

Yay, Sun!!!!! It had to feel good to knock Ben's block off with that oar. I was wondering how he would get left behind with the injured people from the plane crash/landing. I'm glad she did it but I feel like she may regret it. Ben might have known how to get back to "when" Jin and the others are. Of course now she's found Christian/Jacob (that guy is like a bad penny, he just keeps showing up) so he can probably give her the details. I was crushed that Sun was not "when" Jin is. I'm so ready for that reunion.

Little Ben is there already. I knew it!!! So, do all of the other fake Dharma people know who he is? Surely they've met him and put two and two together. And I was speculating that Dr. Chang was Miles' Dad and we'd see a big moment when Miles realizes that he did grow up on the island, but so far that hasn't materialized. Is is possible that Miles and the Doc haven't run into each other yet? How big of an island is it?

So based on the scenes from next week I'm anticipating a good cat fight (or at least the first rumblings of it) between Kate and Juliette. (My husband is hoping it will be in the mud again.) I'm also thrilled/afraid that Sayid may see it as his duty to kill Little Ben. As always, I can't wait to see what happens.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Breaking News

I just found out about this free recipe book. (Thanks to Missy)

Forget kneading and staying home all day to bake bread. This free, eight-recipe book, The Bread Breakthrough, introduces you to the simplicity of baking delicious no-knead yeast breads – on your schedule. It features recipes from baking expert Nancy Baggett, author of Kneadlessly Simple: Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads. How are these recipes different from most other yeast breads?

No Kneading – The dough gently kneads itself during a very long, slow rise.

Little Mess – Most recipes are mixed in one bowl with a spoon and need little hand-shaping before baking.

Slow, Cool Rise – Enhanced flavors, texture and aroma naturally develop with time, producing better bread.

Fits Your Schedule – Broad time ranges between dough-making and baking let you perform simple bread-making steps at your convenience. The Bread Breakthrough’s fuss-free recipes include Neapolitan-style pizza, pull-apart rolls, streusel coffeecake, delicious breads and a bread-making gift kit. You’ll also receive tips for homemade baking success.


Go here to sign up for the cookbook and get a free bonus recipe immediately.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Crockpot Sweet and Sour Chicken



I love Chinese food, but it is too expensive to eat at a restaurant all the time and it is hard to recreate the great Chinese recipes at home.....usually.

I received this recipe in a recipe exchange several years ago. It is so easy and really has the flavor of Sweet and Sour Chicken straight from a Chinese resturant.

Crockpot Sweet and Sour Chicken

3 or 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in to bite sized pieces
1 jar apricot preserves
1 packet Lipton onion soup mix
1 bottle Italian dressing
1 small can pineapple pieces (optional)
1 large green pepper cut up (optional)

Place chicken in bottom of crockpot. Mix ingredients and pour over chicken. Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. Serve over rice or noodles.

For more great recipes and tips head over to Kitchen Tip Tuesdays or Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Manic Monday


Thursday, March 12, 2009

Spring is in the Air

We've had a taste of spring here in the Midwest. I am well aware that it won't last (I have photographic evidence of a big snowstorm on March 20th two years ago) but it is nice to think that maybe this time it will hold on.


Even if it's just for a day or two we are taking full advantage of the spring weather. The shorts have come out of the closet. The sandbox has been opened. The bike tires have been aired up. The baseball stock has been replenished. The running shoes have been laced. The slide has been washed off. The garage has been cleaned. The first of the garden crop has been planted.


Don't these pictures just scream SPRING to you?




**Update: Since the writing of this post and the taking of these pictures Spring has indeed departed from Southern Illinois. Temperatures are back down into the 20s. I told ya so.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Moving On

Our computer problems are over.....for now.

Our desktop was so full of spyware and viruses that it was going to cost us $150 just to have it cleaned up. Brian started checking around and found that basic laptops run around $350 to $400 so we decided to let the old girl die.

Actually she is going to be stripped down to the basics and moved upstairs for the kids to use for their games. Which meant that I still wouldn't have a computer with interenet access in the house all day long. I had kind of gotten used to doing all of my blogging and emails at night, though, so it wasn't a big deal. I figured in a month when we get our income tax refund we'd go laptop shopping and find something. Little did I know.

A few days ago I heard a knock at the outside garage door around 4 in the afternoon. When I went to the door I saw the UPS man handing over a package to Brian (who had just pulled in to the driveway). As the big brown truck pulled away Brian handed me the package and said,

"Happy Birthday, Valentine's Day, Anniversary and Mother's Day."

Look what was inside.

Isn't it cute?


I love it!! It is so light and so FAST and the graphics are really crisp and bright AND it has a CD/DVD burner! I've never had one of those before!!! I'm still getting used to the keyboard and touchscreen mouse....and Vista....ugh, but so far I really love using a laptop. MY laptop. Hooray!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Giant Hershey's Kiss

I made this easy "little" treat for my husband for Valentine's Day* and he loved it....and so did the kids. He practically had to beat them off with a stick. I may make one for each of them next time.

Here are the step-by-step instructions (complete with really bad pictures):

Step One: Plug the small end of a funnel. Grease funnel well. (I used Crisco. I wasn't messing around.)

Step Two: Melt Hershey's chocolate chips in microwave stirring every minute.

Step Three: If you are making a solid Kiss just pour the melted chocolate into the greased funnel. I made a filled Kiss so things were a little more complicated than that. Coat the inside of the funnel with a pretty good thick layer of chocolate. The hot chocolate will not want to cling to the sides of the funnel, instead it will want to pool in the bottom of the slippery funnel. Just keep working with it and smoothing it back up the sides. As it cools it will adhere better to the funnel.


Step Four: Put the chocolate coated funnel in the freezer until sides (or whole Kiss) are set and very firm.

Step Five: Make your filling. I used my Oreo Truffle recipe for my filling, but you could use peanut butter, or anything else that sounds good to you. You can put in as much or as little as you like. I put in a lot because Brian loves Oreos.


Step Six: Remove funnel from freezer and fill with filling, being sure to leave room at the top for your Kiss bottom of chocolate (does that make sense?).


Step Seven: Make Kiss bottom by filling the remainder of the funnel with chocolate. Smooth it out and put it back into the freezer until it is set.


Step Eight: To remove Kiss from funnel simply pour boiling water over the outside of the funnel. It should slide right out into your hand.



Step Nine: Wrap the Kiss in aluminum foil and add a handmade flag. TaDa!



For more great recipes and tips check out Kitchen Tip Tuesdays and Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays.
*Tune in tomorrow to see what he got me.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Manic Monday


Friday, March 6, 2009

Two Ideas*

Good idea:

Family Fun Magazine gave me this idea to encourage kids to practice the piano. They recommend burning a candle for as long as the practice lasts. When the practice is over the candle is blown out and saved for the next time. When the candle burns down to nothing then the little Mozart gets a special treat of some kind.

I ran the idea past Ryker and he loved it. What 9 year old wouldn't want to combine fire and music? We decided to try it for the first time last night. It worked great, but Ryker realized just long how it is going to take to burn that 12 inch taper down to the base. I think he is a little more motivated to practice now.

Bad idea:

When trying to light a candle that is sitting on your piano it helps to have matches....somewhere in your house. When you do find a match you still also have to find a box with a striker on the side so that you can light the thing. Barring that, I am here to tell you that it is a bad idea to attempt to light the match by striking it on your 9 year old son's jeans zipper. It tends to make him a little nervous and elicit a lecture from nearby 5 year olds about how dangerous the whole situation is. However, it does inspire a more whole-hearted search for a real match box.

*No children were harmed in the development of this post.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

La Fleur


Wow! This may be one of the most shocking episodes ever. I mean, I always knew that they would all be reunited back on the island eventually but I never thought about when that would be. As it turns out it is 1970 something and Dharma is in it's hey day. I guess it was pretty naive of me to assume that they would land (or crash as the case may be) in the present day, but that's what I thought would happen. This brings a whole new dimension...and set of characters...to the show. Wow!

A few interesting tidbits from last night:

Thanks goodness the time-travelling is over for a while. If I see the pharse "Three Years Later" or "Three Years Earlier" one more time I'm gonna scream.

I was a little worried when I found out that Juliette is now a mechanic. Now she'll be even more appealling to my husband. But it helped a little that she is head-over-heels in love with Sawyer (I mean Jim LaFleur) now and will probably get the snot beat out of her by Kate before it is all said and done. Little bitter....sorry.

Apparently in the early days of Dharma mothers and babies both survived child birth. So what happened? Was the leaky bomb unearthed? I suspect so.

Judging from the scenes for next week the tide has certainly turned. It looks like Sawyer (I refuse to refer to him as Jim) is running the whole show now. He may have even taken over Ben's role as biggest manipulator and liar of all time. Who am I kidding? That's a title that Ben has no danger of losing any time soon. But it will be interesting to see Sawyer in charge instead of Jack. Weird dynamic there.

Daniel has already spotted Charlotte on the island which means that Eloise is still there, at least for now. Does that also mean that Miles will run in to his parents and be completely shocked? Probably.

I continue to be impressed by the marksmanship of the Losties and Others. I can believe that a con man like Sawyer would know how to handle a weapon, but a fertility doctor from Portland that can shoot a man through the heart from behind a bush 50 yards away? Gotta hand it to Ben. He trained his people well.

The best line of the night goes to Sawyer once again: In response to Daniel's assertion that it makes no difference what they do because "whatever happened, happened", Sawyer says, "Thanks anyway, Plato."

I look forward to seeing how all of this plays out and how the history of the others is changed....which it technically can't be, right? How is that gonna work?

To check out some smarter people's theories head over to LOST Books Challenge.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Another Great Read


I know I’m about a year behind the rest of the planet, but I just read The Last Lecture yesterday. It has to be one of the most heart-wrenching books I have ever read! So I’ve been an emotional wreck for about 36 hours now and I got no sleep last night. My eyes are bloodshot and puffy and every time I look at my kids or glimpse the book jacket I burst in to tears. As a matter of fact I had to blog about it quickly so that I could try to stop thinking about it and move on with my life. That said, I completely recommend it.

If you are one of the other 3 people living that hasn’t heard of the book, let me explain. Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, PA has a standard lecture series where they ask professors to give a lecture as if they knew they were dying and it would be their last one. The unique thing about Dr.Randy Pausch’s (professor of Computer Sciences) lecture is that it really was his last one.

At the time he gave the lecture he had been told he had 3 to 6 months before the pancreatic cancer that he had been fighting for a year would take his life. He was 47 years old and knew that he would be leaving behind a wife and 3 young children that probably wouldn’t remember him. Written for his children, The Last Lecture covers the same material as the actual lecture and gives a little more background into the life of Dr. Pausch. He is an unbelievably upbeat and optimistic guy and a tremendous teacher. The book (which sold over 2 million copies, while Pausch really only wanted the first three) is as hilarious as it is unbearably sad.

Dr. Pausch’s lecture is entitled “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” and in it he reveals his childhood dreams and how he was able to achieve all of them(working at Disney, being Captain Kirk, experiencing zero gravity, etc)….well, except for that NFL thing. He praises his parents and confesses his undying love for his wife and children.


“Children need to know that their parents love them. You don’t have to be alive to give them that.”

Just reading about Dr. Pausch’s life is enough to inspire greatness, but reading about his death (as he says, “Turns out dying is a great career booster.”) inspires hope and a real look at what is truly important in our lives.

No one should die without reading this book!!

You can also check out Randy Pausch’s website http://www.thelastlecture.com/ to watch the live lecture or for a look at his blog (be sure to read the e-mail from JJ Abrams), his obituary, a lost chapter of the book, and more information about fighting pancreatic cancer.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

It's time for another yummy recipe.

This fall I froze a LOT of pumpkin. I made a few pies at the time, but most of our pumpkin crop was cooked, pureed and frozen for later use. Later is now.

Frustrated with my lack of freezer space, I decided to break out the orange stuff. I couldn't get the bags of frozen pumpkin because the cranberries were in the way. That is when I had what Oprah calls "an ah-hah moment", and I decided to search out a recipe that would incorporate both ingredients.

I ended up making some delicious little mini muffins and taking them to ladies night at Pottery Hollow (pictures of my latest creation coming soon) where everyone ooohed and aaaahed over them all night. I decided it might be nice to share the recipe with everyone. I of course, can't take any credit for it because it came straigth from allrecipes.com, as usual.

So here it is: Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries, chopped

DIRECTIONS
In a bowl, combine the first four ingredients. In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs and sugar; add the pumpkin and oil and mix well. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in the cranberries. Fill foil-or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 400 degrees F for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

This recipe will make approx. 24 regular muffins. If you want to make mini muffins decrease the cooking time to 10 minutes. You will get close to 4 dozen mini muffins.

For more great recipes check out Tammy's Recipes and Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Manic Monday