Lots of recipes, including one of my own

There's been a whole lot of cooking but not a whole lot of picture-taking lately. First I'll share my own recipe from a few nights ago that was super easy and super delicious. To be filed under meals to make after the baby comes! Below that you'll find recipes from various sources with which I have found success. Check them out!

My very own recipe!
Slow Cooker Creamy Tomato Chicken
Ingredients:

• 1/2 jar spaghetti sauce (I used Neuman's Own sausage and peppers)
• 1 cup pumpkin purée
• 1/3 cup cream cheese
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 4 chicken breasts

Method:
Put everything in the crock pot and set on low for 6-7 hours. Stir at some point to combine the ingredients into the sauce.

The spaghetti sauce and homemade chicken broth brought enough flavoring that I didn't need to add any spices, but make sure you taste it to see if you need any. I'd recommend basil, thyme, oregano, and anything else you think might taste good. Serve with rice to soak up the delicious creamy sauce! I ate the leftovers with pasta and that was also good, so I don't think you can go wrong here.

Recipes from around the web...
Chicken Parmesan Bundles from allrecipes.com - delicious and versatile. Also surprisingly easy. I used half the cream cheese, way less cheese, bread crumbs instead of crackers, and added sun-dried tomatoes.

Cheesy Baked Pumpkin Pasta from skinnytaste.com - definitely does not taste like a lighter recipe. Again, I made some adjustments based on what we had: ham instead of bacon and regular pasta instead of whole wheat. I did take a picture of the final product:

Sweet Potato Basil Soup from paleomg.com - perfect way to use up the remaining leaves of my basil plant and yet another crock pot recipe. This is a simple recipe and it was delicious. No changes needed.

Creamy Lentil Soup from skinnytaste.com - hearty and very tasty. I made a few little changes to this recipe based on what we had in stock and my taste preferences: no scallions, cumin, or cilantro but instead, lots of thyme and oregano.

Keep in mind that you can always see the recipes I have tried along with my comments on Pinterest. For savory recipes, go to this board: http://www.pinterest.com/francocaro/food-savory-tried-and-tasted-recipes/. My comments are after the double slashes (//).

Pumpkin Bread

Every year I get excited when I see the cans of pumpkin out in the end caps of the supermarket. Every year I yearn to make all the pumpkin things! And so I purchase pumpkin and then... nada. I get uninspired. Or I make pumpkin things that leave me feeling, eh. But I don't learn. This year, I purchased pumpkin at Costco, so that means 3 huge cans of it! Luckily the pumpkin bagels were a great pumpkin recipe and the one I'm sharing today also turned out to be a success. Maybe I will start to like the pumpkin recipes as much as the idea of all pumpkin things!

So Pumpkin Bread from lovegrowswild.com. Yes! So good! Very pumpkin-y, very molasses-y (from all that brown sugar), and very easy. It turned out moist and delicious - I highly recommend it!
Here is the pin: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/264727284322021276/

Follow the recipe as stated and you're bound for success.

first, mix the dry goods

then cream the butter and brown sugar, now add the eggs

 

mmm, looking smooth and delicious

milk and vanilla, and 1 cup of pumpkin purée

after pumpkin addition

adding the flour mixture slowly

ready for the oven!!

perfect loaf 

(about to be frozen in slices or else you know I'll eat the whole thing in a day)

It's fantastic still warm from the oven, cooled off, and even frozen then defrosted in the toaster oven.

As for the pumpkin bagels, there are still a few left, but not many! Pumpkin things for the win this year!

Pumpkin Bagels

I'm addicted to Pinterest. The good news is that the time I waste on there actually serves a purpose: I'm more creative with dinner than I would otherwise be and it seems to be giving me a bit more confidence in the kitchen. I'm finding myself less worried about sticking to recipes and more able to improvise with what I already have.

If you're not familiar with Pinterest, it's basically a virtual cork board where you pin images. You can create multiple boards so, for example, I have a board where I pin recipes, one where I pin organization ideas, another where I pin baby-related information, etc. You create your own system that works for you. Most images are linked to a website so when I pin the picture of a dish I want to try, I make sure the pin is linked to the recipe for that dish.

One recipe that I stumbled upon and want to share is for Homemade Pumpkin Spice Bagels.

Here is the pin on my board:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/264727284321945431/

Here is the recipe:
http://www.thelilypadcottage.com/2013/09/pumpkin-spice-bagel-recipe.html

And here is my final result:

They were delicious and not hard to make. My dough was pretty sticky so I had a hard time creating the bagel shapes, but I wrote to the original poster about it and she suggested adding more flour. Next time I'll do that. I had to add flour to handle the dough so it probably ended up soaking some of it up. I only added the topping to 4 of the bagels - I felt that they were sweet enough already. I will definitely make these again. They taste bagel-store worthy and make a big batch so they're worth the effort and mess. If you're intimidated by making bagels, fear not. All it really entails is making the dough, letting it rise, then dividing it up into equal parts and shaping the bagels. Shaping the bagels is the hardest part in my opinion. My later ones looked better than the first ones, so the learning curve is short. Then you let them rise for a bit, boil them in water for one minute, and bake for 10 minutes. The boiling part ensures that you have a nice crust on your bagel. And it works! They were so good that I had to immediately cut them in half and freeze them or I would have been liable to eat 5 in a row. I'm not kidding. That good.