Yummy Recipe Wednesday! (Creamy Pumpkin Soup)

Hello everyone and welcome to another Yummy Recipe Wednesday. Today I bring you the fourth and final pumpkin recipe in celebration of the fall season and month of Halloween. This creamy pumpkin soup is absolutely amazing and actually quite simple to make. You can play around with the spices if you’d like, depending on whether you want it more savory or more sweet, but I think it’s fantastic just the way it is. One word of caution, be sure to use Low Sodium Chicken Broth or you will regret it. It’s best just to control the salt yourself at the end when you taste the soup. You can also make this in a slow cooker after you puree the onions, just be sure to add the cream at the very end. Give this a try next time you have friends or family over and I assure you that you will get raves and requests for the recipe. As always, feel free to leave comments below and be sure to follow @RecipeBlogger on Twitter if you aren’t already so you don’t miss a single post.

Creamy Pumpkin Soup

• 2/3 cup Chopped Onion
• 2 Tbsp Butter, melted
• 2 (14.5 oz) cans Low Sodium Chicken Broth
• 1 (15 oz) can Pumpkin Puree
• 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp Ground Ginger
• 1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
• Salt and Pepper, to taste
• 3/4 cup Half-And-Half or Light Cream

1. In a medium saucepan, saute the onion in butter until tender.
2. Stir in 1 can of chicken broth; bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes.
3. Transfer the broth mixture to a blender or food processor and process until smooth; return the mixture to the saucepan.
4. Add the remaining can of broth, the pumpkin, brown sugar, ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground nutmeg and cayenne pepper and stir well; Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Taste the soup and add salt and pepper as desired; stir in the whipping cream and heat through but do not boil.
6. Ladle into individual soup bowls and serve with crusty bread or toasted pumpkin seeds.

Yummy Recipe Thursday! (Pumpkin Pancakes)

Hello everyone and welcome to what would typically be a Yummy Recipe Wednesday post were it not Thursday. Unfortunately, life happens and I was unable to get the recipe posted yesterday so now it’s a Yummy Recipe Thursday post. Continuing on with the pumpkin theme for this month I bring you a recipe for delicious pumpkin pancakes. Although there are many more ingredients in this pancake recipe than what you would use in traditional pancakes, these really are quite simple to make and are a nice breakfast twist that you family will love. Note that the batter will be thicker than your traditional pancake batter. Do not try to thin the batter with milk or you will dilute the pumpkin flavor and they just won’t be near as good. Instead, after you ladle the batter onto your griddle or pan just use a spoon to spread and even out the batter. Also, letting the batter sit for about 5 minutes, as the directions instruct, allows the baking soda time to react and start making air bubbles in the batter which will give you a nice fluffy pancake. Give these a try and post comments below letting me know what you thought about them and what you did differently, if anything. As always, be sure to follow @RecipeBlogger on Twitter if you aren’t already so you don’t miss a single recipe post.

Pumpkin Pancakes

• 1 1/2 cups Whole Milk
• 1 1/3 cups Pumpkin Puree
• 1 Egg
• 2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
• 2 Tbsp Vinegar
• 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
• 3 Tbsp Brown Sugar
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 2 1/2 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 tsp Salt

1. In a bowl, mix together the milk, pumpkin, egg, oil and vinegar.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, vanilla and salt; gently stir into the pumpkin mixture just enough to combine.
3. Let the batter sit for at least 5 minutes before continuing; heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat while waiting.
4. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake; cook until golden brown on both sides and serve hot.

Yummy Recipe Wednesday! (Pumpkin Butter)

Hello everyone and welcome to another Yummy Recipe Wednesday. Today I bring you the second of four pumpkin recipes that I promised I would post this month in celebration of the fall season and Halloween. I grew up around a lot of orchards so Apple Butter was common in our house but I had never tried or heard of pumpkin butter until quite recently. Pumpkin Butter is great on buttered toast but I have found lots of other uses for it as well. You can use it between layers of cake to make a delicious pumpkin cake or you can even add it to vanilla ice cream to make a delicious pumpkin flavored ice cream. If the Pumpkin Butter comes out too thick for your liking just adjust your apple juice to get the consistency that you want. Also, you can make this in your slow cooker to avoid splattering if you prefer. Give it a try and let me know what you think in the comments below. As always, don’t forget to follow @RecipeBlogger on Twitter if you aren’t already so you don’t miss a single recipe post.

WARNING: DO NOT CAN PUMPKIN BUTTER
Home canning of Pumpkin Butter is NOT recommended by the USDA. Studies have been done and found that due to the varying viscosity and the low acidity of pumpkin they have not been able to find a canning method for pumpkin butter that is 100% safe. The bacteria that cause botulism can survive the canning process and if there is enough water content in the Pumpkin Butter the botulism will grow.

Pumpkin Butter

• 1 (29 oz) can Pumpkin Puree
• 3/4 cup Apple Juice
• 2 tsp Ground Ginger
• 1/2 tsp Ground Cloves
• 1 1/2 cups White Sugar
• 2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Ground Nutmeg

1. Combine the pumpkin, apple juice, spices, and sugar in a large saucepan and stir well.
2. Bring the mixture to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until thickened, stirring frequently.
3. Transfer the pumpkin butter to containers and chill in the refrigerator until serving.

Yummy Recipe Wednesday! (Pumpkin Chipotle Soup)

Hello once again everyone and welcome to another Yummy Recipe Wednesday. As I mentioned last week, I will be posting four pumpkin recipes on the blog this month to celebrate the beginning of the fall season and the month of Halloween. Today I bring you the first of the four recipes and it’s a quite interesting one indeed. Last fall I discovered a recipe, which I shared on this blog, for a Slow Cooker Pumpkin Turkey Chili and I remember thinking how weird it sounds but was amazed by how it tasted when I finally made it. Today’s recipe falls into the same lines. It sounds like a weird, albeit intriguing, combination of ingredients but you will be amazed by how it tastes. It is a bit spicy, due to the chipotles in the recipe, so if you don’t want it spicy just omit the chipotles. The smokiness from the smoked paprika will still give it a nice smoky flavor. Give this a try and let me know what you think in the comments below. As always, be sure to follow @RecipeBlogger on Twitter if you aren’t already so you don’t miss a single recipe post.

Pumpkin Chipotle Soup

• 2 Tbsp Butter
• 2 Tbsp All-Purpose Flour
• 4 cups Chicken Broth
• 1 (29 oz) can Pumpkin Puree
• 2 Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce, minced
• 1 1/2 cups Half-And-Half Cream
• 2 Tbsp Sofrito
• 1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Smoked Paprika
• 1 Large Avocado, diced
• Cilantro (optional)

1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat; stir in the flour and cook until the flour has turned golden brown, about 3 minutes.
2. Whisk in the chicken broth and bring to a boil over high heat.
3. Whisk in the pumpkin puree until no lumps remain, then add the chipotle peppers, half-and-half cream, sofrito, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and paprika.
4. Return to a simmer, then reduce heat to medium-low, and cook for 8 minutes until thickened and hot.
5. Garnish bowls of soup with diced avocado and cilantro if desired.

Yummy Recipe Wednesday! (Doritos Pork Chops)

Hello again everyone and welcome to another Yummy Recipe Wednesday. Today I bring you a recipe I came up with a couple of weeks ago to make delicious, moist pork chops. I don’t eat pork chops very often but recently I had some pork chops and I wanted to come up with a new delicious way to make them. It seems that meat is being breaded with all sort of different things these days so I figured why not Doritos chips. I decided to go with a combination of Cool Ranch and Spicy Nacho Cheese chips because they both offer different flavors that I figured would be good together. I found that you really don’t get any spiciness from the Spicy Nacho Cheese chips so I’ve changed the recipe to just regular Nacho Cheese chips. I was very happy with how the flavor turned out on these and how moist the pork was. They were definitely a big hit with my wife and house guests and it’s certainly something I’m going to add to my rotation of recipes. Give these a try and post comments below with your thoughts, suggestions, etc. Also, every Yummy Recipe Wednesday the rest of this month I will be posting a pumpkin themed recipe to celebrate the fall season as well as Halloween so be sure to come back each week. As always, don’t forget to follow @RecipeBlogger on Twitter if you aren’t already so you don’t miss a single posting.

Doritos Pork Chops

• 1/2 bag (5.5 oz) Cool Ranch Doritos, crushed
• 1/2 bag (5.5 oz) Nacho Cheese Doritos, crushed
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup milk
• Salt and Pepper
• 2 Tbsp Butter, melted
• 6 (3/4 inch) pork chops
• Garlic Powder
• Onion Powder

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit; pierce the pork chops several times on each side with a fork and set aside.
2. Spread the crushed chips out in the bottom of a shallow dish.
3. Beat the egg and milk together in a bowl; season with salt and pepper.
4. Pour the melted butter into the bottom of a 9x13 casserole dish and tilt in all directions to cover the entire bottom of the dish.
5. Dip the pork chops in the egg wash and then transfer to the crushed chips; cover both sides with chips, pressing them into the meat and then place in the casserole dish.
6. After all pork chops have been coated and placed in the casserole dish, season the tops generously with the garlic powder and onion powder.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes
8. Flip the pork chops over, season the other side with garlic powder and onion powder then cook an additional 10 minutes; internal temperature should read 145-160** degrees when finished.

**Old USDA guidelines said to cook pork to 160 degrees but this was officially modified to 145 degrees in 2011.