Living in a Cereal World

Here I was, all ready to blog about my new (successful!) Thanksgiving recipes, when I remembered I had to share this first (I like to do things in order). After I used one-and-a-half cups of canned pumpkin for the  waffles  I had just enough left to make  Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies with Chocolate Chips . They are thick and hearty and I honestly thought they were good enough to come from a real bakery. I don't usually compliment my baking like that, so it must be the recipe. I followed it exactly, even though my cookies tend to burn on the lower oven rack. Oh, wait, I take that back--I didn't feel like buying currants for just that small amount, so I substituted raisins. But anyway, these cookies are amazing. Maybe it's the pumpkin pie spice, maybe it's the molasses (you can't go wrong with pumpkin and molasses), I can't say for sure. All I can say is you need  to try these cookies, possibly more than any other cookie I've shared here.

Sunday morning I made  Pumpkin Waffles  for a belated birthday breakfast. And they are the best. But be warned: they are incredibly filling. I can only eat 3/4 of a round waffle. The first time I made these a few years ago. I was really surprised by the texture. They're chewier than a typical waffle; it's like someone crossed a waffle with pumpkin pie. They could almost be a dessert waffle. Also, because of this, don't overfill your waffle iron or you might not be able to finish it. They puff up a lot, too, like they're trying to escape by pushing the lid off. I can't imagine trying another pumpkin waffle recipe; these are just too good.

Not that things were bad; I just haven't had a moment to stop and blog all week. I feel like I haven't stopped moving since last Sunday--and I'm trying not to think about the moving coming up this week. But anyway, I made my birthday cake a few days ago:  Caramel Pear Cake . Yes, a recipe that calls for a boxed cake mix. Gasp! I made this choice on purpose, though. Quick and easy, since I also made soup for dinner (but I can't tell you if I shared it here last year since something seems to be wrong with my search bar). Two notes: 1. I'm not sure if my pears were sliced thin enough; they didn't sink down in the cake like the picture would indicate, 2. I swapped the walnuts for pecans. I think it was appreciated. It's a very light cake and the spice flavor goes well with the pears. Oh, and I had some ginormous Anjou pears. I only needed one to make the two rows on top of the cake. I've already made the world's fluffiest waffles (hyperbole much?) th

Well, it's not really new. I was halfway through eating my yogurt and granola today when I realized, hey, wait a minute, isn't this just the other flavor of Just Bunches?  Ha. It's been so long I forgot there were  two flavors of  Just Bunches . And you know how I feel about cinnamon-flavored anything.  So thanks for the reunion, Post!

(unintentional chicken-related pun, there) So I had leftover bits from a soft taco dinner kit, didn't want it to go to waste, and didn't necessarily want dinner again. Why not turn it into breakfast? I had tried this once before, this recreation of a breakfast burrito, and it didn't go so well, but it was edible and I was hungry. This time around I made some key adjustments. 1. You can't actually make a breakfast burrito with soft taco-sized tortillas. Especially when some come out of the package smaller than others. My first correction was to split my eggs between two tortillas. 1a. Oh, yeah, I used two eggs. I didn't think one would be filling enough. 2. Last time I didn't have any kind of spice. This time I squeezed on some leftover taco sauce and reheated the tortillas in the microwave. 3. If you have a sausage you like, you should probably try it here. Cooked first, of course. I just used deli ham. 4. I always have a 4-cheese Mexican blend on ha

I had purposely saved this Kashi equivalent to Mini-Wheats to compare flavors but I hadn't intended to open it today. This morning I went to pour a bowl of  Cinnamon Roll  Mini-Wheats Little Bites thinking I had plenty left but it was not to be. It seems somebody somewhere crushed the plastic liner because there was a ridiculous amount of powdery crumbs in the bottom of the bag. Seriously, the contents of that cereal box should not have settled that  much. So that was disappointing. But then I figured I might as well open the Cinnamon Harvest and see what was going on in there. I tasted a biscuit (I'm assuming they also use that terminology) not expecting much flavor, and it isn't overwhelming like the Mini-Wheats but it's just fine the way it is. It takes a moment to hit you, but when it does the flavor is more reminiscent of  Cinnamon Life . It's refreshing to pull it back for breakfast every now and then, you know?

So I mentioned  the other day  that Pepperidge Farm has a new, seasonal Gingerbread Swirl bread. Now I get to report: it's really, really good. You get the essence of gingerbread without eating cake or a cookie for breakfast. The loaf smells like gingerbread, I taste ginger in the swirl, and the bread itself is a very dark brown, reminiscent of gingerbread. Maybe there's molasses in it? I should check. I say, good for you, Pepperidge Farm, for taking a chance on a new flavor.

Because you would probably win,  Chicken Noodle Soup . I know that's probably not the first adjective that would come to mind for most people but I just couldn't help thinking, that's so adorable, as the chicken stewed in the Crock Pot. It was like the chicken was having a nice, relaxing soak and then I got to eat the delicious bathwater. Some notes on the actual recipe, though: I tried to make this while following both the recipe and the Crock Pot's manual. First off, a 3.5 lb chicken fit perfectly on top of the carrots and celery, and the eight cups of water was just enough (it makes plenty of soup). I went with the high setting on the Crock Pot because I had no idea how long it would take to actually cook a whole chicken (answer: 5 hrs. on high). This worked out perfectly because I precooked the egg noodles--as per the manual--for about three minutes and then there was almost exactly twenty minutes to go on my Crock Pot's 6 hr. setting. Then I added the shredde

...whether you're ready for it or not. You know, seasonal teas (already bought this year's  gingerbread spice  tea), holiday Archway cookies (stocking up now), and breakfast breads, preferably of the cranberry variety. But this year Pepperidge Farm may have outdone themselves with gingerbread Swirl Bread. That's right, gingerbread.  I haven't actually tried it yet but I had to pick one up today. That reminds me, I never reviewed the Whole Wheat Raisin Cinnamon Swirl variety, which I finally got around to trying last week after, I don't know, two years? The only real difference I can see--feel/taste actually--is the softness of the bread. It's nice for a change of pace. The regular Raisin Swirl gets old after a while.