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.