Pumpkin Pie ... in a Cupcake

A few weeks ago, my friend Lisa e-mailed me a recipe for Pumpkin Pie in a Cupcake. The e-mail's subject line was "Dude" and all the e-mail included was a link to the recipe. It was love at first sight.

I knew I had to find a reason to make the cupcakes, and a soup and chili fall potluck at my friend Sun's this past week was the perfect opportunity.

The cupcakes turned out great, and everyone who has had one so far has really liked them. To get to that point, though, it was quite the process! First, I had to go to three stores to find all the ingredients (who knew cinnamon chips would be so hard to find?) and from start to finish, the cupcakes took about three hours. But, the end result was so worth it!

Here is a link to the recipe, courtesy of Bake it in a Cake! Blog (check out some of the other recipes--holy cow! The things you can put in a cupcake ...).

Check out the recipe at the link above for exact directions and measurements, and then check out my photos for a basic play-by-play.

Cutting the perfect-sized crust for the mini pumpkin pies. I rolled out the pie dough a bit to make it go a little further. A tasting glass from the Sprecher Brewery was the perfect tool for making the mini crusts!

Making the mini crusts in a mini cupacke/muffin tin:

Mmm ... mini pies! This would probably be tasty on their own.

Pretty basic cupcake batter:

You have to put quite a bit of cupacake batter in the cupcake molds before putting the pies in:

I think I ended up pushing the pumpkin pies a bit too far into the cupcakes. The crust was pretty much at the bottom of the cupcake, which I don't think was supposed to happen. But it didn't seem to do anything to the taste.

That's a lot of cupcake ...

The cupcakes sure were big!

Finding cinnamon chips was a bit diffcult. I had to go to three stores before I found them at Sentry on 68th and State Streets in Wauwatosa.

Melting the cinnamon chips in the microwave didn't go so well (that's what's pictured). I would suggested melting them in a double boiler, if possible. That's what I ended up doing, and it was much better!

Frosted and ready to eat!

I ended up having quite a bit of the pumpkin pie filling left over. I probably could have make more cupcakes with another pie dough, but I ended up using the leftover filling and the rest of the first pie dough to make a makeshift pumpkin pie. I haven't tried it yet, but I hope it's good!

Dinner and Dessert in Bay View

Earlier this week, I had dinner with my friend Ann, who I mentioned was moving away. We had been talking for a while about going to Bay View's Three Brothers for Serbian food for a while and decided to have dinner there right before she left.

Although Ann had never been to Three Brothers, I've been there numerous times, mostly with my family and once with my ethnic dining group. It's one of my favorite Milwaukee restaurants--it's homey and cozy, everything is home cooked in a small kitchen by just a few people and it appears to be very authentic. Be prepared, though--they don't take credit/debit cards!

We shared two of my favorite menu items. We started with the Serbian salad, which consists of tomatoes, onions, green peppers and Serbian cheese. It's different than your typical house salad, and it's excellent. We also had some Serbian bread and a great soft, butter-like goat cheese spread.

For our main course, I wanted to share something I knew Ann would love: the cheese and spinach burek. We are both huge spinach pie fans (see this post in which I declare my love), and the bureks are huge, so I knew splitting one was the way to go. I was right--Ann loved it, and the burek was as great as I remembered it.

For dessert, we wanted to check out a different place, so we headed to Honeypie, just a few blocks away. We thought they would have a good dessert selection, and Honeypie didn't disappoint! We each had a drink and then split two desserts: a slice of Kahlua cream pie and a German chocolate cupcake. Both were delicious and the perfect end to a great evening.

Super Easy Butternut Squash Soup

We had a HUGE butternut squash from our CSA box that I wanted to use up. I knew I had tons of butternut squash recipes, and sure enough I found a soup one. I have a big binder full of recipes I've printed off from websites, copied down from friends and family and cut out of magazines and the newspaper.

This particular recipe came from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. I have no idea when, but I would guess I clipped it out years ago. It's for Spiced Butternut Squash Soup. It's a very easy, basic recipe that turned out great. The worst part was peeling and cubing the gigantic butternut squash we had. That process took a while and bent a potato peeler my parents got me in Sweden.

Here's the recipe:

Spiced Butternut Squash Soup

-4.5 lbs. butternut squash, pumpkin or sweet potatoes (I think my squash was more like 5 lbs., maybe a little more)

-3 tbs. olive oil

-2/3 cup chopped red onion

-5 garlic cloves, minced

-1 teas. sweet paprika (I used regular paprika)

-1 teas. ground allspice

-1/2 teas. chili powder (optional) (and I should have used more than 1/2 teas.)

-2 teas. salt

-6 cups water (or more to cover--I used more since I had more squash than the recipe called for)

-1/2 cup yogurt, sour cream, half-and-half or non-dairy creamer

-1/2 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley (I skipped this)

Scrub squash well and cut off stem end. Slice in half lengthwise and remove seeds and strands. Peel and cut into cubes.

In a large soup pot with a cover, heat oil and saute onion over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until transparent and lightly golden. Add garlic and saute 1 minute. Add squash cubes, paprika, allspice, chili powder and salt. Add 6 cups of water (or enough to cover squash) and bring to a biol. Cover and cook over medium-low heat about 30-40 minutes, until squash is fork-tender.

Remove from heat and puree in batches in a food processor or blender (I used an emulsion blender). Return to pot and cook an additional 5 minutes (or reheat gently before serving). Can serve with yogurt/sour cream and parsley. Makes 8 servings.

We served our bowls of soup with a dollop of sour cream since we had some in our fridge, leftover from another recipe. The sour cream didn't do much though, and really just got lumpy. I added a little hot sauce to my bowl, too. The soup is really tasty and healthy. We served it with some leftover soda bread.

Chops, Cauliflower and Greens

On Sunday, we wanted to make a somewhat healthy meal for dinner, and we needed to use up a HUGE half head of cauliflower from the CSA box. We opted for pork chops, mashed cauliflower and sauteed mustard greens and kale (also from the CSA).

For the pork chops, we haven't made them in so long I wasn't sure what to do. So I search www.allrecipes.com for a pan-fried pork chop recipe and found this one for coriander and cumin rubbed pork chops. The recipe was really easy and the flavor was great--it wasn't too overpowering, but just enough. One difference, though, is that the chops took much longer to cook than the five minutes a side the recipe indicates.

For the cauliflower, I found a recipe in my Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health cookbook. It was super easy, but, again, took longer than the recipe indicates since there was SO much cauliflower (and I didn't even use the entire half a head!). Here's the recipe:

Mashed Cauliflower with Shallots

-1 head of cauliflower, trimmed and chopped

-2 tbs. olive oil

-1/4 cup minced shallots

-2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

-1/2 teas. salt

-1/4 teas. ground black pepper

-1/2 cup finely chopped scallions

-1/4 cup minced fresh parsley (I skipped this)

-grated Parmesan, asiago or sharp cheddar (I used shredded Parmesan)

Steam the cauliflower until very tender, about 7 minutes. Put in a shallow bowl and set aside.

Warm the oil in a small skillet on medium-high heat and saute the shallots, garlic, salt and pepper until the shallots have softened. Add to the bowl of cauliflower and mash with a potato masher. Stir in the scallions and parsley. Stir in grated cheese if desired.

I really liked it, but, then again, I like cauliflower. I also thought the green onion flavor really stood out. Nate thought it was still very cauliflower tasting.

For the mustard greens and kale, I sliced and chopped the greens pretty thin (cutting part of my finger nail off in the process--oops!) and sauteed them in a skillet with a bit of water, olive oil and some garlic. (I may have used some onions too--I can't remember now!). It was good. It had cooked for quite a while since I had started the greens first. Nate thought it tasted better than the greens we've made in the past.

All in all, it was a good, filling meal!

Restaurant Review: Palomino

Last Saturday, we spent the evening in Bay View, as it was our friend Ann's weekend in town before moving away. She had lived around the corner from Palomino for about a year, and we thought it would be a proper send off to have dinner there.

I've been to Palomino numerous times, including with Ann for this brunch experience. I've always enjoyed my food, but I know going into it I'm not getting a healthy meal out of it! In my experience, too, it seems that while I love vegetarian food, I've liked the meaty meals better.

Palomino (is it weird the restaurant/bar doesn't have a website?) is a funky Bay View bar, specializing in comfort foods, many of them in vegetarian or vegan form. Like I said, it's not known for health food--most dishes are fried, come with two sides (like tater tots!) and are pretty greasy.


While I love my fair share of greasy food and I always enjoy my food at Palomino, this past visit I realized just how greasy it can be.

I didn't try everyone's dishes, so I don't want to make comments on those. The other three ordered a wide range of foods: rack of ribs, ranch chicken wrap and pulled pork.


Ann ordered a turkey chipotle sandwich and I ordered the portabella Philly sandwich.


Ann and I spilt the sides we got with our orders: hush puppies, tater tots, sweet potato casserole and jalapeno poppers.

My sandwich was OK. It wasn't as flavorful as I had hoped it would be, and it was extremely greasy--more greasy than I think it needed to be. The tater tots, as usual, were awesome and so was the sweet potato casserole. Ann's sandwich (I got to eat half of it the next day for lunch leftovers) had good flavor, but was really greasy, too. It's one thing when your tater tots and hush puppies are greasy--that's to be expected. But when your sandwich is almost dripping with grease, it's not appealing, in my opinion.


The greasy elements really won't stop me from eating there again. They have a good beer selection and you can't go wrong with being able to pick two sides with your meal! I think next time I'll try the macaroni and cheese--I've heard lots of good things about it, and I can't imagine it would be too greasy ...

Curried Chicken Saute

The November issue of Cooking Light is huge and oh-so-enticing. There is a lot of good stuff in there, and one recipe that jumped out was the one for Curried Chicken Saute. We had a a somewhat quiet night at home last Friday and decided to make the dish. It was really easy and super tasty.

Before making that, though, we heated up some frozen Indian appetizers we had that we got at our favorite Indian grocery store a while ago.

Both the samosas and pakoras were great. We dipped them in tamarind sauce and mint chutney.

For the chicken curry, we followed the recipe exactly, except for a few things:

-We added about a 1/4 cup of sliced yellow onions.

-We added a jalapeno we had leftover from our little summer garden.

-We used a spicy curry powder rather than plain curry powder.

We made some plain basmati rice in the steamer to go with the meal. It was a good thing we did--it was super spicy!

I'm not sure if it was the jalapeno (which we use a lot) or the curry (which I've used before and didn't think it was that spicy). But combined, or something, it was hot. The meal was great, though, and I'd make the saute recipe again.

One thing I would note though is to add all the salt the recipe calls for. I didn't add all of the salt the recipe calls for, thinking it would be fine. I ended up adding quite a bit (more than I usually do) once I started eating it.

Best-Ever Pumpkin Dip

I'm not sure how many pumpkin dip recipes exist out there, but without even trying them I can tell you this is the best. Everything about this recipe is great--it's quick, it's easy and it's tasty with so many foods.

Here is the recipe. It's so short and easy, though, I'll include it here (and add what I do differently):

Pumpkin Dip

-8 oz. cream cheese softened (I usually use Neufchatel cheese, since it's a wee bit healthier)

-2 cups powdered sugar

-15 oz. can pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)

-1 tbs. ground cinnamon

-1 tbs. pumpkin pie spice

-1 teas. frozen orange juice concentrate (I don't usually add this, mostly because it's kind of a pain--and I don't think it needs it)

In a medium bowl, mix cream cheese with sugar until smooth. Gradually mix in pumpkin. Stir in cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice (and OJ if using it). Blend well. Chill before serving.

I like to serve the dip with Nilla Wafers, graham crackers (the cinnamon ones are especially good), gingersnaps and apples. I also put it some leftovers on a bagel earlier this week, and that's good, too!

It makes a lot, too! I had about four cups of dip when I was done.