Fun Baking (Mobile uploads)

Vanilla-cake-based (Trader Joe's mix-amazing texture AND vanilla beans in it!) pumpkin cupcakes with pumpkin butter (Again, Trader Joe's jar! Convenient!!) pastry cream filling and pumpkin cinnamin spice cream cheese frosting!

I made these today for-- shhhh!! -- a birthday girl, tomorrow, who loves cinnamin and pumpkin! :)

Confession: I, on the other hand, don't like pumpkin pie, ginger, nutmeg, and spiced desserts of the such. Crazy! I know, I know, I have tried, believe me! Every year when Autumn bears its beautiful colors and pumpkin peaks its blossoming flavors at Harvest time, I TRY to like pumpkin pie, hoping that this might be the year it finally does something amazing to my taste buds and I can finally see, er, taste rather, why everyone has fallen in love with Fall-spiced foods.

I did, however, LIKE these cupcakes!! No nutmeg, so that definitely helped for my palate! hehe Pumpkin I don't mind, cinnamin I can like, but nutmeg hasn't found favor in my mouth! haha... sorry spice lovers.

Anywho, I hope she says yum! :)

Sunrise Today

lunch today! :)

Rachel Ray made an heirloom, watermelon, and onion salad yesterday on her show, which I caught the tail end of. Never really do watch it, but I like Rachel! She cracks me up, and her style and simplicity are so practical for me. She said heirloom tomatoes are going out of their season-- they'll be good until the end of October! "So get them now and use them while you can!" So I went to Trader Joe today and grabbed a little carton of them and a basil leaf plant that was only $2.99 . I made my version of bruschetta! :D I was so excited!!

I used the bread we have, which is just whole wheat. 2 slices, cut into eighths. Then I drizzled extra virgin olive oil over them on a foiled cookie sheet. Then I put fresh garlic chopped up on top, and baked it for about 10 minutes to roast the garlic and begin to toast the bread. Once I began to smell it, I took them out and put my basil leaves on each piece, then a slice of delicious heirloom tomato (thank you Rachel for insisting!) and some more olive oil. A few pinches of parmigiano was absolutely necessary for me! haha... Then I put little pieces of mozerella on top, and for those pieces that looked like they may topple, a toothpick through!

Then I broiled for a few minutes on low, again right until I began to smell it!

P.S. My heirlooms were yellow and red!

Amy's 24th Birthday!