Pumpkin Bars

Pumpkin is good. It's creamy and not-too-sweet. It makes you feel all warm inside. That's why it's so exciting when you see it start filling the shelves in the fall. And that's why I then fill my shelves with it at home. If you're like me, you have a few extra cans of pumpkin laying around (or put away properly if you're not like me). Here's a delicious way to use them up.

Pumpkin Bars
from Better Homes and Gardens

2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves
4 eggs, beaten
1 (15-oz) can pumpkin
1 cup cooking oil
cream cheese frosting

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, soda, salt, and cloves. Stir in eggs, pumpkin, and oil until combined. Spread batter in an ungreased 15x10x1-inch baking pan.
2. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let stand in pan on a wire rack for 2 hours. Spread with Cream Cheese Frosting. Cut into bars.

Makes 48 bars.

Cream Cheese Frosting

4 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 to 3 cups powdered sugar

1. In a medium bowl beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar to a frosting of spreading consistency.

I looked back now and saw that the recipe didn't call for me dirtying another bowl to mix together the wet ingredients separately. I'm just going to chalk it up to my newly found baker's instincts. I do such things out of habit now.

The prepared batter. I love the orangeness pumpkin brings to anything it's in. It's pretty and reminds us that life won't always be so white, dull and lifeless (can you tell I'm ready for winter to be over?).

The pumpkin cake cooling.

Frosting before the powder sugar was added. Mmm...it smells nice.

Finished product: classically good. This isn't an astounding new recipe. It's more of an old favorite. It's a classic but a classic is a classic for a reason...mainly because it's good. Each bar is moist and yet still light. The frosting adds just enough decadence without making it heavy or too rich. Enjoy!

Skillet Tamale Pie

Skillet Tamale Pie
from Rachael Ray

1 Tbsp olive oil
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups whole milk or half-and-half
2 bacon slices, chopped
3/4 lb ground beef
3/4 lb ground pork
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small red or green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
3 to 4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 Tbsp chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
pinch of ground cinnamon
salt and black pepper
1 (15-oz) can tomato sauce
2 cups quick-cooking polenta
1 cup shredded Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese

1. Preheat the broiler to high and place the oven rack 1 rung beneath the highest level of your oven.
2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high to high heat. Combine the chicken stock and milk in a pot to bring to a boil over medium heat.
3. Add bacon to the hot olive oil and cook for 2 minutes or until crisp, then add the ground meats, raise the heat to high, and cook until they are browned, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the onions, bell pepper, jalapeno, and garlic and season with the chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Cook for 5 minutes to soften the vegetables, then stir in the tomato sauce and heat through, 1 minute more.
4. While the meat cooks, whisk the polenta into the simmering stock and milk. Stir for 5 minutes, or until the polenta is thick and masses together in the pot. Use a rubber spatula to spread the polenta over the meat mixture and top with the cheese. Place the skillet under the hot broiler to brown the cheese and set the polenta, about 1 minute. Serve directly from the skillet

Serves 4.Prior to this recipe, I had never tried polenta before. I knew the general idea of it but had never actually eaten it and certainly had never purchased it. I had no idea what to even look for in the store. I wandered around a lot. Just in case one of you might be in the same boat, this is what the polenta I found looks like. I found it in the specialty section of the Italian foods (by the parmesan cheese, etc).

The bacon and ground meats cooking. I ended up using more meat than the recipe called for. I had 1 lb packages of meat and I wasn't going to try to separate out 1/4 lb of each of the meats and save them for a later date. I could have, I guess, but I didn't.

Meats and vegetables. I skipped the jalapeno: one reason being that I'm often nice to my husband and daughter who aren't really fond of spice, and two because I didn't really want to mess with the jalapeno if it would just lead to complaints anyway.

The polenta cooking.

The polenta cooked. It's a little bit grainy and a whole lot creamy, which you would think are opposites but aren't.

The meat mixture. It smelled yummy. I put in maybe a bit more than a pinch of cinnamon (I'm not one hundred percent sure how much that is anyway). The cinnamon sounds like a weird addition to this meal but it's not. It adds an awesome depth of flavor so don't skip it.

The skillets I have all involve handles that would burn/melt in the oven. I heard that you could just wrap that type of handle in foil and put it in the oven (if it's not going to be in there to long). I was still a little bit nervous trying it but the wrapping technique worked just fine.

The finished product: ugly but delicious. This isn't the most beautiful meal ever created but it certainly is tasty. The meat mixture is addictive. The cinnamon is barely recognizable in scent but it combines wonderfully with the spices and peppers. The polenta is creamy, dreamy, wonderful. It mimics the corn tortilla flavor of a regular tamale but with a much more interesting texture. Tyler and Addilyn were okay with this meal (which was kind of surprising to me; Rachael Ray was kidding when she marked this as a "the Kids Will Eat It" meal) and I loved it!