One is not enough

Neither one muffin, nor one recipe.
Katie, you did it again. This single-serving muffin was fan-friggin’-tastic.
So go get this recipe and make it-and um, you may want to double the recipe. Then tell Katie she rocks. A lot of blog readers do these days but that is because she does. Like, totally! Sorry, valley girl moment.
So maybe the point of this recipe is that it only makes one. But when it comes to bread products, I eat for two: me and…you. That’s right. I eat a second just to MAKE SURE its good enough to share the recipe with you. Except I couldn’t with this muffin since it only made one. I’m talking in circles. I’ll stop.
So a week later I decided to tackle another single serve Katie recipe, this one for a Cinnamon Roll Baked Oatmeal.

I feared wanting more but this recipe was bigger and have the option of cooking it as one big portion or two smaller so I stuck with it. I figured that the extra large portion would cancel out my need for seconds: I cooked it as one.

Yeah, duuuude. This hit the spot. It was after midnight and I wasn’t up to making frosting so I slathered with smart balance. Mmmmmm, slathering. It’s like lathering without the bubbles. Hopefully sans soapy taste too.
This Boatmeal is good stuff! I would add a touch more cinnamon in the future, but I’m a cinna-holic, take that as you will.

Pumpkin Time Again

I’ll explain the picture in a minute.
I finally succumbed to the autumn urge to pumpkin it up. And now I will pump(clap, point) you up! Sorry, SNL moment. Hans and Franz.
Since I held out on pumpkin recipes for the last post, this time I am showing you two. One vegan, created by the ever-lovely Katie, which you see at the top of the post. These pumpkin bars are so friggin’ fantastic. I barely managed not to eat the whole pan the first night I made them.
Then the next night I had a night shoot playing a goth, AGAIN:

Night fell, the shoot went on forever and at last at 4 am I arrived home with fake blood crusting on my neck, having been killed by vampires. Delicious image, no? I was starving and gulped down half the pan of these. Glad I had saved some. In honor of the goth-y state I was in when I consumed these, I took a picture of them with a comic about goths I clipped way back in the 90’s from a zine. Remember zines? Yeah, nineties grrl power. And goth power. And stuff.
Anyway, black attire or no, bloody or not, hop on over to Katie and check out the recipe for these bars.
And now, the non-vegan pumpkin bar:

This is the one that opened the floodgates of pumpkin. The gateway bar. Once you start, you can’t stop. It is addictive. I had been wanting to make this recipe for Pumpkin Bars from the Poppin’ Fresh Homemade Cookies cookbook, published by Pillsbury since…oh since I bought the book at a sixth grade book fair. A lot of other pumpkin recipes from other sources as well as a six year bout with anorexia distracted me from getting around to it.
Well done on this recipe, Pillsbury authors!
Incidentally, the Pillsbury Dough Boy(along with the Michelin man) was the inspiration behind the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. And I know him. The man who built and wore the costume. he’s not puffy. He says he filled in as Slimer occasionally during the film shoot. These are the folks I met at the parties when I was seeing a professional propsmaker. Ah, Hollywood. I digress.
I wish I had had cream cheese, I’d have frosted these suckers. But I did not.
Observe this picture of these bars:

Yep. That is some light Smart Balance I am putting on them. Incidentally, this variety of it is vegan. Not all Smart Balance is even vegetarian. One variety(the light heart right kind, I think?) has fish oil in it. Gross!
Now we’ve covered Katie, zines, goth-iness, vampires, fake blood, Ghost Busters characters, Hans and Franz, and fish oil.
So eat. Write a zine. Pump yourself up. Do a little dance. Make a little love, if you like.
Which of these activities are you doing tonight?
Let’s get to the recipe.
Pumpkin Bars(adapted from Poppin’ Fresh Homemade Cookies by Pillsbury)
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup splenda or stevia(or just use a full cup of sugar)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
2 eggs
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Sift dry ingredients together. Add wet and mix it up. Mix it good. But not too good, no need to beat this stuff. Pour into a sprayed 9×9 pan and bake til…done. I don’t remember how long I cooked these. I’m guessing a half hour more or less. But I took them out when slightly underdone because that is how I like them. Bottom line, take them out when they reach the state of done-ousity you prefer.