Pumpkin Spice Bars

 
I hope you all are having a pleasant Saturday afternoon. Just sittin' here with my husband watchin' our new favorite TV show on CMT - Top Secret Recipe. It's hilarious what the host of that show, Todd, will do to figure out a secret recipe. lol! It's a pretty sunny day out there today which is a nice change of pace from all the wind and rain we've been having these past few days. Those cold, rainy days were perfect weather for beef stew, Texas dinner rolls, and this recipe for Pumpkin Spice Bars. I almost forgot to post the recipe on my blog. Good thing I remembered before they were all gone. lol! This was the first time I've made these and they turned out really good. I used canned cream cheese frosting instead of making it from scratch since I didn't want to make a special trip to the store...

PUMPKIN SPICE BARS

1 pkg. spice cake mix

1 can solid-pack pumpkin (1-3/4 c.)

1 c. Miracle Whip (I used Kroger brand)

3 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease & flour 13" x 9" x 2"  baking pan*. (I use a wee bit of the cake mix to flour the pan with). Beat cake mix, pumpkin, Miracle Whip, and eggs in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended - about 2-3 minutes. Pour into prepared pan. 

Bake about 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely on wire rack.

FROSTING:

1 - 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened

1/4 c. butter (1/2 stick), softened

2 TBSP. milk

1 tsp. vanilla

3-1/2 to 4 c. powdered sugar

Beat cream cheese, butter, milk and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer until smooth. Gradually mix in powdered sugar. Spread over cooled cake. Refrigerate.

*Variation: For sheet cake - bake in greased and floured 15" x 10" x 1" pan at 350 for 18 to 20 minutes.

Hope you enjoy and thanks for stoppin' by!

Our Annual Trip To The Pumpkin Farmers'

Every October since B. has been wee little, we've taken her out to a local farm to pick out a few pumpkins that get carved as Jack-O-Lanterns on Halloween. Since we have bad weather moving in tomorrow and the next day, we decided to take a drive out there this evening and get our pumpkins. Sure it would be easier to just get some pumpkins at the local grocery store or Wal-Mart, but you see going out to visit this old farm couple is about more than just pumpkins. We've grown quite fond of Elda Mae and Fred over the years. They are both almost 80 years old and I love listening to their stories of days gone by and about working on the farm. We have special memories of visiting them over the years.... One year Elda Mae invited us into her home and gave us a little tour. She had made quilts out of her family's old clothing that were absolutely beautiful. These quilts are on bunk beds and the headboards and footboards on the beds were made out of old wagon wheels from her childhood that were cut in half. She had huge gallon-sized jars of Indian arrowheads that were found on their farm during the past 40-some years. Another year she showed B. some newborn calves. One year she shared pumpkin recipes with me. And this year when we gave them both a hug good-bye, she got a little teary-eyed and said "you know it's about more then just the pumpkins". It seems that Elda Mae and Fred have grown quite fond of us too. I pray that each year they'll still be there since they are getting up there in years. This year I made sure to take a picture of them with B. to put in her scrapbook and we exchanged addresses so we could still keep in touch if they can no longer continue selling pumpkins someday. They even asked us if we'd still come out to see them and we said of course we will.

Besides growing pumpkins, they also raise cows and B. enjoys seeing them each time we go out there as well...

They don't seem to have very good luck with their pumpkins these past few years. One year, 50 of their pumpkins were stolen and they had to go buy them in order to be able to sell them. Another year the deer ate their pumpkins. And this year, mice destroyed 500 of their pumpkins. They dug little holes right into the pumpkins and ate just the seeds. So they went and spent over $1,000 so they could have pumpkins because they know families like us, have been going out to see them for the past 47 years.  And they look forward to seeing all of us. Yeah, it really is about more than just the pumpkins and as long as they're still around, they'll continue to be our October tradition...

Sizzix Outlet Haul, Glimmer Mist Storage

I hope you all are having a pleasant Tuesday afternoon. I'm enjoying the calm 60 degree sunny weather we're having here today. It's expected to change tomorrow into Thursday when it will get really windy and rainy. They're talking possible power outages. I sure hope that doesn't happen. Speaking of which, we have a side-by-side fridge/freezer that we've had for seven years now since we built our house.  A few weeks ago we started having trouble with the ice maker when one day I heard it making some really loud strange noises. Then right after, I couldn't get any ice to come out the door. So my husband looked into it and found a huge chunk of ice blocking where the water comes in and we thought maybe it was from ice melting or something from a power outage. The thing is we haven't had a power outage in a long time. We cleaned the freezer out and only had a few things left in there. And since we had plenty of ice made, we didn't need to turn the ice maker back on until the other day. I woke up early yesterday morning and was making B. her lunch for school, when we opened the freezer door and saw that EVERYTHING was covered in ice....

It was like that clear down to the very bottom of the freezer. So I turned the freezer off, stuck a big bath towel in front of the door (one of a few that I went through as they became soaked) and kept it open most of the day to melt all that ice and take the food that I did have in there out to put in the downstairs freezer when I was able to pry it loose from the ice when I could. What a mess, and thank goodness we had just cleaned it out a week or so ago before this happened. So for now we're not using the ice maker. We'll have to look into possibly replacing the ice maker unit. Don't know what that's gonna cost. Ain't it always something? In the meantime I'll have to go back to making ice the old-fashioned way - with my blue Rubbermaid ice cube trays. Good thing that I held onto to them all these years.

Anyway, moving on to happier things.... I mentioned in my last blog post that I had placed an order with Sizzix last weekend when they were having a free shipping deal going on with any size order. My order just arrived a little while ago and I wanted to share what I got. Everything here is from the Sizzix Outlet store where they have their dies marked down up to 80% off. I only paid anywhere from $1.59 to $3.99 each for these. This was my first order that I've placed with them in six months. It's always fun getting a box full of Sizzix delivered to the door....

Can't wait to start putting them to good use. I already have plans for the school dies and for that cute little stuffed lion. I plan to use that one when I scrapbook the photos from when B. was two years old and a lion for Halloween. Too cute.

This morning I went out to buy some new milk since the milk in our fridge was tasting warmer than usual yesterday after having the freezer door open all that time. The fridge part was still on, but I think having the freezer door open, did something to the temperature inside the fridge. So I didn't want to chance it and bought a new gallon. While I was out, I picked up this little wicker divided basket to store my Glimmer Mist in. It turned out to be the perfect size with room left to spare for more....

The two sections on the ends each hold about eight bottles and the center holds a dozen. And I love how the Glimmer Mist bottles aren't falling over from the container being too big. This works out perfect. I got most of my Glimmer Mist online when they were being clearanced out and with an additional 15% off. I love me a good bargain.

Well it's time for lunch and Days of Our Lives,  straighten up things a bit around here and go pick B. up from school. Supper is already planned. - meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans which I will be making later on. I hope you all have a great day and thanks for stopping by! :)