It's all about the pumpkin

For me, there is nothing that screams fall to me more than pumpkin.  I love the look of them.  They are so cute and colorful.  I especially like eating pumpkin!  Pumpkin soup, pumpkin butter, pumpkin pie...really anything with pumpkin!  I also make a mean pumpkin chocolate bread!


My love of pumpkin put me on a quest to discover another tasty way to enjoy my favorite fall flavor.  I found a recipe for pumpkin cinnamon rolls with cream cheese icing.  The recipe is a little time consuming, but I hope you will agree...it's worth it!

Doesn't it look delish!
Trust me...it is!

For the dough:
Dissolve 1 pkg yeast in 1/4 cup warm water.  Let it rest for 5 minutes.
Add 1/3 cup warm milk, 1 egg, 3/4 cup pumpkin puree, 1 T melted butter, 1 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 t salt, 3/4 t cinnamon, 1/4 t ginger, 1/4 t cardamon.
Beat for 2 minutes.


Slowly add 1 1/2 c of all purpose flour (You can add more if needed.  The dough needs to be stiff enough to knead.)


Turn dough onto floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic.


Place dough into a greased bowl and cover.  Let dough rise until doubled.  (This takes about an hour...maybe more)


After it has doubled, pat the dough into a 16" x 12" rectangle.  Spread softened butter on top. (about 4 oz.).  Sprinkle the sugar mixture on top.


Sugar Mixture:
2/3 c white sugar, 1/4 c brown sugar, 2 t. cinnamon, 1/2 t ginger, 1/2 t  allspice, 1/4 t nutmeg, 1/8 t cloves.  Mix well.


Roll the dough into a log the long way.  Slice the log into about 15 slices.  .  Place into a greased baking dish and cover.  Let rise until doubled (about an hour).


Bake at 375 degrees for 20-30 minutes.  They should be golden brown when done.


Frost with cream cheese icing and enjoy!


Cream cheese icing:
Blend together 4 oz. cream cheese, 4 oz. butter, 1 t. vanilla and 2-3 cups of powdered sugar.  


There it is!  I think they are very yummy.  I will definitely make these again.  


So what are your favorite pumpkin recipes?

Kitchen Mini-Makeover

My journey brought me to my kitchen.  It's a room that I basically haven't touched in about 10 years.  We did a complete renovation of the room 10 years ago and it is something I never want to go through again. Ever.  It was turmoil. It's a story of a contractor who stole thousands of dollars from us and left us without a kitchen for 18 months.  When I say no kitchen, that's exactly what I mean...there was only 2x4s to look at.  I don't ever want to repeat that again...trust me.

So here I am in my kitchen, that is now starting to look a little dated...10 years exactly.  It's almost like a time capsule.  So a plan started to hatch on giving the kitchen a little update.  

I did have a little help or push in that direction.  It started about a year ago when we came home from a week long vacation to a flooded kitchen.  Let's just say that wood flooring under water for a week is not a good thing.  It never recovers...no matter how much you hope it does.  It dies.  My flooring died.  (Insert the sound of a faint bugle here)

This past weekend I started with my mini kitchen make-over.  Flooring was a must.  It was not going to be wood this time!  And since I was not going to do any changes to cabinetry or appliances that left only one other option:  painting the walls.  


So here are the pictures of the finished mini-makeover.  There are no before pictures.  The previous floor was so scary that I didn't want to frighten you.  

No more scary looking floor!  Yay!

Another view of the pretty new floor!

And another!  I am really surprised that the floor space looks so much bigger now.  Big plus for me!

And for the big surprise!  My new wall color!  Yes, not everyone will paint their kitchen walls red, but I did!  Hehehe!  And I love it!

As you can tell, there is not a lot of wall space in the kitchen.  It's mostly cabinetry and tile.  So I think  a big bold splash of color is amazing in this space.  

   So after this little makeover, I have decided that sometimes little changes can have huge impact!  

Finally Done!!!!

What has the smallest square footage in my house?  Yep...you've guessed it.  My hallway.  Yet, it is one of the busiest areas and has the most doors;  seven of them!  


So of course, I decide to give this small space a make-over.  Go figure.  You'd think I'd go for a bigger space and get more bang for my buck.  Not me, I choose the hallway.  So thinking that this would be a somewhat quick project, I embarked on giving the space a make-over.  That was two months ago.  


I am pleased to finally announce that I am done with it! Yay!  Queue the confetti...on second thought...no, I'd have to clean it up.  


The entire hallway make-over began because of my dogs.  They had the opinion that the hallway carpeting was a great place to go potty.  I disagreed.  


The carpeting was ripped out and then the hubster put in the wood flooring for me.  I wanted to put wood flooring in there years ago.  The carpeting guy talked me out of it.  I should have known that he was just trying to sell more carpet.  He said that it would echo too much in there.  Made sense at the time, but upon reflecting on his logic, I had an epiphany.  Who cares if it echos?  Its not as if I am having a party in there!


I love the new flooring.  I love that it looks clean all the time and there are no doggie stains!

I just couldn't stop at the floor.  I had to make changes to the walls and cabinetry.  I guess, I just like to make work for myself!  LOL

The cabinetry before.

And now after.

I re-used the previous knobs and spray painted them ORB.  I was going to buy new ones, but every knob I liked looked like the shape of these.  It was huge savings to re-use the old ones!

Paneling the cabinetry took so much longer than I ever thought it would.  I am in love with the results!  Best of all, it looks like new cabinets and it only cost the fraction of new cabinetry!  

The next part of the make-over were the walls.  Besides a fresh coat of paint, I did a paneled wainscoting treatment over the lower third of the walls. 

Another view of the paneling.

Another change was new door frames.  Yikes!  There were seven of them!

My art work.   Done for $1.00!  I love it!

One final look of the hallway.  I am so glad I am done!!!