Marbled Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

Made these this morning and let me tell you.....they are AMAZING!!!!

Marbled Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

Filling:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Muffins:
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 ¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon each nutmeg, allspice and cloves
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin (not pie filling)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray top of a muffin tin with cooking spray and line the 12 cups with liners.

Prepare filling. Beat together cream cheese and sugar, then stir in egg and vanilla. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, thoroughly stir together flour, both sugars, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and spices.

In another mixing bowl, blend oil, egg, pumpkin and vanilla. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and stir until combined.

Fill muffin cups about 1/3 of the way full with pumpkin mixture. Spoon cream cheese mixture over pumpkin, dividing evenly between all 12 cups. Spoon a drop of pumpkin batter on top of cream cheese. Pumpkin batter will be thick and will not cover entire top, so the appearance will be similar to a bulls eye.

Bake for 23-25 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

Announcement

We are very excited to announce I am pregnant with baby #2. We feel so incredibly blessed. God is so good.

I have to say that Im a little sad about the thought of it not being just the three of us anymore. I lately go in late at night and pick Kohen up and rock him while hes sleeping. I stare at him and just can't believe he's going to be an older brother. I know that I will just cherish the one on one time I get with him later on in life more, but its still a sad thought to me. We're trying to do as much as we can with the little man before his life changes forever. Im also spending more time hugging, kissing and pay attention to him. I love him more then anything in the whole world!

Apple Pressing

Saturday we went to our annual apple pressing party at a friends house. We do it every year and I look forward to it every year. Fall is my FAVORITE season. I love the big cozy sweaters, cool crisp walks in the morning with the boy all bundled up, pumpkin spice lattes, wood fires and warm apple cider. Its just the best season all around and the apple pressing party kicks it off for me. So today to further enjoy the season I thought.... I'm going to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies-yum!! This weekend we also finished "phase 2" of the fence. Pictures to come once the concrete and gates are put on. It looks so good!

Jake apple pressing

The girls undercover with the kids

Kohen loving on Jakes lazy dog. Such a good dog for kids.

Sean and Kohen playing with the tractors

Kohen just being Kohen-Love that boy

playground/fence

We recently purchased a used playground off craigslist. We don't plan on setting it up till next year, so for now its in our shop. In the meanwhile we plan on getting a new fence put in around the backyard. We want to extended the backyard and put in a campfire-playground/trampoline/sandbox area for the little man. We started on the fence this weekend and its coming together nicely. I can't wait to get it all done...though I know its going to be a slow process! Heres a few pics....

Kohen always loves "helping"

New playground

Silly boy!

He wanted to get REALLY close to the camera !

Curry Chicken Pot Pie

Tuesday my cousin and I had a cook off. Last year we did three different recipes and made a total of 9 dinners. This year we decided to just do 8 dinners of our favorite Curry chicken pot pie. It freezes really well and its a good fall/winter meal to pull out of the freezer. I also like to have some meals around for friends that have babies, etc. In december were going to do another cook off, maybe with a different dinner casserole....will see. Heres the recipe. Enjoy!!

1 cup cooked cubed chicken
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1/2 chopped onion
1 cup corn
3/4 c milk
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp curry
1 tsp oregano
1/2 hot water
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour

I combine all ingredients and stir constantly until its boiling and thick. I find that I sometimes need to add a little more flour to thicken it a bit and I also add more curry b/c we really like it. Pour into a pie crust ( I buy the package pie crusts at safeway), put foil over the top- bake @ 400 for 10 mins and then take the foil off and bake 350 for 25 mins.

Projects

This past week Jordan and I had a couple to project we were trying to accomplish. Jordans being putting modern case lights on the front of the house. Mine being re-vamping a old gold mirror into a jewelry holder.

It was very easy to re-vamp this old mirror. I just spray painted it. Put a yard of fabric around the wood backing and placed hooks for earrings and necklaces all over the board. I loved how it turned out and the cost was only $3.50. It goes perfect in our bedroom and Im hoping to get a bedding set to some what match.

Monkey Bread

Today was a good baking day. I decided to bake a little monkey bread and it didn't disappoint. Heres the recipe. So easy and so good!

INGREDIENTS

1/2

cup granulated sugar

1

teaspoon cinnamon

2

cans (16.3 oz each) Pillsbury® Grands!® Homestyle refrigerated buttermilk biscuits

1/2

cup chopped walnuts, if desired

1/2

cup raisins, if desired

1

cup firmly packed brown sugar

3/4

cup butter or margarine, melted

DIRECTIONS

• 1Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease 12-cup fluted tube pan with shortening or cooking spray. In large -storage plastic food bag, mix granulated sugar and cinnamon.
• 2Separate dough into 16 biscuits; cut each into quarters. Shake in bag to coat. Arrange in pan, adding walnuts and raisins among the biscuit pieces.
• 3In small bowl, mix brown sugar and butter; pour over biscuit pieces.
• 4Bake 28 to 32 minutes or until golden brown and no longer doughy in center. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Turn upside down onto serving plate; pull apart to serve. Serve warm.

http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/grands-monkey-bread/7a1e41b1-4708-4028-8ce6-fcb5baebbc19/