New toy

I played with my new toy today.

Tastes of Autumn

I love fall. It has really been feeling fallish- although I won't describe Mississippi Fall, it just doesn't quite seem fall compared to fall up north. However, the beautiful weather and falling leaves do put me in a great mood. This weekend I got the Halloween decorations out in preparaton for the trick or treaters. I need to get some candy, and by some I mean a ton. Our neighborhood is a Halloween Hotbed, as I remember from last year.

In honor of the fall weather I made two fall dishes, a fall casserole and pumpkin bread. I found the fall casserole on this neat blog, http://www.crockpot365.blogspot.com/. This woman vowed to use her crockpot once a day for 2008, and has blogged through her adventures. She has some intersting sounding recipes. I imagine I will try some of them again in the future, especially as we are getting into crockpot season.

Autumn Sausage Casserole

• 1 pound sausage (I used chicken with -apple)
• 1 large, or 2 small apples, chopped
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped carrots
• -3 cups already cooked long-grain rice
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 Tbl dried parsley flakes
• 1 Tbl brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/3 cup chicken broth or water

Directions: Mix all ingredients in a crock pot and cook for 5-7 hours on low or 3-4 on low. If the sausage isn't precooked heat it up before mixing.

I actually doubled up on the apple and was a little short on the sausage. I thought it was OK. I'm not a huge rice fan, which probably didn't help. The rice was really mushy after cooking and sitting in the crockpot all day. Also, the apples lost their firmness. I would consider putting them at some point during cooking rather than all day. It smelled awesome when I got back to the house though!!

Pumpkin Bread

• 1 cup canned pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie mix)
• 1/3 cups fat free milk
• 2 eggs slightly beaten or equivilant egg substitute
• 2 tbl margarine
• 1 tbl vegetable oil
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup chpped pecans, dry-roasted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 and spray a loaf pan with vegetable oil spray. Combine pumpkin milk, egg, margarine, and oil. Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginerger, nutmeg and salt in a seperate bowl. Stir in ramaining ingredients and combine wet and dry. Mix until just moistened. Pour into pan and bake for 1 hour or until cooked through. Turn onto a cooling rack.

I actually tend to increase the spices as I like lots of flavor. I like to make this bread in the fall, and then eat it for breakfast with a smear of cream cheese. I highly reccomend it for all of you.