What to Do With Leftover Pumpkin

I have two favorite pumpkin recipes: Creamy Pumpkin Dip and Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies with Caramel Icing. The problem is that I always buy the big cans of pumpkin and have leftovers. What's a girl to do with half a can of pumpkin puree? Well, this year I finally got smart and came up with a solution.

I measure out half cup scoops of pumpkin and place them on a cookie sheet. Then I put the cookie sheet in the freezer for an hour or so. By then they are pretty solid.

Then I just put them all in a labeled Ziplock bag and wha-la! Little pumpkin hockey pucks that are pre-measured and ready to defrost next time I need a delicious fall treat.

Creamy Pumpkin Dip

Fall is in the air! I have been waiting all summer for cooler temperatures, changing leaves, and baking all my favorite fall foods. This is one of my all-time favorite recipes. It's a creamy pumpkin dip that you serve with vanilla wafers or gingersnaps. And because it's a dip, it screams party food. And it's easy to make. Boo-yah!

Creamy Pumpkin Dip

8 oz. cream cheese

2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1/2 teaspoon ginger (optional)

Before you do anything else, soften the cream cheese. (If you don't, you'll end up with chunky dip). Beat cream cheese until smooth, then add powdered sugar and beat again. Then add the remaining ingredients and keep beating until it's silky. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving.

If you are wondering what to do with the rest of the can of pumpkin puree, HERE is the easy way to freeze it.

How To Keep Running When Your Kids Get Too Big For The Jogging Stroller

Along with crafting, I also love to run. Well, let me rephrase that...I always drag my feet getting out the door, but I love how I feel after a run....I love the feeling of accomplishment, the emotional outlet and the "me time" that running gives me. And I just love feeling all sweaty, exhausted and sore. Yeah, right. Haha.

I started out pushing my kids in a double jogging stroller, but now that they are older, they are just too heavy. I struggle running early in the morning (I always choose more sleep) or after my husband gets home from work (too busy or too tired). So I came up with a way to exercise (for free) during the day with kids in tow. Here's my solution:

I take my kids to the nearby high school track and they play while I run laps!

I've been doing this since my youngest was 2 1/2 and the older one was 5 1/2. Usually tracks have a long-jump pit and that's where my kids hang out. To them it's just a big sand box. Sometimes we bring dump trucks and buckets, sometimes old kitchen spoons, other times nothing at all. My kids love it! They sit in the dirt and dig while I run around and around and around. They know that they have to stay on the field inside the track (took a little bit of training the first few times). I can see them at all times and am never more than one minute away from them, but I am free to run without a jogging stroller.  They actually ask me when we get to go to the track again. It is the perfect solution!

One note to consider: you may want to check with your local high school to find out the rules for their track.

Dumpster "Skimming"

I may or may not be guilty of dumpster "skimming." I would never actually dive into a garbage can. But if something wonderful happens to be sitting on top, I might just bring it home with me.

I was walking my daughter home from school the other day and saw some sort of metal scroll object next to a garbage can on the curb. We happened to be walking home with a friend, so I took mental note to come back later. I guess I have too much pride to pick through garbage with someone watching (but I'll blog about it for all of the web to read...hmmm).

So later that day, I went back to said garbage can only to be foiled. The neighbors were sitting out on their front porch. Too embarrassed, I trudged back home empty handed.

I tried one more time just as the sun was setting that night. With twilight on my side, I casually walked past the garbage can, saw that the metal scrolls were really the legs to a darling little fold up table, grabbed that sweet thang without a second thought, and hauled it home, much to the chagrin of my poor husband. 

But seriously, who throws away something this cute:

I love it! Such an awesome dumpster skim! I've thought about taking the table top off and making it into a magnet board. I've thought about painting the whole thing a funky color. But for now, I'm kind of loving it just the way it is. And I'm patting myself on the back for saving such a lovely little table from the town dump.

Easy Boy's Birthday Cake: The Dump Truck Cake

I am not much of a cake decorator. I love a lot of different crafts, I just haven't picked that one up...yet. Haha. But I want my children to have memorable birthdays, so I try to find easy cakes that they will love. 

This year, my four year old is obsessed with construction equipment, so a dump truck cake was an obvious choice. And it was so easy! 

Here's how I did it:

1. Bake a cake. Chocolate would be good since it looks like dirt, but you could make a vanilla cake and pretend it's sand if you are crazy enough to dislike chocolate cake. Haha.

2. Get the toy dump truck from the dirt pile in the back yard and wash it. Scream when a spider comes crawling out of one of the little cracks in the bottom. Wash it again and worry the whole time that a spider with a vendetta is going to attack you for killing his friend.

3. Line the truck bed with plastic wrap. Cut the cake to be about the same length as the truck bed and save the extra piece you cut off.

4. Plop that cake into the truck bed! I froze my cake for 20 minutes beforehand to help it survive the movement.

5. Frost with chocolate frosting. Crumble up the extra cake piece and sprinkle on top of the frosting to make it look like dirt. Or you could use Oreo cookies.

Then all that's left is to put in a few candles and sing Happy Birthday! My little guy thought this was the funniest cake ever. He kept telling people that we ate dirt for his birthday. Gotta love little boys.

Pinterest Tested: Homemade Vanilla Wafers

Welcome to Pinterest Tested! Ever wonder if that miracle cleaner is really miraculous? Or what about that homemade facial cleanser or delicious-looking recipe? The Craft Patch is the place to find out! I am testing Pins that catch my eye to see if they really live up to the claims made on Pinterest. It's like the Mythbusters of Domesticity!

This week I am testing a recipe PIN for making homemade vanilla wafers. I love vanilla wafers, so when I saw the beautiful picture and that the recipe was all normal ingredients that I usually have on hand, I was really excited. HERE is a link to the original recipe. I whipped up a batch and this is what they looked like:

Boo! Flat, sad little cookies! Let's just put this into perspective:

So disappointing.

To be fair to the original poster, baking is a finicky art and maybe I did something wrong or could have fixed them by adding something to the dough or baking a different way. Who knows. But I hate finicky recipes and I am sad, sad, sad that my dreams of homemade vanilla wafers fell flat (literally).

The good news is that the cookies tasted great even though they were nothing like a vanilla wafer. So I used the remaining cookie dough and made bar cookies. Talk about making lemonade when life gives you lemons. They were yummy!

Turned out to be a cross between butter cookies and sugar cookies. Yum!

Even though I was able to rescue the remaining dough, this Pin still ended up a...