Oh Nuts

Fall is one of my favorite seasons of the year. I have always loved how the leaves change colors and look pretty on the trees. Even though fall officially started yesterday the weather had started getting cooler before then, which I don't mind at all.  The smells that I associate with fall are fresh cut grass, apples and pears and I personally feel like you don't really get those smells with the other seasons. I personally think that fresh cut grass smells different in summer.  Fall also means that it is the beginning of sweater wearing and tea drinking. It is also pumpkin season! I've already made a pumpkin smoothie a couple times already as well as pumpkin spice tea. The other day I tried a pumpkin chai tea latte recipe, which was interesting.

Whenever we get ideas that we think are cool we always have to write them down right away or tell them to someone to see what they think. But whenever we go to expound upon the ideas more the words don't always come out the way that we want them too. In the past couple days I have come up with to ideas that I thought would make great blog posts but when I started writing and expounding on the ideas it didn't feel right. Maybe the right time for me to write and share those posts will come later down the road, since right now isn't the right time. Since I has probably said this many times before on here, I have a hard time coming up with things to write and post about on here, so I just normally complain about that and post about the weather. This is probably one of the few times that I have just talked about something other than the weather and my complaining. On Friday afternoon when I was waiting to pick up the kids that I nanny, from school I came up with two other i...

Since it is pretty much fall now I though I would share the recipe for these delicious easy to make pumpkin muffins with you :) 1 cup canned pumpkin (1 1/2 cups) 3/4 cup oil (+ 1/4 cup) 1 cup granulated sugar (+ 1/4 cup) 2 eggs, beaten (+ 1 egg) Mix above ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl place: 2 cups flour (+ 1 cup) 1 teaspoon baking soda  1 teaspoon cinnamon (+ 1/2 teaspoon) 1/2 cup raisins (+ 1/4 cup) 1/4 cup walnuts Rinse raisins and walnuts in hot water, drain add add to flour. Combine all the ingredients: mix well and fill greased muffin tins 1/2 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 mins, or a bit more if you like them less moist. Makes 12 large muffins. In parentheses I added the measurements for doubling the recipe if you want to make more muffins.

Since the weather has started to get chilly out I decided to share a favorite soup recipe of my family's called Taco Soup. It is delicious and very easy to make. 2 pounds ground beef, browned 1 small onion, chopped and sauteed in ground beef drippings 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper 1 1/2 packages dry taco seasoning 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning  1 tablespoon died minced onion 2 tablespoons soy sauce 1 tablespoon honey 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar 1 quart water 15 oz. can black beans 16 oz. tomato sauce 16 oz. Muir Glen tomatoes First combine all of the above ingredients in a 5 quart or larger crock pot. Cover and cook for 1 hour on high and reduce heat to low for 3-4 more hours. Serve with tortilla chips, shredded cheese and/or sour cream.