Great Pumpkin Muffins [with Cream Cheese and Chocolate Chips]

This photo pretty much sums up fall for me - leggings, pumpkins, glitter Toms. If Toms and/or Uggs aren't acceptable anymore please mark me on the list of people who just don't care!

Celebrating [Birthdays and] Pumpkin

Today is the second day in a row that I've been cooped up in the house due to a nasty cold. It's truly mind numbing to be stationary on the couch with no energy to actually do anything. I know I'm not feeling like myself when I have no desire to eat, cook, or watch food-related shows on TV.

Being sick always gives me a better perspective on feeling normal, once it happens again. It's very easy to take for granted how lucky we can be to feel healthy from day to day. Because Mother's Day has just passed and I'm needing to reminisce on a great day after 2 crummy ones, I'll take this time to share with you a great experience that Mom and I shared back in January!

Mom, aka Carol, and I both celebrate our birthdays in January and this year my parents would be here in Hawaii for the occasion. Like we did a few years back, my Dad and I coordinated a cooking class for Mom and I to enjoy together while he would reap the benefits of leftovers, new recipes, and not having to search for a physical present! Of course we drove Mom cra-zay by not telling her what the surprise would be until her actual birthday.

Very early on Saturday morning we headed to Kapiolani Community College for our class called Celebrate Pumpkin. Mom snapped this great photo on the way. Visitors always manage to soak up the views in a way that residents forget to!

Pumpkin Spice Kissed Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses have been around for years (at least since 2008) and I just learned of them this year. Once aware of their existence, I was inspired by equal parts hunter, gatherer, and glutton to make them my own. After searching at 2 drug stores and 4 grocery stores I was beginning to feel defeated. 

That's the thing about Hawaii: new, trendy, seasonal mainland things aren't easily available here. Rice cookers, SPAM, musubi, and chop sticks can be found in every home and convenience store but apple cider and Pumpkin Spice Kisses are like unicorns! The real irony here is that Hershey's candies are from my home state of PA, the state that I left - willingly - 4 years ago.

I had to get strategic and think about where such a timely item would be found... my instincts lead me in the right direction: the commissary. The military bases are where the traditional-nuclear-families with 2.5 kids, 1 dog, 1 cat, and a picket fence would go for such a fall oriented treat, duh. My boss brought me 3 bags from the Navy/Air Force commissary and there are 3 more bags waiting for me on the Marine Corps base.

Oh Pumpkin Spice Kisses, how I've searched and longed for you!  

After all the anticipation I was truly scared to eat one, for fear that my hopes were set too high. The wrappers are an adorable fall-ish display of colors.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

Halloween has come and gone again. This year I went to 2 Halloween parties dressed as Lil Wayne (a homemade costume, might I add), visited a Haunted House, and ate both pumpkin ice cream and pumpkin mochi ice cream = success! 

I also managed to go fall-food insane in the kitchen! There were cupcakes made with candy corn and a BIG can of pumpkin that became soup, then cheesecake bars (which I've yet to blog about), and finally pumpkin snickerdoodles. Snickerdoodles have always been one of my favorites and, since they were the first cookie I ever made from scratch, have become my go-to cookie. Adding pumpkin is a smashing idea!

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

makes 36 cookies

2 sticks of butter

1 cup of sugar

1/2 cup of light brown sugar

3/4 cup of pumpkin puree

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 3/4 cup of flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

for rolling the cookies in:

1/2 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of allspice

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Pumpkin Bean Soup

Is it just me or is everyone really going nuts over fall's arrival this year?  Like all other seasons, you can't tell the difference here in Hawaii.  That's mostly a good thing, since it never gets cold, but it's also a boring thing.  I have other "mainland" friends here in Hawaii who feel the same way - that we're missing out on the seasons changing!  There's no crisp smell to the air or changing colors to note the arrival of fall, no excitement over the first snow of the year, and no pressure/excitement of shopping for new clothes for the upcoming season.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, just saying that without a calendar it's hard to tell what time of year it is.

That said, I do my best to fake the seasons for my own enjoyment.  Decorating my apartment, scented candles, movies, and making season-appropriate foods are always the best way!  Sunday morning I watched the Steelers game at a restaurant, as I do every week.  When I got home I was inspired to cook and was prepared to make a fall-ish recipe I'd been looking at all week: Pumpkin Bean Soup.

Aloha: Yinz Mangia is the name of this blog, yes, but it's also a description of me!  Hawaii - Pittsburgh - Italy.  That day I was encompassing all three at once: cooking in my apartment (in Hawaii), wearing my Steelers jersey (Pittsburgh), and watching listening to and taking peeks at the Godfather part 2 (Italy).

This recipe is by far the easiest I've made and posted to date.

Pumpkin Bean Soup