Pumpkin Puff Casserole

We've made this recipe over and over again. We were going to just save it for the holidays but it is way... Way to good for that. So we use it as a side dish, usually next to a meat dish with veggies or mashed potatos. Which is of course exactly what we are doing tonight! Chicken, Mixed Veggies, and Pumpkin Puff.

This recipe can me made with Sweet Potatos, Pumpkin, or Butternut Squash. All are very good! This can also be done in a crock pot. Which we have done for church dinners and for holidays when the oven is much too busy. :)

 

It is also good cold once cooked... but you didn't hear that from me. ;) Makes excellent leftovers... if you have any!

Pumpkin Puff Casserole
Adapted from ~ Taste Of Home

Oven: 350
Bake: 35-40 min.
Servings: 8-10

Directions and Ingredients ~

In a 9x13 inch cake pan add
(I have a glass pyrex that works very well.)
(If using a crock pot go ahead and do this right in your crock pot. If your worried about it sticking to the sides you can grease it. I rarely do.)

3 cups pureed Pumpkin
(I usually use two pints or cans of canned pumpkin. Frozen would work as well, just let it thaw before using. So it is about four cups.)
(Pumpkin can be replaced with pureed sweet potato or pureed butternut squash.)

1/2 cup Sugar
(I use brown sugar even though I'm pretty sure that the original called for white sugar.)

1 Tbsp. Cinnamon (optional)
1/2 cup Butter (1 stick) Melted
1/3 cup Milk
1 tsp. Vanilla (optional)
2 Eggs
Mix well. Drag a spoon across the top to even it out.

~Topping~ In a small bowl add...
2 Tbsp. Butter melted
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/4 cup White Flour
(If you forgot to add the cinnamon above or would prefer, you can add it into the topping.)
Mix and sprinkle on top of pumpkin casserole.

Our original purpose for this recipe was to be low carb. So we replaced the sugar with a substitute. I think we were using Splenda at the time. It wasn't bad that way but we ventured away from Low Carb and back again. :) Whatever substitute you enjoy using for cooking will probably work just fine. This recipe seems to be very flexible!
We are planning on posting more recipes that we have changed to make them Low Carb friendly. Hopefully they will be coming soon! :)

Banana Nut Muffin

Stayed at a friends house watching their little boy while they were away. We had so much fun! There were so many pluses that if there were any negatives it was that I was missing my family and our animals... almost all of them. ;)

One of my best friends... who is pretty much like a sister, lived just down the road. So when she wasn't working she would come up and hang out with us. We got to feel all independent. It was like living in our own place. We loved it!

Anyway... I love bananas and was very pleased to see that they had plenty in stock. Even with my love of bananas we couldn't eat enough of them before they would go bad. An it is a crime for bananas to go bad. I could have made smoothies but I wasn't sure I'd be able to drink it all. An having that go to waste is also a crime. Then I started craving muffins. I searched the kitchen and couldn't find a muffin tin anywhere. Fortunately my friend was willing to lend me one. She is the best! (I don't know if the kitchen didn't have a muffin pan or if I just didn't know where to find it... which is very possible.) Below is the recipe I found on my Nexis 7 tablet when I searched Google. Of course I took the privilege to adapt and change it! I've added it too my cooking notebook. These were amazing!

Banana Nut Muffins
Adapted From ~ BrownEyedBaker

Also From ~ Epicurious

Oven: 350

Bake: 20-25 min.

Servings: 12 muffins

Directions and Ingredients ~

In a medium to large glass mixing bowl add
1/2 cup butter (1 stick) mostly melted
(Softened butter would work as well but I hardly ever have butter softened when I want to use it.)

(I soften my butter in the oven at 170 and just keep an eye on it's progress. That is why the glass bowl. Any other microwaveable bowl would suit your purpose if you wanted to microwave the butter. Also a sauce pan could be used and butter mostly melted on the stove top.)

(If butter is completely melted just let it cool a little until your bowl isn't too how to handle.)

1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar

Beat together.

1 lg. egg
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla (optional)
Mix.
1 1/4 cups mashed banana (about three bananas)

(However you mash bananas will be fine. I dislike dirtying dished so I don't use our chopper if I can help it. :) My grandmother always mashed hers with the backside of a fork. I like that way best. She either used a small bowl or a cutting board when mashing bananas.)

(I broke the banana up in the batter and smashed it against the sides of the bowl with a fork.)

3/4 cup white flour
3/4 cup wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat bran or germ (optional)
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt (optional)
Mix.
1 cup nuts (optional)

(The original recipe called for Macadamia nuts toasted and finely chopped. I used chopped walnuts. The original recipe says to sprinkle on top. Which I did but have decided that when making again I'll try mixing them into the batter. I also didn't use any where near a cup. I lightly pressed the sprinkled nuts into each muffin with the back of a fork. Then added the topping.)

Mix.

~Topping~ In a small bowl add...
2 Tbsp. butter softened
3 tsp. flour (I used white.)
3 tsp. brown sugar
Mix and sprinkle atop each muffin.

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Heat oven to 350. Line muffin tin with paper cups or lightly oil cups.
Divide batter between cups.
(A medium cookie scoop makes this very easy.)
Sprinkle with Topping and/or nuts. (optional)
Bake 20 to 25 minutes.
(Recommend flipping the pan half way through. Many ovens don't heat evenly so the one side of the pan will cook faster than the other.)
Let muffins cool 10 minutes... if you can. :)
Store muffins at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Enjoy!!!