I had fun reading another story for the kiddies. Click here for my bedtime story.

Don’t you just love a recipe that has not one, but two terms of endearment in the title?  Well, Honey Punkin, I sure do! Today’s recipe just begs to be served to folks you love for that reason alone. “Honey Punkin, you want some more pie?”

You know, Pumpkin isn’t one of those things that we ever ate growing up and I don’t think I’m alone in this. In my family, we ate sweet potato pie and all sorts of yummy dishes made with sweet potato in place of pumpkin. I think this is mostly due to the same reason my grandmother always found baked apples to be such a treat – they didn’t have any apple trees so apples were given to them as gifts to use in their recipes and such. Well, I reckon my family didn’t have a pumpkin patch.

Funny thing is, Mama and I just discovered how much we love pumpkin a few years back and we’ve been making up for lost time ever since.

Me and Cheryl Lovin Bone at the Memphis Book Signing

Today I’m going to bring you a recipe I adapted from a Libby’s recipe. I didn’t realize Libby’s was owned by Nestle and now that I know that, it makes it even better for me (y’all know I like to preach on how family friendly Nestle is). I simplified the recipe a wee bit and added honey in place of corn syrup – thanks to a dear member of the Southern Plate Family, Cheryl Bone, who I got to meet recently while doing a book signing in Memphis. She gave me the biggest jar of honey I’ve ever seen so I wanted to put it to use right off!  I love the richness of flavor honey lends to this pie and think you will too.

This is a great pie to share kids as well. Speaking of kids, I sure do love mine and have been missing them something awful when I go on the road. My book tour is a short term thing, and my mother in law is coming to stay with us for most of it so that at least, while I am gone during the week, they have a grandmother with them, the next best thing to a mother (sometimes even better!).

Coming home has been so exciting for all of us, though. The kids hug me and greet me with pictures and stories and just chat away until they run out of steam and fall asleep, then I head to my computer to try to get caught up on the work I didn’t have time to do while traveling. Next week I’m headed to Dallas, Houston, Austin, and Oklahoma City. I’d love to meet you if you live in any of those areas. Click here for more details.

You’ll need: Canned pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, honey, cream cheese, pumpkin pie spice, and an unbaked pie shell.

If you don’t have a store bought pie shell or would rather make your own, you can use my mix in the pan pie crust recipe here.

Place your cream cheese and honey in a mxing bowl.

By the way, this makes a great recipe to double because it only calls for half a brick of cream cheese (4 ounces) so with one brick and a little extra of the other ingredients, you can bake a pie for your family and a pie for another family.

What a nice gesture that would be, too!

Mix those up until well blended.

then put that in a bowl because we’re gonna use that same bowl to mix up our pie filling.

In the same mixing bowl you used to mix the cream cheese in, (and don’t bother cleaning it, it’ll be fine with a little cream cheese stuff left over) place pumpkin, eggs, honey, and sugar.

Pour in your evaporated milk.

I love the taste of evaporated milk! it is great in your coffee or drank straight from the can.

Not that I would ever do such a thing! Oh goodness no. Not me. ~grins~

Mix that up until smooth and well blended.

Pour into unbaked pie shell.

Place cream cheese in dollops (or gobs) on top of the pie.

Use a butter knife to swirl the cream cheese in just a bit.

Bake at 325 for 50-60 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

YUM!

Add this recipe to ZipList!

Honey Punkin Cream Cheese Pie

Ingredients

• 1 unbaked deep dish pie shell (can double my mix in pan pie crust recipe to make your own)
• 1/2 pkg. (4 oz.) cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup honey, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup Evaporated Milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

Instructions

1. Beat cream cheese and 1/4 cup honey in a mixing bowl until smooth and creamy. Scoop into another bowl and set aside. In same mixing bowl, place pumpkin, milk, eggs, remaining honey, sugar, and pumpkin pie spice. Mix until well blended. Pour into unbaked pie shell.
2. Drop cream cheese mixture by dollops over pumpkin mixture. Swirl lightly with a butter knife. Bake at 325 for 50-60 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Google Recipe View Microformatting by ZipList Recipe Plugin

1.2

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

The tongue is the dipstick to the soul!

Submitted by Ann Lokey. Click here to submit your quote. New ones always welcome!

]]> http://www.southernplate.com/2010/10/honey-punkin-cream-cheese-pie.html/feed 50 http://www.southernplate.com/2009/10/fall-fun-and-crafts.html http://www.southernplate.com/2009/10/fall-fun-and-crafts.html#comments Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:27:37 +0000 Christy Jordan http://www.southernplate.com/?p=5939 Pin it

I’m just barely getting these ideas to you in the nick of time – Three of my favorite kid friendly Halloween crafts that are also great for classrooms and even class parties!

My mother always took time out of her busy day (raising three kids and taking care of a house!) to do arts and crafts with us, especially around the holidays. She always said that it takes too long between birthdays and Christmas for kids so you need to make every holiday as special as you can. Even Valentine’s and St Patrick’s Day were big to-dos at our house!

Halloween was one of my favorite holidays though, though I can only remember dressing up as one thing – a princess. Each year we’d come home from school on trick or treat night to find Mama sitting at a table making us new princess crowns. She’d cut out the shape from cardboard and then cover it entirely in aluminum foil. My sister Patti and I would then put on our long flannel nightgowns with the little rosebud print (we always had some like this because Mama made them for us) and our crowns and head off, feeling every bit as much a princess as anyone could!

My brother had been given a Batman mask when he was very young and he wore it every year. It’s hard to imagine kids these days getting excited about wearing the same costume year after year, but those were our good old days and today’s kids are making their own brand of good old days anyway.

With these crafts though, we can incorporate a bit of the old and a bit of the new, in the process creating some great memories together- and making yourself the “cool” person in the eyes of a child.

Bath Tissue Pumpkins

These are my little pumpkins that I always do for preschool and kindergarten class parties. The kids have a ball with them and love that they can do every bit themselves. A neat idea is to have each child bring two rolls of tissue paper with them to class. One of the rolls can then be turned into this pumpkin and the other roll can be used in a mummy contest .

In the past I’ve had the kids wrap the teacher, a parent, or get into teams of two and wrap each other. Lots of fun regardless.

I start with a yard of fabric. Go for the cheap here. Cut that yard into fourths like this.

Take each fourth and roll up a roll of tissue paper in it.

Like so.

Tuck the ends in.

Like so

Now lay out your green fabric. I usually buy 1/4 of a yard for this. Don’t feel like you have to get a solid green as a tone on tone is usually more interesting anyway.

Cut a small strip (my strip is about two inches wide)

Fold that over in half…

And then fold the sides over (you don’t have to do it this way, you can just tuck a piece of fabric in there without any folding at all)

Tuck in the end.

Let kids cut out faces and glue on if you like and you have cute little pumpkins that can be placed anywhere in your house!

~waves at cute little punkin~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Magic Cheesecloth Ghosts

Now this is one of those crafts we did as a kid that made us think our Mama just HAD to be magic! The “ghosts” stand on their own thanks to the help of handy dandy liquid starch, and this one will impress kids of all ages!

You’ll need: Liquid starch (found on the laundry detergent aisle), cheese cloth (found in a package in the craft and fabric department – you might have to ask), a few balloons, a few pencils, some tape, and some black felt. Oh, and also two tall drinking glasses

Blow up each balloon to form the head for your ghost. Place each one over a glass. Place the pencil over the glass as well and tape into place.

Roll out your cheese cloth and cut a piece long enough to drape over both sides of your balloon and glass and still pool a little bit at the bottom. I cut two pieces of fabric for each ghost.

Pour liquid starch into bowl.

Completely submerge cheesecloth into starch and lift out, squeezing only slightly.

Drape two pieces of cheese cloth over each balloon, making sure it pools a bit at the bottom as that is what will support your ghost.

I think this is Katy looking scared… ~tilts her head and examines photograph~ yeah, thats what she’s doing.

I like to do this on trays but you can just line your table with a little waxed paper so long as the ghosts can sit there undisturbed. Mine took two days to dry completely.

When completely dry, pop balloon and remove ghost from top of glass….

Use black felt to glue eyes and mouths on them and enjoy your little ghosts!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friendly Lollipop Ghosts

This is an oldie but goodie. My kids have every bit as much fun making these today as I did when I was a kid.

Place a dum dum (or other small sucker) in the center of a white tissue…

Fold the top over…

Gather it together and tie a little bow with some yarn (if you use red yarn you can use it again for a Christmas craft!)

Draw little faces on the little guys…

Use them to decorate your house, but know they won’t last long!

Be a giver…You always have something to give…even if it is only a smile. You can make someone’s day with your smile.

Submitted by Margaret. To submit your quote and read a wealth of others submitted by members of the Southern Plate family, click here.

Follow me on twitter here.

Join the Family on Facebook here.

Subscribe to Southern Plate by email here.

Happy Fall, Y’all!

]]> http://www.southernplate.com/2009/10/fall-fun-and-crafts.html/feed 24 http://www.southernplate.com/2009/10/my-extra-lovable-gingerbread-trick-or-treaters.html http://www.southernplate.com/2009/10/my-extra-lovable-gingerbread-trick-or-treaters.html#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:27:26 +0000 Christy Jordan http://www.southernplate.com/?p=5879 Pin it

If you enjoy reading Southern Plate, you might enjoy subscribing by email to receive an email from me each time a new recipe is posted. Click here to subscribe!

Aren’t these little fellas adorable? I wanted to bring this to y’all last year but time got away with me and before I knew it, it was too late for a Halloween post. This year I just barely made it in time – WHEW!

These are time consuming, but really worth it to bring your little Gingerbread Trick or Treaters to life! I came up with this idea when Bradybug was in Kindergarten and made them for his entire class (and some of the school staff, too). I made the cookies from scratch then (using the recipe I’m gonna put at the bottom of this post), but this time I made them from a mix. Trust me, as much work as I put into decorating them, they will officially count as homemade regardless!

Although I had not made these since again that first time when Brady was in kindergarten, he walked in from school and saw them on the counter and said:

“COOL! You made the gingerbread men again like you did for my Kindergarten class!”

I had to blink and look at him for a moment as this hit home.

“You mean you remember them?”

“Oh yeah, Ma, those were the coolest cookies ever!”

~sighs happily~ I love my babies.

Lets make some memories, shall we?

Voila! Zis post begins vith our dough alveady made!

And me writing in an accent that is an odd mix of German and French.

No idea why I was compelled to do that but we take what we can get, right?

Don’t worry, I’m jes a lil ole Southern gal again

Anyway, as mentioned in the introduction, I used a boxed mix to make these for this post because I just didn’t have the time to do them from scratch (very busy day). I am gonna give you the recipe to make them from scratch at the bottom if you prefer though. Normally, I prefer to make them from scratch just so I can have a chance to lick the measuring cup after I’ve measured out molasses!

So in that previous photo what I did was place a big old glob of dough onto a floured surface. I like to roll out some waxed paper for this so I can just roll it all up and have instantly clean counters afterward. Instantly clean anything is always a plus, right?

Dust your dough with more flour…

Give your rolling pin a good dusting as well and roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thick.

Note: I never actually make my dough 1/4 inch thick, I’m always just a wee bit thicker.

Makes it feel a bit less delicate in my mind.

Cut out your little fellas.

Lift them up with a spatula to keep them all safe and secure. Place on greased baking sheets.

Take some aluminum foil and tear it into strips to roll up.

You need a piece about as long as a toothpick but about three times thicker.

I curve the ends on it so that they are sticking up and don’t dent my gingerbread’s face and body when he’s cooking.

Spray each one with cooking spray right before you put it on your gingerbread.

I originally tried this with toothpicks and the flexibility of aluminum foil worked a lot better, plus you can make it a bit thicker and that makes sticking your trick or treat back into the arm loop easier.

Place foil piece in fold of the gingerbread’s arm. Gently roll the arm around and press down lightly to seal it.

Like so.

After I do this part, I gently twist the foil piece back and forth a time or two to make sure I didn’t press the cookie into it. This makes it a bit easier to remove.

If any excess flour is showing, you can lightly remove it with a dry paintbrush, but as my Great Grandmother would say

“Well, it don’t bother me none.”

Bake these at 375 for about ten minutes, or until done and lightly browned on the edges.

If you make smaller gingerbread men, bake them at 350 for the same amount of time.

As soon as you remove them from the oven, remove the aluminum foil piece by twisting a little and then gently pulling it out. You want to do this while they are still warm because if the arm breaks or tears, you can gently press it back into place and it will be fine once the cookie has cooled.

While your cookies are cooling, mix up your royal icing. There are some key things to remember when working with royal icing.

• Royal icing hardens very quickly, keep any icing you are not using covered with a wet cloth to prevent it from drying out.
• Any utensils or bowls used to make royal icing must be absolutely grease free. Wash them well in hot water and use plenty of dish liquid. Rinse well and dry well.
• Royal Icing gets it’s name from being a royal pain to deal with. (just kidding - kinda)
• When working with Royal Icing and an icing bag, it helps to have a bowl with a damp paper towel in the bottom so you can set your icing back down and point the tip into the paper towel to keep it from drying out when you are in between uses.

For our icing, we’re gonna need Meringue powder and confectioner’s sugar.

But Christy, I’ve never seen meringue powder before, where can I find it?

Good question anonymous voice in my head and thanks for asking! You can find it in several places. I usually get mine in the craft department at Wally World on the cake decorating aisle. You can also find it at Michael’s Arts And Crafts Store and Hobby Lobby, also on their cake decorating aisle.

Any of y’all scared by the fact that I just has a question and answer session with myself?

This is my super duper clean mixing bowl with a little bit of water in it to start things off.

Add confectioner’s sugar and meringue powder.

(recipe at bottom)

There are plenty of recipes circulating that use egg whites instead of meringue powder if you prefer but I’m a meringue powder girl because it is so easy.

Beat that up with an electric mixer for about five to seven minutes, until stiff peaks form.

Using a little white, place two dots on each cookie for eyes.

I use a #2 icing tip and a reusable icing bag, both found where you find the meringue powder. These reusable bags can be turned inside out and washed in the dishwasher to use again and again. They are awful handy to have around. I just used the same tip and the same bag for each color and washed them both well by hand in between uses.

The key to decorating with an icing bag and tip is to stop applying pressure before you lift your tip of from the surface.

Take remaining icing and divide it in half.

Color half black and half orange.

I use Paste icing colors (technically they are called paste colors but they look like a gel), which can also be found in the cake decorating section at any of the stores that carry the Meringue powder. They are just over a dollar each.

Place a wet towel over each bowl to prevent it from drying out while you are not using it.

Stir that up well

(of course, you’ll want to do this for the orange icing as well but I’m just showing you the black icing I mixed)

Using black icing, draw a figure eight over the two eyes.

Add handles to the glasses along with facial features.

I like this squiggly guy…

This guy had a cute little smile on his face until Katy asked “Mama, can I eat one now?” and I replied “In a few minutes, Katy“

dun Dun DUN!

Bless his little ginger heart.

I added squiggly details to the arms and legs in both icing colors and the buttons to the front in orange.

Hey little fellas!

For the candy you’ll need fruit roll ups and smarties (or some other small candy). You can also use fruit leathers if you like.

When you unroll your fruit roll ups they will be a little misshapen so I use kitchen shears to trim off the angled ends and make little squares. I used mini fruit roll ups and each one yielded two squares. The pieces you trim off will be used as the handles for the trick or treat bags.

Place a few smarties on one side of each square (or rectangle as it may be..).

I prefer fruit roll ups without the little tongue tattoos but this is what I had on hand and I’m not one to go out and get something when I can make do.

Fold the other side over the candy.

Fold each side over to seal it, leaving the top open.

I like to push the top together a bit to gather it up some and make it look more like a sack.

Take two of the pieces you cut off to even up the square and twist them together a bit to join them.

Like this.

Using a toothpick to help you, push one of the ends down into the top opening in the gingerbread’s arm

Repeat with the other end, forming a “C” shape that appear to go all the way through the arm.

Place a dot of royal icing (any color) on top of the trick or treat bag handle.

Gently press bag on top of icing dot.

Look at my little fellas!

These two are a bit nervous because I mentioned that I was going to put them in treat bags.

Katy was keeping a close watch on them the entire time I was making them because she was afraid they would come to life and try to get away. She said she if any of them tried that she’d grab them and eat them really quick! heehee

Hello again, little fellas!

I used two boxes of gingerbread mix and made very large cookies, ending up with just a few shy of two dozen. You can make smaller gingerbread men and have many more out of the same effort.

These are the little Party bags you can find at Wally World for about a $1.50 or so for eight in the party favor section. I love them and use them for TONS of things. If you go to get some for this, buy plenty of extra ones because I use them a lot in my Christmas gift posts that I’m going to bring you.

They do tend to get a bit skittish when you bag them up…

But they sure are lovable!

I hope you get to make these and promise they will be memorable if you do!

BUT, if you can find store bought undecorated gingerbread cookies…

You could have just as much fun and make just an impression by decorating them this way as well. Just wrap the trick or treat bag handle completely around the gingerbread’s arm and attach it to his body with royal icing. You can duplicate the rest of these decorating ideas as well.

Just because you take a short cut doesn’t mean it is any less special or that you are any less AWESOME!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recipes for Gingerbread Trick Or Treaters

*For this tutorial I used a boxed gingerbread cookie mix made by Betty Crocker. Any brand boxed gingerbread cookie mix will do.

Homemade Gingerbread Recipe

(Adapted from the back of a jar of Grandma’s Molasses – a brand name)

• 1 stick margarine, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup Molasses
• 1 egg
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Beat butter with sugar and molasses. Mix in egg. Sift dry ingredients and add to wet mixture. Mix well. Chill in freezer 1 hour or in refrigerator 2 hours. Heat oven to 350ºF. Roll out half of the dough 1/4-in. thick on lightly floured surface (I use waxed paper on top of the counter top for easy cleanup). Chill remaining dough. Cut with cookie cutter, place on greased baking sheets. If decorating with raisins, add them at this time. Bake 8-10 minutes. Cool. Decorate with royal icing as desired.

*Larger men like mine need to be baked at 375 for 10 minutes.

Royal Icing

• 3 Tablespoons meringue powder
• 4 cups (1 lb) confectioner’s sugar
• 6-8 Tablespoons warm water (I use a little more to make it easier on my hands)

Beat all ingredients together with electric mixer on high speed seven to ten minutes, or until stiff peaks form.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

“Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.”

-Henry Ford

Submitted by:I Play Outside The Box To submit yours, click here!

I am posting this recipe so my Mama will stop having dying duck fits wanting me to.

Has your Mama ever thrown a fit? Have you ever thrown a fit? If you answered no to either one of those, you just can’t be a Southerner. You see, Southerners throw fits and we all have varying degree of fits, which are not “had” but “thrown“.

There is the classic hissy fit, which is rather mundane but still entertaining to watch. This is typically thrown by otherwise demure and well behaved ladies and consists mostly of high pitched voices being pitched even higher as hands wave around in the air and heads shake, sending dangly earrings bobbing after the jerky head movements.

Hissy fits aren’t that big of a deal unless combined with heat and humidity, then it can get ugly. A hissy fit might typically be thrown if you were about to have guests arrive for a party only to find that ice hadn’t been bought ahead of time or the sherbert in your punchbowl had already melted. The script for a hissy fit usually begins with “Oh lord! What are we gonna do now?!”

Cow fits are a bit more urgent, usually requiring some form of action to soothe the nerves of the fit thrower. One might throw a cow fit, for example, if you were running late for an appointment and discovered that your favorite heels had been chewed by the puppy. The cow fit script in this case would sound something like, “My shoes!! My favorite shoes!! Those were the ones I was going to wear today!”. Now dying cow fits require immediate action, but mainly just to get the fit thrower to hush so we can all have a bit of piece (In the interest of self disclosure, I am rather prone to cow fits due to my extreme lack of organization and ever growing to-do list, which wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t spend half my time looking for the dern list).

A duck fit is really one of the most minor fits but when it becomes a dying duck fit – you post the Payday Candy Mix recipe so you can get your Mama to stop quacking so much. ~grins~

The reason Mama wanted me to post this was because it has become quite the “pass along” idea among her quilting friends. Its like this fad all of a sudden, go to anyone’s house we know and you’ll see a pretty bowl (usually pressed glass) filled with this candy mix as soon as you step into the foyer (Which Southerners tend to pronounce “Four-yer” rather than the much more fashionable “Foy-yay”.). So see, her intentions were good, she wants y’all to have some of this candy, I just had other things on my plate and hadn’t got around to it until now.

If you like Payday candy bars, this is right up your alley because it tastes just like a payday, but is a heap prettier when presented in a nice little pressed glass bowl.