My Cooking Spot

When Girl Meets Kitchen



Pumpkin Spice Syrup – A Healthy Alternative To This Fall Favorite

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Autumn is in full effect here. Though, Las Vegas isn’t gifted with changing trees or sidewalks blanketed in fallen leaves, we still can see the presence of fall. The morning air is cool and crisp and the moon is revealing herself a little earlier each passing night. Regardless of where you reside during this transition of the seasons, you undoubtedly feel the shift occur within your body and mind. The desire to turn inward, snuggle up and contemplate mother earth nestling down. This is a time for grounding and reflecting, and what better way than to warm up with a cup of coffee or tea. That steam meeting your lips while you inhale that all too familiar aroma of fall. Cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, mmmm. I bet you’re thinking of that famous Starbucks pumpkin spice latte.

Well, lemme tell you why we should stay away from this all too enticing beverage of choice. For starters, the syrup they use doesn’t even have pumpkin in it! Their syrup consists of condensed milk, high fructose corn syrup, artificial and natural flavors and annatto.

How about I save you from my lengthy speech about all these ingredients and just give you my very own healthy and delicious recipe alternative. This pumpkin spice syrup will change your holiday season, enjoy!

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Parmesan Sweet Potato Tots with Buttermilk Chive Dressing

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So I can either sound very gullible or very enlightening, but I just learned that sweet potatoes and yams are the same thing!  The U.S. government has perpetuated this error by mislabeling, and all this time we thought we were making a choice on two different vegetables.  You can see how we’ve all been so confused! Or maybe I was just late to the party…

 
When most of us think of sweet potatoes, we reference the orange variety. However, the majority of sweet potatoes found in grocery stores are pale and almost yellow in color. Since we’ve been calling the orange type of sweet potatoes “yams” since colonial times, the name caught on to reference that specific variety. It’s like when your teacher misreads your name for attendance, and the whole class thinks you’re Sam Weiners instead of Sam Weyner for the end of time. Poor Sam Weiners. 
 
Anyway, true yams are starchy tubers that have an almost black bark-like skin and white, purple or reddish flesh, found in Africa and Asia. That’s quite different from those canned yams you buy for Thanksgiving! 
Did you know that there are 16 varieties of sweet potatoes? The pale type you see in most grocery stores are called Hannahs, and the orange type that we mistake for yams are actually Beauregard sweet potatoes. There’s also Garnets that have a pumpkin-like taste, and Covingtons that are more widely found in the South. 

 

I tried Hannahs for these Parmesan Sweet Potato Tots, and they were delicious!

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Quick Zesty Italian Chicken

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This is one of those recipes that need to be in your back pocket for when you don’t know what to make for dinner or for those night that you are just exhausted, and want to make something quick and delicious. My husband is a super picky eater, and he loved this meal so much that he was all about the leftovers, and that doesn’t happen very often.  He said that he actually liked it better the next day because the spices just marinated overnight and it was ta-tasty.

This is literally a five minute meal and just throw in the oven for an hour and done-zo.

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These seasonings are the secret ingredient to this recipe. I love Good Seasons Zesty Italian. It is so good as a dressing and spices. I decided to use half of their Garlic & Herb and half Zesty Italian.

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Homemade Pumpkin Applesauce

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I’ve been on an applesauce kick lately. I don’t know why, I usually only want it when I am not feeling well. I think it might just be the time of year. It’s actually been quite nice temperature-wise. And by nice, I mean like 90 degrees. This is fall in Phoenix. I guess I’ll take what I can get!

I’ve made homemade applesauce a few times before. It’s really quite simple to make and what’s better than an applesauce that only has a few natural ingredients and nothing else? No weird, unnecessary ingredients here. This time around, I wanted to give my applesauce a fall twist with the addition of pumpkin puree. Not only does this applesauce taste great, but it will also make your house smell amazing while cooking!
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