This post is a part of the Fantabulous Fall Favorites blog chain put together by a great group of bloggers. The theme this week is pumpkins. Be sure to check out all the great ideas shared at the end of this post!

I want to share with you the pumpkin cookies that my mom would make every fall. We loved eating them, and we loved decorating them. I have now continued the tradition and make them every year with my family.

This recipe makes about 30-34 big cookies! So I will take 10-12 of them with me to our Thanksgiving dinner for the kiddos along with pies for the adults. I take some to Sunday School along with breads for a breakfast treat. The rest we eat or share with neighbors.

You know that I love to freeze just about everything, so often I will make up these cookies ahead of time and freeze them. Then I will pull them out the night before I need them, and we will decorate them. Many times they freeze okay with the frosting, but sometimes the frosting along with the candies gets a little watery or gooey.

They are relatively simple to make, but the decorating can take a little bit of time–but that is what makes these cookies great:  the whole family can have fun doing them together! I also say that they are healthy as they include oatmeal and pumpkin :). It doesn’t take much for me to say that something is healthy!

To make the cookies, there are a few basic steps:

Prepare the cookie dough. (See recipe below.)

Place  1/4 cup of dough onto  a lightly greased cookie sheet. I then take a butter knife or a cake decorating spatula and shape the dough into a circle using a little  more dough for the stem.

Bake, then cool the cookies.

Decorate the cookies. I frost the cookies, and the kids will put faces on the cookies using M & M’s; chocolate, white, or butterscotch chips; and candy corn. You could use white or orange frosting for the face, and green frosting looks great for the stem.

 Peanut butter could be used as the frosting if you would like a little less sugar in the cookie!

Making the Frosting:

I combine some powdered sugar with about 1 tablespoon of softened butter. I add a little bit of milk, and continue to add more milk until I get the desired consistency. I also add about a teaspoon of vanilla. It should not be runny, but it should still be easy to spread. The frosting will get harder (not wet)  after it dries.  

Interested in more amazing Pumpkins ideas? Check out these posts!

Called to Be a Mom – 6 Easy Pumpkin Activities for Preschoolers

Life as a Field Trip – Be a Pumpkin Ninja!

Still want more? Head to our Fantabulous Fall Favorites Pinterest Board!

It’s that time of year when caramel becomes king! I embrace this idea whole-heartedly as I absolutely adore caramel. I grab the bulls-eyes at parades and rob the kids’ goody bags (if I’m allowed to) as well as eat the caramels before I get around to making the desserts that I bought them for. Yes, caramel and I are BFF’s.

 I do concede that I might be a little over the top; but surely, everybody loves caramel  in the fall, right? So last week, I put on the recipe for caramel corn, this week I’m putting on the recipe I use for caramel dip for fruit, on October 18th I’ll put on a recipe for a caramely Candy Corn Popcorn Treats for a fall blog hop I’m participating in, and by Christmas time I’ll give you my recipe for Caramel Brownies. (You really didn’t know how serious I was when I said that I adore caramel, did you?)

Now even though I really, really like caramel dip, I really, really, REALLY dislike the prices that stores charge for those little 8 ounce containers of caramel. With a family of seven people, that little tub does not go far, and it’s probably 25¢ per tablespoon. I’m just too cheap for that. So I started googling for a caramel recipe, and one of the first ones I found was this Apple Caramel Dip below. It’s super easy to make; it makes a large amount; and it uses ingredients that you already have or, at the very least, are easy to find.

All you have to do is put the first 5 ingredients in a sauce pan, stir them over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved, which is pretty quick. Then remove from it from the heat and add the vanilla. Easy-peasy!

Now let me tell you a little secret:  I pour half of the caramel into a different container while it is still hot and add peanut butter to it. YUM! (I also love peanut butter!)  I like the Peanut Butter Caramel Apple Dip even better than the regular caramel dip–although both are great. There is no magic amount of peanut butter. Just spoon a couple of tablespoons in, stir it until the peanut butter is melted,  and taste it. If you want more, put more in!

This recipe makes a lot of caramel–I have never measured the amount, but I would say probably around 4 cups. You can use it also as an ice cream topping or on top of other desserts. With caramel, the options are endless. And if you need a sugar-fix in the afternoon, a tablespoon of caramel by itself fits the bill. (Of course I would never have done anything like that. 😉 )

I dare you –make the recipe below, and you won’t be buying the store caramel apple dip anymore! It does not taste just like the store’s dip; but we love this dip just as much if not more than the store’s caramel dip.

 So, do I have any  caramel lover friends out there? What’s your favorite caramel food item that you like?

Today, I finally switched over to my fall decorations, so I feel like making caramel corn or one of my fall recipes . . . but I first I want to share my family’s cucumber relish recipe with you. This is the canning time of year as produce is either ripe out of your garden, or it’s really cheap in the stores!  

I only can 3 things:  jalapeno salsa, cucumber relish, and applesauce. I’m not a huge canner; but I have to do something with the overabundance of tomatoes we get, we like to go apple picking and make applesauce as a family, and my  mom tells me that relish tastes much better that is homemade.

I really wouldn’t know if homemade relish tastes better than store bought relish as I don’t like any thing that has been pickled; but my husband likes it, and I grew too many cucumbers one year as well, so I made relish out of them. It took us 5 years to run out of my stash of relish, so I made a batch of it again this year. I had planted my own cucumbers, but they did lousy in part to my terrible work in the garden. So I bought 4 large cucumbers at Aldi, and those cucumbers along with the 3 cucumbers I had were enough for a batch of relish.

This recipe is my grandma’s recipe. My mom grew up on a farm, and they had a huge garden and canned tons of food so that they wouldn’t starve in the winter. So although I am not an expert canner, I call my mom anytime I have a question.

Cucumber relish is relatively easy to make; in fact, it is much easier to make than jalapeno salsa. The recipe makes about 6 pints of relish. I already had chopped and frozen some red and green peppers, and I had all the other ingredients on hand,  so for me the out-of-pocket cost for the 6 pints was $2.00. If you are in a farming community where you are able to receive extra produce for free or you grow your own produce, the cost is even cheaper (and the taste is supposedly much better!)

These Rice Krispy spin-offs are one of my family’s favorite recipes for summer.

My mom has been making them for years; and I think she originally got the recipe from a Frosted Flakes cereal box, hence the name Tony Tiger’s Bites.  

THEY’RE   G…R…E…A….T!   (Remember the Tony Tiger commercials :)).

They’re also very easy to make! And they are NOT gluten free. Pinterest has added that to my pins; but Pinterest is not always right. I’m sorry about that misinformation, but there is nothing I can do about it.

Just mix up the few ingredients and put it in a pan!

Melt the butter and marshmallows, remove from heat and add peanut butter.

Stir in the Frosted Flakes.

Pour mixture in a greased/buttered 13″ x 9″ pan.

Place waxed paper over the mixture and press it until it is flat and even.

All done!

When it is cool, cut into squares and eat!

 Go HERE to see a few more of some of Creative K Kids’ favorite recipes:

I think I’m a little crazy. . . and those who know me probably would agree!

Why, you ask?

Well, every summer I grow my own tomatoes . . . and I don’t really like tomatoes.

I grow my own tomatoes partly so I that I will be able to can  my own salsa . . . and I’m not a big salsa lover!

Yeah, that’s weird.

The first year that I grew tomatoes, I had so many of them that I didn’t know what to do with them. So I asked a friend for her salsa canning recipe. Now I have made this salsa for four years, so when I recently used Aldi’s salsa in a recipe–I didn’t like the taste! So I decided that I better keep up the canning of my own salsa!

I use the salsa mainly in the different recipes I make that require salsa. I use it in my Make-Ahead Burritos and in my **slow cooker cheese dip** that I use with tortilla chips. **(I just put a 2 pound block of Velveeta cheese (Aldi’s generic version), one pint of my homemade Jalapeno Salsa, and 1 can of refried beans in a medium size crockpot. I heat it on low or high depending on how much time I have until the cheese is melted. I use this for large get-togethers!)**

Now, I have to add a few disclaimers about this salsa:

(I know I’m not selling this very well, but I’m trying to be brutally honest with my opinions! Some of you may love to can your food. I am neutral:  I don’t love all the work, but I like the end result!)

• I have never tried another kind of homemade canned salsa, so I have nothing to which to compare my recipe.
• There is no magic amount of jalapeno peppers to add. Sometimes I get it a little spicy! (Which might be perfect for some people–I like my salsa mild!)
• It takes a long time to prepare. Every time I make it, I think, “Is all this work really worth it?” It is if you like the taste of it better than store-bought salsa (which I do), and if you like more organic/home-grown foods. There are no preservatives, additives, or food coloring. And it is a cost savings–even over Aldi’s salsa. However, it took me about 3 hours to do make 7 pints of salsa (12 cups of tomatoes). My tomatoes were small, so maybe it took me longer than it would if I had large tomatoes as I had to core and peel every single stinkin’ little tomato!
• I would highly recommend having a food chopper/processor. I used to only have a mini 2-cup food processor, and even that was wonderful in chopping all those vegetables/fruits. I burned up the little processor’s motor this past year and invested in a 9 cup food processor, and it was wonderful! I really admire all those homesteaders years ago who canned all their food–and did it all by hand. It makes me feel quite lazy every time I can salsa and complain how time-consuming it is!

Fill the jars with salsa–I used a spoon with little holes.

Here is the original Jalapeno Salsa recipe as it was given to me– and then I will put in parentheses what I actually did. If I used the amount of jalapeno peppers that the recipe called for, I think I would be on fire forever! I rally don’t see  how that could be the right measurement, but I’ll include it just for fun!!

Homemade salsa!