Day 28: In the Home Stretch

We are now in the home stretch for "Use-it-Up" February.  I think this is a great time to give a review of the successful month.

In the last 28 days I have made 17 full dinner meals, not to mention ALL those leftovers; 4 lovely breakfasts (one is a bonus that I'll share at the end of today's post); 3 desserts, 1 appetizer; and of course enough frosting to effectively cover my kitchen floor in a permanent coat of sticky white powder.

I have completely used up approximately 61 ingredients from my cupboard, roundabout, freezer and refrigerator, and made a massive dent in countless others.

I have a sparkling clean refridgerator, which I count as a humungous success!

I had to stop at the store on the way home tonight to get the following essentials. 
And the grocery bill grand total for the entire month of February...drumroll...dunt, dunt, da, da...$127.28.

So I promised a bonus breakfast recipe at the end of today's post, and here it is.  Do you remember those completely delictable pumpkin waffles?  Well, remember that I halved the recipe because I was only cooking for one and half persons, which left me with half a can of pumpkin.  I stored that in an airtight container in the fridge.  It haunted me a bit, because I didn't know what to do with it, and I really didn't want to throw it out.  Should I make waffles again?  What does one do with half a container of pumpkin (or as I measured later roughly 1 cup of pumpkin puree?)  The answer dawned on me late Saturday night as I contenplated what to make for Sunday's breakfast.  Pumpkin muffins!  This recipe is actually for pumpkin bread, but I was really hungry Sunday morning and didn't want to wait for the bread, so I put the batter into muffin cups and cut the baking time way down.

Pumpkin Muffins

3 cups canned pumpkin puree

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

4 cups white sugar

6 eggs

4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves

(I actually cut this recipe down to 1/3 because it said it would yield three 9x5 inch loaf pans.  Whoa, that's a lot, and I only had one cup of pumpkin, so breaking it down to 1/3 of the recipe just made good sense.  If you like a lot of pumpkin you can go all out, pumpkin bread/muffins freeze really well.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and line your baking cups (this makes about 12 muffins that are filled 3/4 full.) Or one loaf pan.

In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin, oil, sugar, and eggs. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves; stir into the pumpkin mixture until well blended. Scoop batter into baking liners about 3/4 full, I like my muffin to have a nice little top - it's the best part after all!

I wish I could tell you how long I baked these...approximately 20 minutes, or as long as it takes to let the dog out, make a bottle, wipe off the counter, snuggle a waking baby, and change a quick soggy diaper.  About that long or so.  The best way to tell is your kitchen will start to smell delicious, the tops will start to brown slightly and you can check them like you would a cake; if your knife comes out clean, they are done.