Pumpkin roulade( roll).....

Libby's pumpkin roulade aka roll is a great alternative to traditional pumpkin pie. It has all the great fall flavors as this actual cake part is fat free( except for eggs which do add fat). This roll has no additional oil or butter in the cake. Its not that hard to roll this, in fact when you roll the cake up in a dishtowel( sprinkle with powdered sugar) it has a memory and will reroll with the filling super easily.

The filling is nothing more than cream cheese, powdered sugar, a bit of butter and vanilla. I have made this before with mascarpone cheese as well.

The only change I made from the original recipe, was to use pumpkin pie spice instead of the cinnamon/cloves and omit the nuts.

symphony brownies.....

I feel kinda stupid posting this "recipe" because its not really a recipe and its so simple. We had a baby shower to attend 2 weeks ago, so I whipped these up( along with muffaletta sandwiches) the night before. Just use your favorite brownie recipe for an 9 inch square pan( or a mix which is what I did). Ghiradelli makes a great mix, but its not sold in Canada. I used a Duncan Hines family size 9 x 13 mix, but baked it in a 9 x 9 square pan( so they're thicker). I subbed out coffee for the water and part almond oil for some of the canola oil. You could even use melted butter instead of oil.

Pour out half your batter and then layer in 2 family size Hershey Symphony Chocolate bars( I dont know if they're sold in Canada, I bought them for 1.00 each at Walgreen's in MI). In the picture above, you see a little square of chocolate missing. I took a little taste. Symphony comes in two flavors. Plain and an almond toffee. You want to use the almond toffee so you gets bits of both of those flavors. Pour the other half of the batter over the top and bake as directed. I refridgerated them overnight for easing cutting. They were polished off within a matter of minutes. They're really good and super easy.

Peanut butter banana blondies for weiner dogs!!

Oliver turned 10 on Tuesday so I pulled out my doggie cookbook and whipped him up some blondies. As you can see, he loved them!! I added a few reeces pieces( no chocolate) to gild the lily. Oliver shared with Harley as you can see above.

The recipe uses whole wheat flour, mashed banana, honey, natural peanut butter, canola oil and some levening. Easy to make and no complaints from the boys.

Great Guacamole.......

One of the great things about living in this culinary wasteland is the fabulous price I usually get on Haas avocados. When I lived in Cali, I routinely paid upwards of 2.00 each for an avocado. Maybe its because they really havent " taken off" here, but at least once a month I pick up a bag on the clearance rack for .99. Yesterday, I found a bag of 7( yes SEVEN) perfectly ripe ORGANIC avocados for less than 1.00. Because we were having dinner guests, I whipped up a batch of my famous guacamole. I usually make it the same way every single time, but for some odd reason, this batch tasted extra special( maybe it was the fleur de sel that Robin picked up at a liquidation store for another mere 1.00).

I used 4 avocado's, about 1-2 tbls of Green Mountain mild salsa, a few tbls of roughly chopped red onion( white onion is good too, but dont use a spanish onion), a few squirts of lime juice and a few tbls of chopped cilantro( oh and salt and pepper).

Yummy!!

Btw, I leared a neat trick over on the Cook's Illustrated message boards. Someone( I cant remember who) said they flick off that little stem on top of the avocado and if its green underneath, the avocado is ripe. If its brown, the majority will be brown. It worked everytime. Look at the picture of that perfect avocado~~