Scrumptious Sunday....HEALTHY -tastes like pumpkin pie- muffins!

It's been FOREVER since I've posted a yummy recipe, mostly do to the fact that we lived in a hotel for 70+ days this summer and I didn't have a kitchen, but now that I have a kitchen again, I've started cooking AND am using all of our new kitchen gadgets we got for our wedding!
 
Yesterday, I made these super delish, HEALTHY, taste like pumpkin pie muffins. They have no refined sugars in them and use all natural and organic ingredients. I wish I could say all of my creations were that healthy! Ha!

 

I found this recipe on Tenley Molzahn's Sweet and Free page. Tenley was a former Bachelor contestant and lives a gluten-free lifestyle. While I don't do gluten-free, I do try to watch my sugars and refined carbs as much as possible. I'll admit, I was a little hesitant to make these as I thought they might be a tad gross, but they weren't- they seriously taste like pumpkin pie-hence the reason I'm sharing the recipe!

 

 

Here's what you need:

 

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 cup almond meal

2 eggs

1/4 cup organic applesauce

1/4 cup organic honey

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1 Tbls. Chia seeds (I had no clue what these were until reading her blog. They are super good for you and don't change the flavor. I got mine at Trader Joe's for about $5 a bag.

 

I put everything in the Kitchen-Aid and mixed it for 15-20 seconds until it looked like it was mixed well.

 

It was my first time using the new mixer and I am in L-O-V-E! It mixes SO much better than my $10 Wal-Mart hand mixer! Ha!

 

I knew they wouldn't rise much, so I filled about 8 muffin cups pretty full-I sprayed mine with Pam spray and they came out just fine.

 

 

The batter was so yummy that even Gonzaga couldn't get enough! Ha!

 

Don't worry, the bowl went through the dishwasher to kill any dog germs :)
 

 

The muffins baked on 350 for about 30 minutes and then they were ready to eat! I ate one right away-it was just like warm, pumpkin, pie!

 

 

I figured the calories to run about 150 per muffin, but remember, it's all good calories and much better than all of the sugary pumpkin muffins you could make :)

 

 

Happy Muffin Making,

 

Ash

 

 

 

 

 

Easy Burlap Wrap Wreath

I've been on Fall Break all week.....it's been glorious!!! Since M and I teach in different school districts, we only had one day off at the same time (he only had 2 school days off, one being tomorrow), so we didn't go anywhere. After our CRAZY summer, it was actually really nice to stay home and work on the house. Our back splash goes in this week along with any final painting and then the house will be FINISHED!!! Praise. The. Lord.

Earlier in the week, I posted a picture of an easy to do burlap wrap wreath on the Blog's Facebook Page. It was seriously SO easy and it only took me 15 minutes to complete the whole thing- Best of all: It required no scissors, paint, wire or glue. I am 100% about simplicity in my life. I like things that are fabulous, but fabulous AND easy to create :)

Here's the how to:

Supplies:
grapevine wreath
wooden letter- I chose a pre-painted one from Michael's.
2 yards of burlap, cut into roughly 12 inches width
spool of wide, wire-rimmed ribbon



I used an old wreath and removed the flowers that you see lying beside it

Assembly:
Take the burlap and begin wrapping it around the wreath, tucking the first part inside the grapevine to secure it.

 

 

Continue wrapping at around the wreath until you have come full circle. Once, you've come full circle, tuck the excess into more of the grapevine. 2 yards was enough to do this so no cutting was needed, however if you have excess, just trim it away.

 

Then, take a spool of wire-rimmed ribbon and wrap it around the wreath-again, securing into the grapevine.

 

Lastly, take the pre-painted letter and use some of the excess string from the burlap to secure it to the wreath.

 

That's it! So simple and since there's no glue, you can re-do the wreath to make it work for other holidays as well!

 

 

 


Happy Wreath Making

Ash

Diaper Wreath....How To

I'm working on creating a super easy and adorable craft for a baby shower tea I'm co-hostessing on Sunday! I guest posted this on a blog back in the spring and wanted to share it again in case any of you are like me and have friends and family popping out babies everywhere!!! I LOVE it- it's totally giving M and I our baby feel and making us want a little bambino SOON-but not too soon! We need to be fully moved back in our house first- Ha!



Anyway, Happy Wreath Making!!!!

Here's the link to the post: Diaper Wreath How To



Ash

FINALLY......a Post!!! And A Vegas re-cap....

My life has been crazy since we returned from Vegas. Just plum crazy. I've been super sick (visited the ER 3 times, 2 by ambulance. what fun) and we've been working on our sweet little abode (if you're a new follower our entire house flooded 4 days before our wedding. yeah, holy insaneness). Top all of that off with trying to sell M's house and two teachers starting a new school year. So when I say crazy, there's no exaggeration in my words. Ha!

The good news: The house is almost complete. Yay! (If you're a follower of The Pink Pineapple Blog on Facebook, I've been sharing photos of the progress. Be sure to 'like' the page) And, we are finally getting some "normalcy" back into our life. We are no longer living in a hotel and we also had to give up our globe trotting summer and return to work like responsible human beings. I still haven't cooked my husband an actual meal (kitchen still not complete), but we FINALLY got to go through our wedding gifts. Yay! In fact, I just ate off of our "K" Pottery Barn plates for the first time. I felt so regal eating off of a plate with my last initial on it. Yay for being married and yay for being back in OUR home!

Anyway, I know I promised a FULL Vegas re-cap including how we did our trip on a budget so here goes:

Hotel: Bills Gamblin' Hall. It's one of the last of the old hotels still on the main strip and its location is PRIMO- right across from the Bellagio and Caesars, next to the Flamingo. I would never have thought to stay there except my friend and her hubs stayed there once and said it's a great place to stay if you're looking for a cheap hotel. It was super cheap, our bill for 4 nights including the weekend was less than $400. Now, would I go stay here for a big, romantic, type weekend? Negative. But, would I stay here again for a quick Vegas getaway. Definitely. The rooms where large, super clean, had large flat screen TV's and had clean bathrooms with great water pressure. The hotel itself doesn't have a pool, but all guests were able to use the Flamingo's pool by showing their room key. You truly felt like you stepped back in time when in the hotel, but that's what's so neat about Vegas. SO much variety!

   

View from our room

Transportation: We flew to Vegas on Southwest. We had to drive to Louisville since they don't fly out of Lex, but it saved us a couple hundred dollars per ticket by doing so.
While in Vegas we took a shuttle to the hotel and a taxi back to the airport upon us leaving. Reason being; It ended up being the same cost and the shuttle took FOREVER getting us to our hotel because it had to drop of so many people. Unless you're staying way down the strip, the taxi is the for sure way to go. It was only $15 for our ride to the airport from the hotel.

To get around the strip and to get to "Old Vegas" we used the public transportation. Old Vegas being the Fremont Street area (giant neon cowboy, covered street, etc) They have a monorail, which is great when wanting to sight see the strip and a bus system, called "The Deuce". We used the Deuce the most, but monorailed a few times as well. The bus is good in that it's cheap and takes you EVERYWHERE, but it's bad in that it can take awhile to get to where you're going i.e. from our hotel to Old Vegas took around 30 minutes. The buses make TONS of stops, but they are clean, air-conditioned (a lifesaver when it was 110 degrees) and are much cheaper than taxis. A taxi ride from our hotel to Old Vegas would've been $40 round trip where as the bus was $13 for a 24 hour unlimited pass.



Riding the "Deuce" to Fremont street. Can you see the sweat dripping off our faces?! It was SO hot!

Food: Vegas food can be super pricey, especially on the main strip. However, Old Vegas has some crazy awesome deals ($1 margaritas, $10 prime rib dinner, etc). M and I went down there twice, but never ate there. We did, however, zip line across Fremont Street. SO fun and only $15 a person-so worth it!!

M and I zipping down Fremont Street

Here's my food suggestions:

Breakfast:
Hash House A Go Go. It's in the Imperial Palace and the food is SO good! I ordered a pancake and it was as big as my face and M got biscuits and gravy. It's like Cracker Barrel on crack. Ha! So delish and super affordable prices- most plates were under $10.

Bill's Gamblin Hall main restaurant. I can't think of it's name, but it's right by the front desk and the food there was amazeballs as well. And again, affordable.

Egg white omlet with hash. Yum!

Lunch:
We never did anything big for lunch. Most days, we ate breakfast during the time we'd eat lunch at home (thank you 3 hour time change) so if we were hungry, we'd just grab something by the pool or at McDonalds.

Dinner:
Our first night we ate at In-N-Out Burger because neither of us had ever eaten it before and we were starving by the time we got off our flight. We had to hike over the interstate to get to it (it's located right behind the main strip but on the other side of the interstate). Ha-that was fun ;) But it was yumm-o for sure!

Hubs loving his burger!

Spago: Wolfgang Puck's restaurant in Paris. It was very, very good and they even had bread that tasted like a Thanksgiving meal. Sounds weird, but it was SO good! I had the butternut squash ravioli and it was delish. Prices here were okay, around $20 a plate. Service was good and we were happy with our dinner choice.

Spaigo had perfectly sized portions :)

Bellagio Buffet: This was suggested to us by several people and we certainly enjoyed it! The wait can be CRAZY long (we tried one night and it was over 2 hours), but we went back Sunday and only waited for about 30-45 min, and that was around 4pm mind you. I'm not a huge eater, but I was with two men and a 30 weeks pregnant woman, and they LOVED it! I liked it as well, but didn't feel that I ate nearly the amount of food that I paid the price for. I believe the buffet was about $50 a person and trust me, M definitely got his $50 worth. I would probably pass on this if I were going again, or sans my hubs, but that's just me. If you like to eat and you like buffets, this is one of the best!


Alright, I'm exhausted. I'll post more about our Cirque show, trip to the Hoover Dam, pool day with Vanilla Ice, riding the Big Shot at the Stratosphere and share some other fun pics in another post.

Stay Tuned.......and be sure to like the Pink Pineapple Blog on Facebook. I've been posting links to great deals and such I run across, since it's much easier and faster than posting them in a blog :)

Happy Vegas-ing
Ash