Recipe ~ Pumpkin Crunch

This is one of my favorite fall desserts, it is very quick and easy to make. Even if you aren't a fan of pumpkin (like me, I wouldn't eat a slice of pumpkin pie if it were the last pie on earth) you should try it out. This is especially good to take to a gathering if you wind up in charge of dessert.

Pumpkin Crunch

1 box yellow cake mix

1 15 oz can solid pack pumpkin

1 12 oz can evaporated milk

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar (I have used splenda for this and it works great)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 c chopped pecans (optional, it tastes great with or without)

1 cup butter, melted

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom of 9x13 pan.

*Combine pumpkin evaporated milk, eggs, sugar, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. Pour into prepared pan.

*Sprinkle dry cake mix evenly over pumpkin mixture. Top with pecans.

*Drizzle melted butter over top.

*Bake at 350 for 50-55 mins or until golden brown.

*Cool...serve chilled. Top with cinnamon whipped cream or cool whip.

Cinnamon Whipped Cream

2 cups whipping cream

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/2 to 1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

*Whip all ingredients to desired consistency...it will take 5 or more minutes with a mixer, so be patient.

***Tip: Chill the bowl for your mixer before you add ingredients and it won't take as long to whip up:)

Jelly Toast

I have this crazy rush of memories whenever I eat Jelly toast. Not just any jelly toast, but lightly toasted bread with butter and grape jelly. It has to be that combo, or no memory rush.

When I was young, we lived in North Carolina. My parents owned a beach house on Surf City beach. It was a great house, yellow with a screened in porch and metal bunk beds. I remember the path from the deck steps to the ocean through the dunes. Our next door neighbors had a blue house and they had a girl about my age named Ann. I remember she was a bit older than me, a year or two that means so much when you are 6 or 7, and she had beautiful long blond hair. She wasn't always there at the same time we were there, because neither of our families lived there full time. I remember this excited feeling looking over at Ann's blue house as I was walking up the stairs to our yellow house late at night when we arrived, hoping she would be there the next day so we could play. I still remember the feeling of the stairs, the house was on stilts as most beach houses are, and our footsteps echoed in the dark and crunched in the sand with the ocean waves as background music.

So when Ann and I were lucky enough to cross paths during the summers, we played together outside. She would invite me into her house for a snack and her mom would make us jelly toast. Lightly toasted bread with butter and grape jelly. I remember Ann's mom looking like Alice from the Brady Bunch because she always wore an apron. Reality was probably much different. I think about the beach, Ann and her mom whenever I eat jelly toast like this. I wonder where they are and what they are doing today. I know the beach house has been destroyed by hurricanes over the years and as far as I know it is no longer there.

On the other side of our yellow beach house was an igloo shaped beach house. Seriously. I'm not kidding. An igloo. I'll have to see if my mom has pictures of that one:)