Pumpkin Pie Overnight Oats

My pantry style Pumpkin Pie Overnight Oats are great and do not contain expensive ingredients.

My new favorite breakfast-lunch is overnight oats.

Not familiar with overnight oats? Basically, you mix equal parts rolled oats, milk, and/or yogurt with spices, fruit, plus a sweetener in a jar and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.

I kept seeing recipes for overnight oats with (to me) fairly exotic or expensive ingredients like chia seeds that I don't keep in my pantry.

However, I do like rolled oats so I decided to try making overnight oats with my regular pantry ingredients. That's right, pantry style overnight oats with rolled oats, milk, fruit, and a tablespoon of sweetener.

I LOVE them. 
In fact, I've been taking a jar of overnight rolled oats to work with me for a healthy, light lunch. This month, I have almost eaten an entire container of rolled oats by myself! That's some serious oat love.

So far my favorite is pumpkin pie overnight oats.

Layered and ready to stir before putting into the refrigerator.

Five Ingredients
1/4 cup 100% pumpkin puree
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup milk
1 Tbsp packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

• Put your ingredients into a jar or container.
• Mix thoroughly and put a lid on your container
• Let sit in your refrigerator for 8 hours.
• Your pumpkin pie overnight oats are ready to eat! 

Pumpkin pie spice and pumpkin puree! Yum!

SalleeShare: Life is Complicated

Pancakes for supper. A simple and fast dinner for a busy day. 

Lately, dinner at the Bonham house has been fairly plain fare. 
I know this will shock you, BUT I even used prepackaged, add-your-own-meat, pasta dinners twice in the last week. Are you feelin' sorry for the hubby? Don't, he grew up on TV dinners and actually LIKES them.

Yep, I am shaking my head too. Seriously, he actually asks for mac and cheese for dinner. Just mac and cheese. No meat. No side dishes. Just mac and cheese. I digress. Let me get back to the complications of my life.

Writing isn't my pay-the-bills job.
Not yet anyway. My forty hour a week job takes up my time from 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM. 7:00 AM is my departure time and 4:00 PM is my arrival time, the actual job is from 7:55 AM to 3:20 PM.

Once I arrive at home, I spend some snuggle time with the hubby and our doggy children before starting in on home making jobs and writing.

I have had several writing projects put on the back burner, or partially completed, for months. In August, I began putting together my second book of poetry, Faithful Facets: Poetry Inspired by Loving Jesus and Life in the Ozarks. It is now an ebook available at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble, iBooks, and Kobo.com.

Last week I completed a second project, another ebook: A Joyous Journey: Devotional Readings From The Book of Psalms. This ebook is now available at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble, iBooks, Lulu.com, and Kobo.com, too.

Now you see why I haven't been cooking much. I am sitting in front of the laptop A LOT. My third project is a half-finished book of vegetables for children. It is still sitting on the proverbial back burner.

Yesterday, the hubby and I took a bike ride to Mark Twain Lake/Clarence Cannon Dam to visit with both my daughters and all of the grand kids.
It was a gorgeous day to be riding a motorcycle, warm, no heavy jackets needed.  The rumble of my bike under me, my handsome hubby on his bike in the rear view mirror, and grand kids at the end of the ride made the day perfect!

Supper wasn't a prepackaged meal last night.
It was breakfast for supper, homemade pancakes and syrup. With a tummy full of pancakes, I went to bed and slept for eight hours. I am certain it would have been ten hours, but our baby dog started whining in the kennel because he needed to go outside.

Balancing Life
Now I am sitting here, sipping my cup of dark roast coffee and sharing with you about why I haven't posted much from the Bonham kitchen. Life is complicated when you are trying to balance work, writing, and family time.

Drivin' Down the Road Cupcakes and Smash Cake

Great way to use a number 1 cookie cutter: Gently press the cookie cutter into the frosting and carefully remove it. This will leave the outline of the number 1 and then you can pipe frosting inside the outline. 

Tip - Pipe the number onto the cake first. Then decorate the top of the cake from the center to the edges.

The Road: Pipe four strips of dark gray frosting, side by side, across the cupcake with a #47 basket weave tip with the smooth side up.

The Grass: Use a #67 leaf tip to form the grass on the cupcakes and the smash cake. Hold the pastry bag so that the long slots of the leaf tip are vertical. Pipe and lift to form the grass.

The Road Border and Stripes: Pipe white frosting along the edges of the gray frosting and down the center of the road with a #5 piping tip. 

I used a small, stainless steel pan to make this 5.5 to 6 inch smash cake. 

Decorating the Cake Top

• Gently press the brim of a large glass into the frosted center of the cake top. This will give you a perfect circle for your track center and road. 
• Fill in the center with a #67 leaf tip and follow the directions above. 
• Then pipe the road around the circular edge of the grass with a #47 basket weave tip with the smooth side up. 
• Having your cake on a lazy susan with greatly help with this part of the decorating. Turn the lazy susan as you pipe around the grass edge.
•  As with the cupcakes, pipe four side by side strips of dark gray frosting to form the road. 

Candy Bar Car Cupcake and Cake Toppers

• $3 bag of mini-candy bars - about 27 bars
• 1 large bag of candy coated chocolate candy - I used about half of the candy. 
• 1 box of teddy bear graham crackers
• small amount of semi-sweet chocolate chips. 
• 1 small pastry bag

Chocolate Candy Glue

I placed about  2 Tbsp. of semi-sweet chocolate chips into a pastry bag and microwaved them at 20 second intervals until they were soft and melted. Then I snipped the very end off the pastry bag. This was my "glue" to hold the candy wheels, steering wheel, and bear halves onto the candy bars. 

I have included the video that I watched before making my teddy bear candy cars.

In the video, it shows cutting the steering wheel candy piece in half and piping on headlights. As you can see, I didn't do this and am perfectly happy with the end results!

For video directions        Click Here

Basic Butter Cream Frosting

This is my favorite butter cream frosting and it will frost 2 dozen cupcakes or 1 - 8 inch cake. For 3 dozen cupcakes and the smash cake I made 2 double batches of frosting and had plenty of frosting for the 6 inch smash cake. The smash cake was cut in half and filled with frosting.

Ingredients

• 4 Tbsp of salted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup of vegetable shortening Do not use pre-creamed shortening.
• 1/2 tsp. of vanilla or other extract
• 1/4 cup of water
• 1 lb. of confectioners sugar

Directions

• Place butter and shortening in a mixing bowl.
• Beat on low speed for 2-3 minutes
• Add half of the powdered sugar and extract
• Beat on low speed until the sugar is almost blended with the butter-shortening mixture
• Add the remaining powdered sugar and the water.
• Beat at low speed for 2-3 minutes, scraping sides of bowl once or twice. 

You will need to divide and tint your frosting the colors you want.

A Preview of Teddy Bears Driving a Candy Car Cupcakes and a Smash Cake

Hi, there! 

I will add more to this post when I am done with the smash cake. Plus, I will show you how I made the cars. This is what I completed last night - 30 cupcakes and 15 teddy bear cars.