Pumpkins and Pork (and brownies!)

The First Annual SKRS Pumpkin and Pork was a success! The neighbors treated us to smoked pork and baked potatoes, and then, we carved pumpkins!!! I should have snapped a picture of the pork, but I didn’t. I was too busy inhaling it. (Thanx Matt and Kelly!)

Pumpkin Guts

 

Who gave Schaef a knife?!

 

Working hard!

 

Also, working hard. Just not with power tools. Or following a pattern.

 

The final product! Look how talented my friends are! I'm not even going to tell you what pumpkin belongs to who, but I will tell you that I tried to carve a sock monkey into my pumpkin.

 

With Halloween just around the corner, I had to make just one more Halloween dessert! I was perusing World Market a few weeks ago and came across a packaged product just like these Rice Krispy Treat Eye Balls. <<Insert FAIL here>> How in the world do you roll RK treats into balls? I don’t understand. Epic fail. So… those balls turned into just clumps of RK treats, covered in white bark and drizzled with frosting. Also, I needed more mallow. My RK treats are heavy on butter. 

My mom had sent me a photo with some super cute Spooky Brownies! I renamed mine Scary Mallow Brownie Monsters! It’s a giant mallow on top of a brownie, smothered in frosting. Cute huh?!

Scary Mallow Brownie Monsters

 

True Story: I was taking the monster’s photo in the kitchen, with bad photo lighting, so I had no other choice than to edit in Photoshop. Note: the monsters look much scarier in the edited photo

Be careful, the monsters will get you! Rar!

Pork and Beans Cake

 

Yes, you read that headline right – it really does say “Pork and Beans Cake” – and it’s AWESOME.

A coworker sent me the recipe, not because she knows how much I love beans, but because she knows I love to bake and try different things. 

You can't even see the beans!

 

Ingredients

• 1 15oz can pork and beans
• 1 8oz can of crushed pineapple
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup veg oil
• 4 eggs
• 1 T vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 T Baking powder
• 2 T baking soda
• 1 T cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Drain some of the bean juice and mash beans until pureed. Add pineapple (do not drain any juice), sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla. Mix. Add flour, powder, soda, cinnamon and salt. Blend for two minutes until smooth. Bake in well-greased jelly roll pan for 30-35 minutes. Frost with Cream Cheese Frosting.

This cake is awesome!!! My roommates love it too. It has a carrot cake consistency, and if you didn’t tell anyone it was made with pork and beans, they would never know. I think the next time I try this, I’m going to use baked beans. If you try it, let me know what you think!

Next up is a bag I made a few weeks ago. I fell in love with the tree fabric immediately. It has a vintage feel, colors, with a modern twist – save the trees! The Tree Tote is fully lined, top band made with double sided biased tape, and the same belt/luggage strapping used on my plastic tote bags.

Tree Tote

 

Tree Tote lining