Light & Creamy Pumpkin Pie

It's that time of year.... Pumpkin Season!!!! Here's another easy pumpkin recipe.  It tastes like pumpkin ice cream, delicious! 

Light & Creamy Pumpkin Pie

What you'll need:

1 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 cup cold milk

1 package (6-serving size) vanilla flavor instant pudding & pie filling

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice*

1 tub (8 oz.) frozen non-dairy whipped topping, thawed, divided

1 Keebler® Ready Crust® Graham Pie Crust

Directions

1. In small mixing bowl beat pumpkin, milk, pudding mix and spice on low speed of   electric mixer about 1 minute or until combined.

*NOTE: May substitute 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger and 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves in place of pumpkin pie spice.

2. Fold in about two-thirds of whipped topping. Spread in crust. Freeze at least 4 hours or until firm.

 3. Let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes before cutting. Store in freezer.

Optional: Garnish with remaining whipped topping.

This recipe is brought to you buy my sweet boyfriend!  He's quite the chef!!

Happy Halloween from Southern Color!

~Elizabeth

 



Homemade Chicken Salad Recipe

I have always been a huge lover of chicken salad and I appreciate the fact that every recipe is different!  There's chicken salad with grapes, or apples, or cranberries, or curry, or greek yogurt, the list goes on!!!

My recipe is simple and exact measurements aren't important.  Some people might like more mayo and some might like more apples - just adapt to your tastes!!

What you'll need:

1 1/2 c. of diced chicken

1/2 c. of chopped pecans (or your nut of choice)

1/4 c. chopped celery

1/4 c. chopped onion

1/2 c. chopped apple (red or green)

2 tablespoons of chopped fresh basil 

3/4 c. of mayo

For the chicken, I used frozen chicken tenders.  I marinated them in Italian dressing for 2 days then cooked in boiling water with 1 cube of chicken bullion.  Other options: use left over chicken, store-bought rotisserie chicken, canned chicken, or whatever you have on hand.

 Combine all ingredients into a large bowl.  Mix together with a spoon. 

To serve: I used store bought mini pita pockets from Trader Joe's.  Split the pita open on one end and then spoon the chicken salad in.  I did this the night before serving them and they turned out great - they weren't dried out and the bread wasn't soggy.

Halloween is just around the corner, do y'all have any plans? 
Since it falls on a Monday this year, I'll probably spend it in spin class that night ~ my instructor has already promised to bring candy!!!

What's your favorite kind of candy?

~Elizabeth

Bathroom Makeover: After

The guest bathroom makeover is finally complete and just in time for my parent's visit this weekend!!

The theme for the bathroom is spa meets shabby chic.  The colors are very subtle and relaxing but the accessories (i.e. light fixture, cabinet, and mirror) have a shabby chic feel. 

I replaced the mirror, light fixture, towel racks, shower curtains, and bath mats.  I found everything at TJ Maxx (except the light fixture) so the update was very affordable. 

I haven't quite figured out how to organize the cabinet.  Right now it's pretty bare - if you have any suggestions please let me know :)

~ Julia

Date Night & some Tex mex!

Life has been pretty hectic lately with work, multiple weddings to attend, being out of town almost every weekend, and becuase of that my boyfriend and I haven't had time to go on an official date lately!  Luckily this week we both made time for each other ~ that meant my work out was a little shorter than usual and he had to leave work early.  And it was totally worth it!!

The restaurant we were going to was a total surprise ~ so I annoyed him all day with questions like: what should I wear (casual or dressy), what part of town are we going to, when should I be ready??  And he gave me no clues!  To my surprise we showed up at Georgia Grille, a restaurant I have heard great things about and one that I have been dying to try!

Georgia Grille is a mix between tex mex and southern food ~ which I think is the perfect combination!

(sorry for the bad pics, the restaurant was incredibly dark) 

To start we had silver margaritas along with chips & salsa and queso!  The queso had chunks of peppers and jalapenos, very good and not too spicy.  The margs were terrific, not too much mix ~ I'm the type of person that wants to actually taste the tequila!

For dinner the boyfriend had pork chop fajitas served with collard greens, corn relish and apple salsa.  A great mix of southern meets tex mex!!

I had the chicken enchiladas and taco salad for dinner.  The enchiladas were super creamy with the right amount of chicken to cheese ratio!  The salad was a little odd - it tasted like iceberg lettuce and mayo.  Strange!

I highly recommend making a reservation - on a Wednesday night the place was packed!  The restaurant probably has a total of 20 tables and a very small bar.

All in all, date night was great!  I got to catch up with my boyfriend in a romantic restaurant! 

As we were leaving the restaurant, our terrific server Ashley turned to me and said "You look like Chelsea Lately"!! It's funny, I get that all the time from strangers! 

Do people ever say you look like someone famous??

Happy Friday!
~Elizabeth

Bathroom Make Over: Before

Hi Everyone - I hope you had a great weekend!  Ours was busy with football and finishing up some projects around the house.

I have been working on updating our guest bathroom for several months now and it is almost done...I just have to hang a cabinet!  You would think in the time it has taken me to finish this project that we completely renovated the bathroom but all we did was paint and change out the light and mirror. 

The bathroom wasn't in bad shape to begin with but one day while cleaning the bathroom I realized that the mirror was no longer glued to the wall and was pretty much wedged in place.  So instead of waiting for the mirror to come crashing down on it's own I decided to go ahead and take it down...and once I had done that I couldn't resist updating the entire bathroom. 

Here's what it looked like before...dark and boring.



Here's a preview of some of the work I've done:

I took down the old mirror - which left glue spots on the wall. 

After removing all of the glue spots I filled in the holes, that I had made while removing the glue, with some spackle.

~Julia

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Good morning!  I hope everyone has had a great week.  Atlanta has been super rainy & cold, I guess it's officially fall!  Do you have big plans for the weekend?  I am heading down to Macon, GA to visit my grandparents on Saturday and then grill out with some friends that night for the Clemson v. Maryland & UGA v. Vandy games. 

I wanted to make something easy to bring and I found this great 2 ingredient recipe for Pumpkin Spice cookies.  The recipe is literally 2 ingredients - how awesome!  However, I added in pecans, so that makes it 3 ingredients, but still so easy!!

What you'll need:

1 box (14.25 oz.) of Spice Cake Mix

1 can (15 oz.) of canned pumpkin

1 c. of chopped pecans

Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 mins.

Optional ingredients (I didn't use any of these, but I'm sure they'd be great)

1 c. chopped walnuts

1 c. raisins

1 c. chocolate chips

Directions:

1.  If you are using whole pecans, you will need to chop those into smaller pieces.  It doesn't have to be a fine chop.  Set aside the pecans until Step 3.



2.  In a large bowl, mix together (using a mixer or fork) the cake mix and canned pumpkin.  Mix until all the dry cake mix has been fully incorporated. 

3.  Now stir in the pecans.

4.  Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto the cookie sheet.  They do not flatten out much, so how you place them on the cookie sheet is how they will come out of the oven! 



5.  Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 15 minutes depending on the size of your cookies.  I made about 30 cookies in my batch and I baked them for approximately 11 mins. 

A good way to test if your cookies are done is to run a thin knife down the middle of a cookie, if it comes out clean then they are done!  If the knife comes out with batter on it, then they need more time. 

6.  Allow cookies to cool on a wire baking rake.  Then enjoy!

I hope y'all enjoy this easy recipe!  Do you have any recipes that only require 2 or 3 ingredients?