Every year around the holidays (usually Thanksgiving, but sometimes Christmas as well), my mother asks me to make pumpkin bars. I’ve been using the same recipe for at least 15 years now, and I have NO idea at all where it came from. It just kind of showed up in my mom’s kitchen on a piece of paper one year. The only thing I do know is that they’re delicious. Lisa described them as tasting “like cake and pumpkin pie had a baby”.
Pumpkin Bars (w/ cream cheese frosting)
4 eggs
1 2/3 c. sugar
1 c. oil
1 16oz. can pumpkin
2 c. flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
1tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
Combine eggs, sugar, oil, pumpkin and beat until light and fluffy. Stir together all dry ingredients. Add to pumpkin mixture and mix. Spread in ungreased 15×10x1 pan. Bake at 350 — 25 to 30 minutes. Cool before frosting.
Frosting:
1 3oz. pkg. cream cheese
1/2 c. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. sifted powdered sugar
Cinnamon (optional)
Combine cream cheese, butter, and vanilla. Add powdered sugar gradually. Mix in cinnamon if you like. Spread over cooled pumpkin bars.
What special holiday treats do you or your family make every year? Share recipes in the comments.
1. Yo! MTV Raps!
2. Remote Control
3. Music Videos
I don’t think I’ll ever get the first two back. I’ve heard that Ed Lover is working at a Popeye’s Chicken in Tallahassee, and Ken Ober is now a podiatrist. This leaves me with the return of music videos to “Music Television” as my only hope of the network redeeming itself. MTV has done even better than that.
Earlier this week, they launched MTVMusic.com. The site features a HUGE collection of music videos spanning the entire history of the network. You can go all the way back to the beginning and watch “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles, or you can skip to the end of the music video era and watch…well…any video directed by McG. Fuck McG. If he turns the next Terminator movie into an episode of Chuck or incorporates the Pussycat Dolls in any fashion, I may kill myself.
Now, instead of three things that I miss about MTV, I can list three things that I like about MTVMusic.com:
1. I never have to watch an episode of the The Hills.
2. Videos work on several mobile phone browsers
3. “The Final Countdown” anytime I want, 24/7. Hell yes.