The weekend of Columbus Day we actually didn’t cook dinner.  This was mainly because we had family friends visiting us, and they brought and grilled SO much delicious meat for us that we didn’t need to! We had lamb, short ribs and veal chops…thanks Carlos and Valeska! So instead of cooking dinner, we played soccer (thanks Niki–we misssed you Matias!) and baked some goodies with a helping hand from Alexis (a key part of the family friends!)

For the pumpkin pie, we combined eggs with canned pumpkin, added the dry ingredients (mainly spices and sugar) and then added evaporated milk.  Because we always have too much batter for a standard pie shell, we made mini pies and sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar for extra spice.  They baked for about an hour and then had to set for another hour.

Later we served them with fresh whipped cream. DELICIOUS!

For the chocolate chip banana bread, we mashed 3 overripe bananas together, added an egg, and then combined the wet ingredients with our dry mix (flour, baking powder, salt…). The recipe called for 1/2 cup of chocolate chips but frankly that wasn’t enough and it should have specified mini chocolate chips.  The regular size ones were ok, but they sank to the bottom of the banana bread…the minis would have been more evenly disbursed. It still tasted good but it would have been better if EVERY bite had a chocolate chip in it.