Hi. My name is Rose, and I Have SPD...

Seasonal Pumpkin Disorder. Although if this is really a disease, I hope there's not a cure.

Every fall, I have the sudden urge to bake pumpkin muffins. I rarely bake them any other time of the year for some reason. However, my pumpkin addiction has gone into overdrive this fall.

This post is about how I spent the weekend feeding my addiction.

It started yesterday afternoon, when I bought this:




And just an fyi, this is a $3 candle from Walmart, and it smells heavenly! I also bought a bag of pumpkin spice coffee with a gift certificate I had from Starbucks.

I bought another sugar pumpkin and after much scraping, picking and rinsing, I roasted the seeds:



I never really thought I liked pumpkin seeds, but Lauren wanted me to make them, so I did. I just tossed them with a little olive oil, some seasoned salt, garlic powder and a little bit of ground red pepper. And they are actually pretty good. Although this little cup full is all there was. And it really wasn't all that fun washing and picking all the pumpkin goo off the seeds.

After the pumpkin was baked and cooled, I made this pumpkin sheet cake for dessert last night. Well, it was meant to be dessert, but I ate it instead of dinner:



I wanted to take a picture of it when only one piece was cut from it so you could see how yummy it looked and be jealous, but before I had the chance, my family got a little too over zealous with the forks. I don't think they know we own knives and spatulas, because every time I bake anything, they always just dig it out with a fork, making it look like a cave man attacked it. I don't often bake cakes from scratch, but this one will definately be made again.

And, finally, I made these this morning:



No, those aren't donuts frying in a vat of grease. Although donuts do sound good...here's another picture of the final product...



...pumpkin spice bagels, and while they aren't the prettiest looking thing I've ever made, OMG...they are tasty! Really, true bagel perfection, although I do realize I may be biased...a lightly crispy crust on the outside and perfectly chewy on the inside. Another picture, just before I ate one. Don't tell anyone that that's not cream cheese on the top...I am out of cream cheese, so I scraped some frosting from last night's cake.



I've always wanted to try making my own bagels, but was kind of chicken to for some reason. They weren't any harder than any other bread, and I didn't realize that you boil them before baking. These will definately be made again. The only downside, if there really is one, is that they took about 3 hours from start to finish, made a lot of mess, and only made 11 bagels. Which lasted about 5 minutes. It was so worth it, but next time, I will have to double the recipe. Maybe even triple it. Watch out St. Louis Bread Company! You've got some competition...

I wonder if a person can OD on pumpkin? I better go buy some more pumpkins and search for a pumpkin donut recipe so I can figure that out for myself....