A Fall Recipe (or 2)

It's that time of year...fall. The leaves are changing, the weather is changing, the menus are changing, the wardrobes are changing. Something refreshing about the crisp coolness of the air and the beautiful color in nature at this time of year. My family has always been very food-oriented. So, fall brings several things to mind to me: Chili, Halloween Cookies, Pumpkins, Squash, Spiced Apple Cake, Yellow Cake with nutmeg sauce, many different soups, etc., etc., etc. If it is fall-related, we ate it. My mom would make fall-themed dinners. One that I remember was stew that was cooked in individual pumpkins and served that way. I am going to focus on 2 fall desserts today; one that I've never tried, but am going to. The other is one that is one of my favorites for fall!

The newbie is a really quick and easy version of apple dumplings. Everyone knows what an apple dumpling is...an apple inside of pastry with cinnamony goodness. This is a time-effective, cost-effective method. Here it is:
DEW DUMPLINGS
~1 stick margarine/butter
~3/4 cup sugar
~1 teaspoon cinnamon
~2 Granny Smith apples (I bought Fuji, because they're my fav kind of apple)
~1 can of 8 Crescent rolls
~1 can of Mountain Dew or Diet Mountain Dew (Does anyone else think that the diet option is a bit silly considering that it has a stick of butter and 3/4 c sugar?!?)

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt margarine, sugar, and cinnamon. Peel and core apples and cut into quarters. Wrap each apple quarter in one Crescent roll. Put into a lightly greased 8" or 9" baking dish/pan. Pour sugar mixture over rolls. Then pour Mountain Dew over the crescent rolls. Bake in preheated oven until brown. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

I have no idea how long they will take to bake, as it was not specified. I thought it sounded intriguing and yummy.

The second is Pumpkin Dump Cake. Sounds great, right? It is a lot tastier than the name projects. :) Basically, you dump a bunch of stuff in a baking dish, all mixed up, dump some stuff on top, and bake. I'm not a pumpkin pie person and was extremely skeptical of this, but I have to have it every fall and find myself craving it at other times of the year, as well.
PUMPKIN DUMP CAKE
Preheat oven to 350. Mix together the following:
~1 small can pumpkin (pie filling)
~1 small can evaporated milk
~3 eggs
~1-1/2 c sugar (Just in case anyone is like my sister, that doesn't mean you can pick. She thought that you could use 1 or 1/2...she's so silly! It means "one and one half cup")
~1-1/2 tsp. cinnamon (same--"one and one half teaspoon")
Grease a 9x13 baking dish. Pour pumpkin mixture into the dish.
~1 Box Yellow Cake Mix
~2 Sticks of butter, melted
~3/4 c. chopped pecans (or walnuts)
Sprinkle the cake mix evenly over the pumpkin mixture. Drizzle the melted butter over that. Sprinkle pecans over that.

Bake for 1 hour at 350.

I am planning to make this tomorrow to take to my Bible study. Start salivating now, ladies. :) All I can say is "Yum." :)

If you are interested in any of the other aforementioned recipes, comment me and I'll post them.

Hope you all have a great 2nd day of fall and I'll catch ya later.