Found: 1 egg, leftover cottage cheese, browning banana, leftover sweetener from coffee run

Made: Yummy breakfast muffins

Ingredients:
1 large egg
1 cup cottage cheese
2 T. milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract 
1 tsp. ground cinnamon 
2 tsp. no-calorie sweetener
1/2 tsp. baking powder 
1 banana
1 cup oatmeal, old-fashioned   

Instructions:  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Add ingredients to a blender or food processor and blend thoroughly. Pour (two-thirds full) into a muffin pan coated with cooking spray or lined with muffin liners. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the muffins are lightly browned and a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Makes 8 muffins.

Found in fridge: prosciutto, goat cheese, spinach, leftover peach jelly, naan. Spread jelly on naan, Topped with rest plus a little honey, baked 450 for 7 minutes.

Found in the fridge:  leftover spinach artichoke dip, leftover bowtie pasta with tomato sauce.  Well, it's not the prettiest pasta I've ever seen, but combining these two together yielded a YUM-MO lunch pasta. 

Found in fridge:  waning baguette, cottage cheese, jar of roasted red peppers, one sad tomato.   You know, ricotta gets all the glory, but cottage cheese, drained and mashed a bit, is really the same thing when it comes to recipes.

Ingredients:
Half jar roasted red peppers
Basil
Tomatoes, grilled as here
Baguette
Cottage cheese

Instructions:
Drain and mash your cottage cheese until it looks like ricotta.  Toast your bread as you like.  A lower fat option is to toast it, but I like Julia Child's way -- grill it in olive oil!  Put your grilled tomatoes, red peppers and basil in a food processor and pulse it up.  You just want to get it spreadable, but still have the individual ingredients show themselves.  Layer your bread with cottage cheese and then tomato/basil/pepper mixture.  Devour.

The chicken-basil sausage we buy at our local Sprouts market is soooo good and we seem to always have some on hand in the freezer.  From the leftover veggies from steak night, I made Zoe a petite pasta with a bit of pesto.  Super easy to make, completely gone in 5 minutes!

Nothing better on a winter day than soup and crusty bread.  And soup is the ultimate way to clean out the pantry. 

Ingredients:
3-4 slices of bacon, chopped
1 small onion or 1/2 large onion (red, yellow, white), chopped
1 mini sweet red pepper, chopped finely (What's this?)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Kosher salt and black pepper
1 T. flour
4 cups chicken stock or broth (I used the turkey stock I had in the freezer)
4 cups peeled, finely diced potatoes (I like Yukon Gold)
2 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels
1 can evaporated milk
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. dried parseley (or 2 T. fresh, chopped)

Instructions:
In a heavy stockpot, brown bacon until almost crisp. Remove some of the bacon and reserve for garnish.  Add onions and garlic to the pot and saute 2 minutes -- make sure the garlic doesn't burn!  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Sprinkle on the flour and mix into the onion mixture, and then add the broth and potatoes. Cover the pot and bring to a boil; then lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, or till the potatoes are tender. Add the corn. Cover and simmer everything about 5 minutes longer to blend the flavors.
 
Stir in the milk. Season with the thyme, parsley, some more salt, and lots of freshly ground black pepper to taste. Garnish with the bacon bits you've been saving.

Since we didn't carve our pumpkins, we were able to use the pumpkins for these delish recipes.
  

Ingredients:  
Pumpkins, rinsed and dried
Salt

Instructions: 
Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.  

Slice a small piece of skin off the one side of the pumpkin so when laid on its side, the pumpkin will lay flat without rolling. Remove the stem and split the pumpkin in half from top to bottom, using a large cleaver and a mallet. Scoop out the seeds and fiber with a large metal spoon or ice cream scoop. Cut the fibers with kitchen sissors if necessary.  Reserve seeds for another use.

Sprinkle the flesh with kosher salt and lay the halves, flesh side down, on a parchment paper-lined sheet pan. Roast until a paring knife can be easily inserted and removed from the pumpkin, 35 to 45 minutes. Test in several places to ensure doneness.  Remove the sheet pan to a cooling rack and cool the pumpkin for 1 hour.

Using a large spoon, remove the roasted flesh of the pumpkin from the skin to the bowl of a food processor. Process until the flesh is smooth, 3 to 4 minutes. Store in the fridge for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 3 months

I freeze my puree in muffin tins, as they are about 1/2 cup each.  This makes it easy to get just the amount I need for all the pumpkin recipes.  Then I pull the muffin tray out of the freezer, let sit for about five minutes, 
 and I use a plastic knife to easily pry the muffin-shaped frozen pumpkin out..  I freeze in freezer bags.