Pumpkin Bars

 Do you ever instantly go from 0 to furious? That's what happened to me  in my basement today when my new neighbor wrote me a scathing, nasty,  first ever roomate fight kind of note about moving her laundry out of the washer to put my stuff in after it had sat there rotting  for three hours. I was ready to pound on her door with an earful of what-for when my boyfriend stopped me and told me to ignore her. It really ticked me off, but after some serious convincing I agreed. ( I hate when he's right.....) This is a lady whose life consists of chain-smoking, drinking NOS ( generic Red Bull from what I gather) yelling at her kids while they build skateboard ramps in our yard, and then driving her Hummer to CVS to get more smokes. NO exaggeration. Her other main hobby is putting out her cigarette butts in my planters. Instead of giving her an earful of deserved smack, I made up a hilarious (and perhaps somewhat mean) joke about her, and before you know it I was laughing. It felt good to laugh, and not be mad about something so inconsequential and ridiculous.

I guess the moral of this silly story is that the people in life you really want to bitch slap will always be there, with angry notes, Hummers they can't afford to drive and empty cans of NOS. Instead of confronting them and risking hurting your folding hand with said bitch slap, it's best to ignore them and make some delicious  pumpkin bars.

Pumpkin Bars

Bars:

• -4 eggs
• -1 2/3 cups sugar
• -1- cup canola oil
• -15-ounce can pumpkin
• -2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• -2 teaspoons baking powder
• -2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• -1/2 t. ginger
• -1/2 t cloves
• -1 teaspoon salt
• -1 teaspoon baking soda

Cream Cheese Frosting:

• -8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
• -1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• -2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• -1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. Spread the batter into a greased 13 by 10-inch baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting. Cut into bars.

To make the icing: Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on cooled pumpkin bars.

Best dessert of fall, behold the lovely pumpkin bar. They are such a treat that I always forget about until this time of year.

 It makes a spicy, rich pumpkin flavored  cake-y bar.  And cream cheese frosting? Win-win. And since I only make them a few months of the year, they're an  extra special sweet treat.

So I forgot about the stupidity in the apartment complex, brewed  a cup of ginger tea, and ate a pumpkin bar while trying to envision myself in my own kitchen of the house we'll soon buy when things fall together. Plus, ghetto queen will be sorry she ever got snarky when it comes time to give out Christmas cookies to my neighbors and she gets a Santa tin with a lump of coal in it instead of ginger snaps and homemade candy canes... haha,  Enjoy!