So if you’ve been reading my blog, you know by now that I love pumpkin. Last Sunday, I decided to use it in a new way by making donuts for the first time. And wow, these were delicious.
I’ve never actually fried something at home before, but I’m proud to say I didn’t screw it up too badly.
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Preparing to host our first Thanksgiving kept us very busy this week. But now that it’s over – we survived and have a fridge full of leftovers – it was so worth it!
Although, there was one moment when I wondered if we’d be able to get everything done. I spent all week getting the food, figuring out timing for how to get everything done on Thursday, cleaning, and setting up. None of that prepared me to have our sink stop draining, our disposal stop working, and our dishwasher start flooding at 11:30pm on Wednesday. After an hour of trying to fix it, we went to bed thinking we’d be doing all of our dishes in the shower on Thanksgiving. Luckily, Dave managed to fix it Thursday morning about five minutes before his parents showed up (side note, pour baking soda and vinegar, and then boiling hot water down the drain to clear the clog).
But all in all, we had a pretty seamless day on Thanksgiving. I had wanted to do several posts with all of the different things I made (and lots of pictures) but I sort of underestimated how much I’d have to do on Thanksgiving. So I had to skip taking pictures of every step. But I do want to give you the links/recipes for all of my dishes, and some pictures of the final products!
If there is something that I have made most in my baking career, it is definitely banana bread. While yes I do love it, that is not why I end up making it all the time. Really, it comes down to the fact that I hate wasting food. And nine times out of ten, I (or my roommates in the past) do not get through all of the bananas before they go brown. My solution is to freeze them until I have enough to make banana bread (3-4).
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Something you should know about me: I love my crock pot. But every year, I forget about it until it starts to get cold and windy outside. Then I remember how awesome it is and start using it all the time. One of my new favorite recipes is this honey chicken recipe I found on Pinterest. The original can be found here.
I served it for my parents when they visited, and it was a big hit. I’ve now made it several other times, and each time I love it. It’s cooking in my kitchen right now, and the smell is amazing! The best part is that it is ridiculously easy and healthy. To start you just throw everything in the crock pot. See below.
Then you let it sit for a few hours, and at the end you get to eat this:
In the fall, I always try to have pumpkin around. I like to throw it in everything- risotto, croissants, and pasta. This weekend I had some extra pumpkin, and I love whipping up random baked goods on Sunday mornings, so I decided to go looking online for something breakfast related with pumpkin.
The result was cranberry pumpkin scones.
Last weekend, I decided to give into Dave’s Sunday football plans by making something for dinner that seemed like the perfect football food. I had been meaning to try a dish from one of my favorite food blogs – Table for Two – and decided to do the BBQ Chicken Cornbread Pie, which seemed like the perfect option for football Sunday. And oh my god, I am so glad I did. It was relatively easy, and so delicious! Dave and I had to stop ourselves from eating the entire dish. You can find the recipe here and I definitely recommend checking out the rest of the blog.
The first two pictures below are before placing it in the broiler, and the last picture is right before I ate way too much!
My only notes on the original recipe are:
Growing up, I remember lots of homemade breads. There were some made by hand, then there was that time when my dad tried out a bread machine. But at some point, my mom got diagnosed with celiac disease and most of the homemade carbs had to stop.
After being deprived for years of that amazing smell of bread rising and then baking, I have brought back one of my favorites-whole wheat orange bread. You could say I am a little obsessed. I give it as a house warming gift, I’ve given it as a get well gift, and really I just look for any excuse to make it. The bread has just enough sweet that all you need to do is toast it and spread a little butter on top. It’s perfect with a big cup of coffee or a smoothie in the morning before work.
As many of you know, I live in Washington DC, and was thus part of the country that got to frantically prepare for Hurricane Sandy last weekend. Luckily, we ended up only getting strong winds and rain, but not before I stocked up on water and food. To get prepared for the storm, we got up early last weekend and went to Trader Joe’s. Upon walking in the store, I was immediately overwhelmed because the line was even longer than usual and things were clearly selling out. While Dave got in line, I ended up running around and grabbing whatever food I could find that seemed like good “storm food.” This ended up involving the fixings for homemade pizza (I decided to assume that I’d at least have power long enough to bake the pizza).
Trader Joe’s has a couple different pizza crust options, but I think the one with basil and garlic is the best! We also got pesto, bacon, pepperoni, peppers, spinach, zucchini, and onions to throw on top. Because we had no clue when our power would go out (or that we would actually not ever lose it), we made two large pizzas as soon as we got home so that we could have lots of leftovers to eat cold if we found ourselves sitting in the dark.
Homemade pizza on a day when it is gross out is so delicious. Especially when it only takes about 20 minutes to prepare, and 10-20 minutes to cook.
I am a big proponent of baking things from scratch in almost every case. Home baked goods taste better and are so much more satisfying than anything store bought. That being said, I do think there are a few exceptions to this rule. One of these is pie crust. My mom taught me how to make Julia Child’s pie crust. And while yes, I do think it is delicious, I really can’t tell the difference between hers and the store bought ones. The focus of a pie is always the filling, and so as long as you have a crust that supports the pie with flaky buttery layers, I don’t think you can go wrong.
That being said, fruit pies and crisps have to be one of the easiest desserts ever. People love them, they are less sinful than a cake or cookie, and can be prepped ahead of time and baked while eating dinner.
With all of these apples I have right now, I’ve been baking pies and crisps like crazy. Dave and I have almost single handedly put away 3 pies/crumble in the last couple of weeks. It has to be one of the best all around meals.
So now on to the important part of how to make these lovely pies and crisps.
An aspiring lawyer with a passion for desserts...
An aspiring lawyer with a passion for desserts...
An aspiring lawyer with a passion for desserts...
An aspiring lawyer with a passion for desserts...
the petite croissant 