My husband was under the weather last week, and weakly pleaded for this soup from underneath a mountain of quilts one afternoon. I nearly fainted. He wasn't begging for a burger or ice cream topped with hot fudge. He was requesting, sit down for it, a vegetable based soup. That's when I realized just how sick he was. He was hallucinating that he wanted vegetables. I didn't waste any time, and set out to make this one I posted on my blog a few years ago. I love how the apple cider brightens ...
Pumpkin Applesauce Muffins with Pumpkin Seed Streusel
Secret Recipe Club: Pumpkin muffins made with fall spices, applesauce, and golden raisins, topped with pumpkin seed streusel. How is it possible I've never posted a muffin here? I've made coffee cakes, breads, and even cinnamon rolls. But never a muffin. So after more than five years of blogging, I'm finally posting one for fall. And it's one you're going to love, thanks to Karen at the Karen's Kitchen Stories blog! It's Secret Recipe Club again! Whaat? Two posts for Secret Recipe Club ...
Spiced Acorn Squash with Charred Poblano Pepper – Cornbread Stuffing
I like to think travel broadens the mind. For a snapshot in time, you sneak a glimpse of another culture, up close and personal. What people eat, how they live, and how they navigate human issues common to us all. We weigh these observations in our minds as we contrast them against our own familiar lives, and sometimes feel the pinching discomfort of a traveler far from home. “Why is there only one person selling train tickets? Holy Jesus, can’t they see how long the line is??” This can be as ...
Fig Basted Roast Butternut Squash with Quinoa, Apple, and Fig Stuffing
We should have more than one day set aside each year to give thanks. Some might declare we should give thanks every day, and I don’t disagree, but I’m actually stating we should have Thanksgiving once a month. Not with all the commercial hoopla of people rising before dawn the day after so they can shiver in dark parking lots to be in line for some amazing-never-to-be-offered-again deal on a big screen TV, thank you very much. I’m talking about quietly setting aside one day a month on ...
Pumpkin Cappuccino Soup
This soup is a love note to the Czech Republic. No, that wasn't a typo. You probably thought Italy was on my mind, what with 'cappuccino' in the title. But you would be wrong. Believe it or not, cappuccino soups are popular in Prague and beyond. I saw them no less than three times on menus while we were there earlier this month. They were all very different from each other, and my favorite was a Pumpkin Cappuccino Soup. We were in Brno (pronounced Berno), the historic capital of ...
Butternut Squash Risotto with Pears and Sage
I was lucky enough to travel in the Czech Republic and Slovakia earlier this month with a small group of 14 wonderful people. We started and ended in Prague, my new favorite city in the whole world, escaped the crowds to travel west to Karlovy Vary (a spa town very near Germany with hot springs everywhere), and retraced our steps eastward to travel through parts of Slovakia very near Poland. It was a fantastic trip, my favorite in a long time, but people, we were in the land of ...
Butternut Squash Panzanella Salad with Apples and Kale
Make an autumn version of a traditional Italian salad with this butternut squash panzanella salad tossed with apples and kale, dressed with an apple vinaigrette. I spent much of September in Italy attending an Italian language school in Treviso, a smallish town outside Venice. For 2 1/2 weeks I ate a ton of pasta, pizza, risotto, and tiramisu (a dessert created by a restaurant in Treviso). The trip was about language, food, and people -- meeting local Italians and making new friends with ...
Spaghetti Squash with Shrimp, Pears and Kale
Spaghetti squash tossed with shrimp, pears, and kale. Whenever I scan food photo porn sites and Pinterest (which is embarrassingly often), I'm bombarded with temptation. Pumpkin cakes with cream cheese frosting, salted caramel sheet cakes, pumpkin toffee cookies, pecan cheesecake pie, and Reese's cake bars, all dressed up like a gang of girls ready to party, taunt me from my computer screen. "C'mon Wimpy, get those fancy plates out and let's have some fun together. You can cheat on your ...
Pumpkin-Coconut Cookies
Soft cake-like pumpkin cookies with strong hints of coconut, topped with cream cheese icing. Cocktail party season is about to ramp up as we gallop into the final months of the year (honestly, can you even believe it's almost November??). In cocktail-speak, this means you wear something a little glitzy without being over-the-top-neon, pull out some strappy shoes, and think about dishes that are just one or two bites. Ideally they wear a little glitz too. As for the drinks, they're festive, ...
Cranberry Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chips
Secret Recipe Club: Cranberry pumpkin bread loaded with dried cranberries and chocolate chips. The older I get (and by the way, I'm still young) the more I gravitate towards easier recipes that are full of flavor. When I first graduated from culinary school, the more complicated the better. If there was a fancy 7-layer meringue cake elegantly interleaved with thick buttercream topped with candied orange slices dipped in chocolate and covered with toasted coconut, deal me in. Mine never ...
Egg Bake with Hash Browns, Butternut Squash, and Cheese
Egg bake recipe loaded with hash browns, butternut squash, and cheese, most of which can be made ahead of time. Entertaining 101 Tip: It's good to have a dish like this in your hip pocket for weekend guests. Last month, friends stayed with us on Lake Tahoe for the weekend. They were in town for a wedding with Mia, their adorable one-year-old daughter, and the weather ...
(Gluten-Free) Pumpkin Pie Spoon Bread
When I got the November issue of Bon Appétit in the mail, there were a bunch of recipes calling my name. Starting with this one. I'd never made spoon bread, had never even eaten any, and wasn't entirely sure what it was. But I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt I would love it. Seriously, how could you NOT love something called spoon bread. It made me think soft-spongy-pudding, something anyone over the age of zero is attracted to. There's no yeast and no chemical leaveners, with the only ...
