Pumpkin Granola

I am totally addicted to this. I don't remember what recipes I originally based mine off of. I read a whole bunch before coming up with my own. It's absolutely delicious. A perfect snack, the perfect blend of sweet and salty. Perfect for fall! I would guess it would go well with milk as a breakfast cereal as well, but I've been devouring it too quickly to test that out. I hope you make it and love it as much as I do!

The Harvest Dress

Remember my Waterspout dress? I had drafted the pattern myself--a circle skirt with a simple bodice. However, I never made a final version of the pattern on paper, so when I tried to make it again, I got a little frustrated. I got it to work, though, and turned it into the perfect fall dress! I did make this version a little bit longer than the first one, however, since it's not for the beach.

Front of the dress (I will get a functional
real camera for Christmas, I swear) 

Pumpkin Ice Cream

This super rich, creamy pumpkin ice cream tastes like fall! I have a feeling it won't last long! I was browsing for pumpkin ice cream recipes, and though there were many decent looking ones out there, I didn't end up following one. I did notice a few trends though: 1) Use a lot of egg yolks (I usually use two or three, and most recipes said to use five), and 2) Use brown sugar instead of white. Of course, I also used skim milk!

Apple braids

Inspired by this beautiful picture pinned a million times on Pinterest (originally from http://www.eatliverun.com/apple-braid/), I knew I had to try it out! The recipe on eatliverun says to use a dough not too different from pizza dough, so I just used my pizza dough recipe and decreased the yeast and rise time per instructions from the original and increased the sugar.

Apple picking with Shakespeare sleeves

Last weekend brought a nice little indian summer. It was great. 80s and sunny, but with the pretty fall foliage, what could be better? I went apple picking (hence the apple recipes I've posted and will continue posting until I run out of apples), so I made a new shirt for the event.

The black straps are from the bag on my back, but here's a full view of the shirt front

Amazing apple bread

I went apple picking this past weekend! Now I have a ton of fresh-picked apples, a new apple picking shirt (will post that soon), and lots of things I want to make.

This apple bread is one of my most-loved recipes... by everyone, even random strangers (I entered it in a baking contest once). I came up with this recipe myself, and some of the amounts are a little strange b/c I tweaked them based on a bunch of apple bread recipes online.

The remainder of pumpkins

Remember those pumpkins from before? The ones I put in the freezer after making pumpkin butter, pumpkin chocolate chip bread, and pumpkin seeds? Well I pulled them out and made something AWESOME! 

Pumpkin and black bean stew (with chicken):
Olive oil to coat pan

1/2 diced onion

2 cloves garlic

1 small can V8 juice
3 cups chicken broth

2 hot chili de arbol peppers

 ~2 cups chopped pumpkin

5-6 chicken tenders

1 can rinsed black beans

1/2 cup greek yogurt 

Salt and pepper to taste

Embracing fall: step 2--Plaid!

Sorry this took so long. This fabric was way more difficult to work with than I expected! I don't remember ever wearing a jumper, though I'm guessing my mom must have put me in some when I was little. I decided there could be no better way to embrace fall than to make a plaid jumper!

Though this was a simple pattern, it was the first piece of clothing I designed myself. I was inspired by the Zoe dress from Burda Style, and I used the Coffee Date Dress as a starting point for the bodice. I made the front darts smaller and added side bust darts, and I lengthened it/curved it out. Then, the bottom was just a really wide rectangle that I pleated the width of the plaid at each dart.

Embracing fall: step 1--Pumpkins

Fall is my second to least favorite season for a few reasons: summer ends, it gets cold, it gets darker, the days get shorter, and worst of all, it means winter is coming. I typically hole up during fall and dread the winter to come, but I decided to enjoy fall for its positive traits this year as much as I can.

This, of course, started with apple picking.... leading to a ton of apple butter, which I successfully (I hope) canned for the first time ever. Then, I bought two pumpkins which I tackled Friday night.

I stuck the pumpkins in the oven for 10-15 minutes to make them soft enough to cut. I cut off the tops, removed the seeds and stringy stuff,  cut them into about 8 pieces each, and put them back in the oven to soften some more. Then I removed the skin with a knife and chopped up the pumpkin. I washed the seeds and left them to dry overnight. This took about two hours total and left me with a sore wrist. So, question one to my limited readers (maybe more in the future): is there a better way to do this!? 

My collection of pumpkin goods
(well, just the pumpkin seeds and bread)

After chopping the pumpkins, I saved some of the cubes in the fridge for later (soup maybe?) and put the rest of them in the crock pot in a decent amount of water with one secret ingredient (a chai tea bag). I let them "cook" on warm overnight before pureeing them with my hand blender. 1/3 of the puree went toward pumpkin chocolate chip bread, and 2/3 went toward pumpkin butter. Sadly, canning pumpkin butter is not an option unless you have industrial canning equipment (is that just an autoclave? not that I'm going to use an autoclave on my pumpkin butter, I'm just curious), so I can't share any, but I have a nice stash in my freezer. I tossed the dry pumpkin seeds in olive oil, added a dash of cayenne pepper and a dash of garlic salt, and then I thoroughly salted them with sea salt before putting them in the oven. Luckily, I didn't burn them this year like I did last year!

Here are the recipes I used (please note that especially the pumpkin butter is more of a guessing game than a recipe):