sanity, please?

In the midst of all this.....

 

This is how I cope...

yum

I love when I'm getting ready to make breakfast, and accidentally put together something really delicious.  This time it was Archer Farms Organic Flax Seed Waffles (picked up at Target a few weeks ago on clearance!), with Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter, All Natural Peanut Butter, a banana, and (not so good) day old coffee.

 

I wish I had a picture!  But it all disappeared too fast..oops!

on the topic of pumpkins

Oh, this stuff is SO. GOOD.  We don't have any Trader Joe's in my area (so sad!), but my sister is going to college in Boston so every time we've visited her I load up while I have the chance.  I love fall!

 

I've been trying to find pumpkins to make some toasted pumpkin seeds, but I can't find any at the local grocery store!  I'll make a trip out to an orchard or something at some point before Thanksgiving, but I was hoping I wouldn't have to make a special trip out...sucks!

 

On my fall to-try recipe list:

• Pepita Granola from smitten kitchen
• Mom's Apple Cake from smitten kitchen
• Caramel Apples from 101 Cookbooks
• Pumpkin Spice Scones from Pinch My Salt
• Pumpkin Chocolate Chips from the Post Punk Kitchen
• Pumpkin Raisin Bread Pudding from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody
• Sweet Potato and Sausage Soup from smitten kitchen
• Roasted Autumn Vegetable Chowder from Pinch My Salt

to do list for NYC!

Most suggestions taken from David Lebovitz's blog at http://www.davidlebovitz.com/.

 

FIRST STOP: WE MUST!

Joe The Art of Coffee

405 West 23rd Street
New York City
(212) 206-0669

 

Popcorn!

Garrett's Caramel Corn

560 5th Avenue
and
242 W 34th St/1 Penn Plaza

 

Black & White Cookies

Moshes

115 Second Avenue

NYC

 

Gelato!

Il Laboratorio di Gelato

95 Orchard Street (between Broome & Delancey)

NYC

a weekend in québec city

 

 

 

 

and of course.....

a black tie affair

Last weekend one of my roommates (not the apple picking one :P) and I hosted a very classy party, in honor of the opening of a new performing arts center at our (engineering) school.

The opening of this performing arts center has been the topic of a lot of controversy lately, over many issues that generally center around the need for other improvements on campus, and the sheer amount of money being spent on this new building.

While I have my own opinions about this, I won't go into them in too much detail on this blog.  However, as a club officer, I was invited to the invite-only Gala Opening Event last Friday night.  I definitely wanted to go check it out, mainly because I was sure there would be good food there (and I was right!).

It was black-tie only - so sophisticated!  I've never been to such a "grown up" event, so I was pretty excited to get to wear my black prom dress again ;).  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and didn't get any pictures of the night!  I have some bad-quality cell phone pictures, but it doesn't do anything justice.  The pictures you see now are from re-visiting the building the next morning, with my mom.

So, anyway, I spent most of the day on Friday preparing for our unofficial after-Gala event - the anti-event!  Julie (my date for the evening!) and I really enjoyed the irony in the party hopping we did.  I present to you our menu for the evening:

• Vegetables with Roasted Red Pepper Humus
• Strawberry, Grape, and Mandarin Orange Fruit Skewers
• Parmesan Rosemary Walnut Shortbreads
• Grape and Rosemary Focaccia
• Warm Cheese Artichoke Spinach Dip
• Cayenne-Paprika Spiced Popcorn
• Raspberry-Lime Petit Fours

The petit fours took the longest to make - about 2 days.  I deviated a bit from the original recipe listed above, starting with the Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake recipe, baked as a sheet cake, as the base.  From the birthday cake mentioned in a previous post, I found layers were extremely easy to cut when using this recipe, so I didn't want to risk anything new!  Especially trying to balance making all of this between classes and meetings.

The focaccia recipe's already made a debut at the Apartment Warming party, made by Chris both times!  It's a huge crowd pleaser every time - everyone's usually surprised that it tastes so good, since the idea of grapes on pizza dough is a bit strange at first.  I LOVE this stuff, and it was definitely a hit at the party.

(Can't have a classy party without champagne!)

apples apples everywhere

A few weekends ago, my roommate and I went apple picking ($5 a bag...what a bargain!).  We have wayyyy too many apples to know what to do with so we've both been baking like crazy.  My favorite snack lately has been Baked Apples, which is super easy and makes the apartment smell absolutely amazing.  I like to bake it in a toaster oven, since it's faster and uses less electricity (woo bills!..):

Baked Apples

1-2 apples

cinnamon sugar

nutmeg

pumpkin pie spice

few dabs of butter

 

Preheat oven or toaster oven to 350 F.

Slice the apple(s) in half and cut out the core, leaving the rest of the apple intact. Cut slits in the flesh of the apple so that all of the spices and butter can melt into the apple.  Sprinkle on the cinnamon sugar, pumpkin spice, then nutmeg.  Cut the butter into small pieces and dot it onto the apple halves.  Bake for 30 minutes or until the apples are soft and bubbling.

 

 

I also made a pie the other day, I'm not actually sure if there's any left but it was very good.  I usually use this Brown Butter Creamy Apple Pie recipe, but I wanted to try something different this time, so I found this Caramel Apple Pie recipe instead.  It's definitely worth a try if you're looking for an apple pie recipe!

Other bloggers talking about apples right now:

Posie Gets Cozy (Sour Cream Apple Pie - definitely trying this one next time!)

Smitten Kitchen (Mom's Apple Cake)

Sweet Potatoe (Vegan Apple Pie, yum)

Simply Recipes (Applesauce)