Fall Food Kick-Off

Bonjour mes amies! We are having a great fall, with lots of cooking and baking.

One of our biggest hits so far was a very autumnal breakfast. I cannot recommend Pumpkin Cheesecake Baked Oatmeal highly enough. It is warm and perfectly chewy and has a mascarpone cheese swirl. Pumpkin and cream cheese is a typical pairing, but recently we've branched out with some slightly different combinations. Mascarpone was the first of them and it was excellent! Our expectations for this recipe weren't that high going in, so I can see how if you're reading this, you might be inclined to skip this one, but that would be a huge mistake. Baked oatmeal might sound kind of boring but this is a recipe worth making! I want to make it again before skiing in the winter because it would be a perfect breakfast on a snowy morning.

We forgot to take a picture before digging in!

Even though doughnuts are a year-round food, I mostly associate them with fall, probably because we have apple cider doughnuts when we go apple picking! We made a Glazed Old Fashioned Donut Cake and it was great. The cake isn't too sweet, which is good because you get sweetness from the glaze. If the cake was sweet too, this would probably be too dessert-like, but this recipe is well-balanced for a breakfast cake.

My friend Gloria said that this was one of her favorite breakfasts that we'd ever made!

A nice thing about this cake is that it cuts cleanly and the glaze doesn't break into shards, which I've noticed is a common problem with glazed cakes.

Another alternate that we tried from pumpkin with cream cheese was this Pumpkin Ricotta Bundt Cake. The recipe says that you can serve this recipe warm or cold and so we had a taste test in our family. Cold won unanimously, which is unusual for us to prefer, especially my dad! But the ricotta texture was kind of weird warm and much nicer cold.

This is another pretty looking cake.

The ricotta swirl was fine, but we would have preferred cream cheese. I didn't like the graininess of the ricotta compared to what the creaminess of cream cheese would have been.

We also made a Lemon Cream Cheese Coffee Cake and this one definitely gave me the creaminess that the ricotta cake was missing. I absolutely LOVED this cake! It was one of my favorites. My mom thought that it was too much work for what it was and that it didn't have strong enough lemon flavor. But I think she's wrong and would absolutely make this again!

Even my mom had to admit that this cake looks absolutely beautiful!!

A surprise recent winner was Majestic and Moist Honey Cake. We made this for Rosh Hashanah, to celebrate the sweetness of the New Year. My big-little sister loved this cake and my mom and our friend Mohamed did too.

The edges of this cake were kind of chewy, which we loved.

This cake was great plain but was even better with whipped cream (obviously!).

We actually have probably made slightly fewer apple recipes this year than usual, but we did make Apple Cinnamon Crumb Cake and everyone really liked it. My dad thought that it tasted buttery, which he really liked. My big-little sister liked how moist it was and I liked the crumb topping. I think it's interesting that we all really liked it but for completely different reasons!

We substituted all brown sugar when we made this because we'd run out of granulated sugar and we liked it so much that I think I'd probably just make it that way again! When we use disposable baking pans (bad for the environment, but good for baking), it makes it very easy to cut and serve because we just cut through the aluminum and take the pan off the cake, rather than trying to get the cake out of the pan!

Another breakfast that we made recently was a Berry Streusel Coffee Cake. This is probably more of a summer recipe than one for fall, and I'm sure would be best with fresh summer berries. But we just used berries from the grocery store, and it can be good that way any time of year. My dad thought that this cake was just okay, but my big-little sister and I really liked it. We made this a day ahead and served it to some of my friends after my birthday sleepover. They liked it too!

We thought that the streusel topping on this was especially good and would make just the streusel to use on muffins sometime.

I like the way that this cake is layered. There is a cake layer and then a jam and berry layer and then the streusel topping, so that you get all of the flavors with every bite.

We made Fresh Apple Cinnamon Scones, and my brother and big-little sister thought that these were the best scones that we have ever made! But there is a twist!! The recipe calls for cinnamon chips and we didn't have those so we substituted butterscotch chips and they oozed out and got sticky and chewy and really made the recipe! Butterscotch chips are tricky because most of the ones that you can buy have a weird, chemical taste that isn't like true butterscotch at all. So if you make these, definitely plan ahead and buy Guittard butterscotch chips.

You can kind of see the sticky edges on this, which were definitely the best part!

Another scone that we tried was Fig and Toasted Almond Scones. These were good, but not all that memorable. There wasn't anything wrong with them, they just probably weren't one of our favorites.

These fig and almond scones maybe weren't spectacular on their own, but they'd be a lovely addition to a brunch menu!

A fun fall breakfast that we had was The Ultimate Healthy Apple Crumble. This was so good! It was one of my favorite breakfasts ever. It tastes just like dessert apple crisp, but it's perfect for breakfast because it's mostly just oats and apples with a little bit of maple syrup to sweeten it. You have to refrigerate this recipe for a while before serving it, so it was a great special breakfast to make the night before. We just warmed our individual servings because we like it more that way, but you could definitely eat it cold too.

This made our house smell great! Next time I might add pecans to the topping to add some additional flavor.

Of course we served it with whipped cream, which I highly recommend!

If you read my blog, then you know that we love making Dutch babies! So we were excited to try this Gingerbread Dutch Baby Pancake. We were hoping that this recipe would bring warm fall flavors to a traditional Dutch baby, but unfortunately the gingerbread flavors ended up lacking. It was very buttery, which some people might like, but isn't really my thing. And I also thought that this was way too thin.

Even though this one wasn't my favorite, Dutch babies always look pretty!

A fun recipe that we made was Microwave-Steamed Eggs. This recipe is basically chawan mushi, which is a savory Japanese egg custard. It's very easy to make, but you need kombu dashi, which is might not be something that you already have. We researched the best dashi for this recipe, and came up with this one. At first glance, mixing soy sauce and maple syrup for this recipe sounds kind of weird, but actually it's really just mixing salty and sweet, which is actually a common combination that we all know and love! We learned something very interesting making this though. We've made it twice so far. The first time it was amazing and the second time it was only so-so. Do you know what made the difference? The soy sauce! We used a special soy sauce the first time and a grocery store soy sauce the second time and there was no comparison.

This is the great soy sauce. But we do have a slight problem. We don't remember where we bought this from and we don't know how to order more because there isn't any English on the bottle! We're going to need to find someone who speaks Japanese to help us out!!

I love the way that this dish looks very authentically Japanese. And I put this in the breakfast section of my post because it's eggs, but actually we ate this for brunch or lunch. It's honestly a dish that would be good for any meal.

My big-little sister's favorite breakfast so far this fall has been Pancake Spaghetti! To make this dish, you just make whatever your favorite pancake batter is and then load it into a squeeze bottle. We used this Perfect Buttermilk Pancakes recipe, which we liked a lot.

You put the batter on the griddle or in a pan in swirls.

Then you use tongs to flip it as best you can, but it doesn't have to be perfect.

Finally you load your "spaghetti" into a bowl, and pour on some maple syrup "sauce"! This was awesome!!

We've had some great dinners this fall, but one of our greatest hits was Mushroom Marsala Pasta Bake. I cannot say enough good things about this. It was beyond good. We just doubled the recipe, cooked it in a 9x13 baking dish, and added some salt and pepper. You just need to make it now!

I love how the top noodles get crispy in baked pasta dishes. My brother and big-little sister and I call those noodles "cheepy cheesy," which doesn't even make sense, but it's something that my brother and I made up when we were little and it stuck!

We used chopped parsley as a garnish when we served this to add some color.

Another good pasta dish that we made was One-Pot Clam Spaghetti. This was a big hit. I wish that there were more clams, but the nice thing about cooking versus baking, is that it's easier to modify recipes to suit your tastes. So the next time we make this, I'm going to add more clams. This dish also uses red pepper flakes and so you can adjust that according to your preferred spice level. That can be a little tricky in families though! My brother and I like spicy food, but my mom usually reduces the red pepper flakes for my big-little and little-little sisters. It's easier for my brother and me to add heat than for my sisters to take it away!

You could also add some fresh vegetables to this. I think I might like corn or asparagus.

We eat a lot of pescatarian meals because we all like fish and seafood and red meat isn't good for your body, but I've asked my mom to start cooking more vegetarian dinners too because it's better for the environment. A very good vegetarian dinner that we had was Chickpeas and Kale in Spicy Pomodoro Sauce. This dish had lots of flavor and the beans are hearty enough that nobody would miss the meat.

This dish is topped with grated pecorino and my big-little sister became obsessed with pecorino for a while after eating this!

Another vegetarian hit was Veggie Black Bean Enchiladas. We made our own Enchilada Sauce for this and it was easy to do and really good. My dad said that he might have liked some chicken in this (then it wouldn't be vegetarian Daddy!), but he loved the sauce.

To assemble this you just roll up tortillas with filling and top with the sauce and cheese.

The filling had broccoli and peppers and onions and my little-little sister loved just eating it plain.

These were delicious all toasted and cheesy!

One of my recent favorites was Kale, Black Bean and Avocado Burrito Bowls. I eat dinner late three nights a week because of when my dance classes are, and this was one of the best dinners to come home to. One thing that I think is good about recipes for bowls is that different people can put in more or less of what they like or don't like. So for example, mu mom left the raw tomatoes off of this for my big-little sister's bowl. This recipe has a kale salad, spiced beans, and an avocado salsa verde

But I thought this looked so colorful and pretty once the kale and salsa and tomatoes were added.

Probably the most popular dinner that we had this fall was Coconut Curry Salmon with Garlic Butter. We used Arctic char instead of salmon because it's milder and my dad likes it more. My brother loved how the fish pretty much melted in his mouth. There is coconut milk in this dish that makes it rich and delicious. We added red pepper and that added great color and sweetness.

This definitely doesn't photograph well, but you should still make it immediately!

After our Arctic char curry success, we tried Shrimp in Yellow Curry next. I liked the first curry more, but this one was good too. We added broccoli to this and that was good, but it didn't go well with mint. So if I made it again, I'd probably keep the broccoli but skip the mint.

A nice thing about this dish is that it would be easy to change the protein or vegetables to different combinations.

A more controversial dinner was Sticky Pomegranate Salmon with Brussels & Broccoli. My mom and I loved it. Although I liked it more fresh than as leftovers. My sister didn't love the sauce. And my dad liked the fish and sauce but thought that it didn't go with the Brussels sprouts and broccoli.

This definitely looks like a festive fall dish! It might be nice to serve the night before Thanksgiving or for a dinner party around Christmas.

Tuscan Chicken and Mushroom Skillet was a really popular dinner at our house. We doubled the recipe and used boneless skinless chicken breasts and one can of cannellini beans and one can of chickpeas. We made it in a Le Creuset dutch oven to hold everything. Everyone loved this, especially my big-little sister. Writing this blog post reminds me that we need to make this again! We thought that this recipe would also be great made with fish or even just the bean mixture alone.

This dinner didn't photograph very well, but it tastes delicious!

I like fall cooking because it's usually homey and savory, but I LOVE fall baking because it usually has pumpkin or apple or fall spices and makes our house smell so good. We tried a new Buttermilk Spice Cake that was a great kick-off to our fall baking. This cake was very moist and light. We used my Grandma Linda's cream cheese frosting with it which we like because it isn't too sweet. Just let me know if you want the recipe and I'll send it to you!

This is a great fall afternoon or tea time snacking cake!

A cookie that had classic fall flavors was Pumpkin Snickerdoodles. I know that a lot of people disagree with me, but I love white chocolate (as long as it's Lindt or another high quality brand) and thought that it was a great addition to these cookies.

The would be a nice addition to a holiday cookie platter.

One of my favorite fall cookies that we made this year was Pumpkin Cheesecake Cookies. To make these, you mix the cream cheese filling first and freeze little scoops of it. Then you make your cookie dough and wrap it around the frozen filling scoops. An important step to this recipe is squeezing all the liquid out of the canned pumpkin, otherwise these cookies will turn out too cakey.

I think it's special to give people cookies with a filling because it's like a fun surprise!

We've had mixed luck baking with pretzels. Sometimes the pretzels don't stay crunchy or add much flavor. But we made Peanut Butter Pretzel Cookies and these turned out well. In case you haven't noticed, we're big peanut butter people!

This cookie was my favorite because the pretzel on top got broken into a perfect H!!!!

Even though lemons are available and good year-round, because of how produce is grown and shipped now, they're really a winter fruit and they're larger and more sour in flavor when they're in season November through April. We made Frosted Lemon Sugar Cookies and they were great. We made two similar recipes with sugar cookies and lemon frosting. This one was a complete recipe designed to go together and the buttercream is extremely lemony, which my mom and I preferred.

These cookies are very pretty, but the frosting on top makes them better to serve on a plate than to try to box for a gift.

We also made Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies and they were good, but kind of boring. So since we had recently enjoyed the lemon sugar cookies, we decided to turn these into sandwich cookies with a frosting from a different Lemon Sugar Cookies recipe. This lemon buttercream was very different, much less lemony and more buttercream-y. Holland and Rachel liked this version more, which I can understand, because it was definitely less intense.

The sandwich cookie version worked much better to box up for people

A surprise hit turned out to be Oatmeal Fudge Bars. We made these mostly because we thought they'd be quick and easy, but they turned out to be awesome!! We brought them for my brother's flag football team after a game and they were very popular.

These bars are also good to give as gifts or for entertaining because they cut very nicely.

It sounds crazy, but we're already starting to think about what we're going to bake for holiday gifts. We audition recipes in the fall. We try to pick recipes that my brother and big-little sister and I can mostly make ourselves, because we want our gifts for our teachers and babysitters and coaches to really be from us! This year, our first audition was Salted Chocolate and Caramel Pretzel Bars. These were delicious, but they definitely do not make the cut for holiday gifts! First of all, this recipe should be called Salted Chocolate and Caramel Pretzel Bark. It definitely doesn't make bars. And then the other problem is that they're very sticky and so I think they'd be too messy to make a nice gift. We'd make this again, just to serve at home, but the recipe needs some tweaking. There wasn't enough chocolate to do a base for eight ounces of pretzels. You'd probably need to do 12 ounces of chocolate for the base and then an additional four ounces of chocolate for the topping. This is a recipe that kids can make mostly alone though, if the caramel was made in advance. Or you could start with packaged caramels. The recipe suggests Kraft, but McCreas caramels are much better, if you don't want to make your own, and come in lots of different flavors, which could be interesting.

It's too bad that this is so sticky, because it would have looked very pretty bagged as gifts for the holidays.

We made a recipe recently that is one of the recipes that my mom has been baking the longest!!! It is a Turtle Brownies recipe and it is still one of our very favorites!!!! It has a fudge brownie base, and then that gets covered in a caramel pecan topping, and chocolate is drizzled on top. These are absolutely FANTASTIC!!! They're one of the best recipes we make.

I'm drizzling on the chocolate topping here. These brownies taste as good as they look.

A fall tradition is baking a coconut treat for Grazzy's birthday because coconut is her favorite!! This year we did Coconut Bundt Cake with White Chocolate-Coconut Glaze. This cake is absolutely amazing. There aren't enough words to explain how good it is, but I'll just say that if you like coconut, you should make this immediately!!!!!

There was not a single crumb of this cake or drop of this glaze left over!

You may have already guessed that we went to France this fall and our trip was tres spectaculaire!!!! One of my favorite things that we did was take a baking class with a pastry chef. We made Chocolate and Caramel Macarons. These are a bit of a project, but I can send the recipe to anyone who is interested!

We piped meringue for the macaron shells. Getting the perfect sized circle was a lot harder than it looks!

We filled them with caramel and rolled the edges in caramelized cocoa nibs.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about some of our fall projects. We have a follow-up post coming up SOON so stay tuned!!!!