Favorite Fall Recipes

I love Fall, even in Portland where Fall means lots of rain. I think it's because I love to bake, not to mention sip yummy hot drinks while watching movies all snuggled up on the couch. It also might be because October is my birthday month (yes, I celebrate all month). If you agree, here are some of my favorite Fall recipes (they are good all year long, but once the rain starts I just can't stop making this stuff!).

Yeast Dinner Rolls. Great for big get together meals, I love making my house smell like fresh baked bread.

Hot Chocolate. This is the most chocolatey smooth hot chocolate ever!

Mac n' Cheese. Ooey gooey delicious cheese and pasta. I love this on it's own or served on the side of just about anything.

Chai Latte Concentrate. Super yummy and making it at home lets you control the spices and flavorings.

Mocha Roasted Almonds. These make the house smell great and are an easy snack to make.

The Ridiculous Grilled Cheese. I like about any grilled cheese, but this one is my favorite.

What are your favorite Fall recipes? I'd love to check them out!

DIY Boutonnieres

As many of you know, my sister's wedding is fast approaching and I am making all of the flowers out of paper. Today I will be sharing with you some ideas for making your own boutonnieres. These come in handy not only if you have an upcoming wedding, but also any formal dance or prom. Above you can see a variation I did in Sister's wedding colors, with some eucalyptus leaves and guinea hen feathers.

A traditional boutonniere is simply a single flower on a long stem (it is inserted into a special button hole on a men's suit lapel). As such, you will start with a single bloom on a stem, since my flowers are paper my stem is wire covered in floral tape. Make sure to leave yourself at least 3 inches of stem to work with, it may always be trimmed later.

Next you will want to decide if you are adding extra foliage or decorative "flair" to your boutonniere. You can get really creative with this: if you are doing a beach wedding, why not add some seashells or sand dollars? You could add tinsel or holly for a Christmas wedding. Simply attach any extras to some wire (you can tie the wire around the object or use glue) and then position it however you like!

Position your foliage, I used a decorative Autumn leaf, and cut a piece of floral tape to attach to your flower stem.

Make sure to wrap your floral tape snugly to prevent your boutonniere from moving or falling apart. I typically wrap each item on individually and then wrap the entire stem again once I am satisfied with the final product.

If working from the back, make sure to turn your piece over and make sure everything is lined up correctly. Make any adjustments before wrapping your stem with floral tape a final time. If you want, on your final wrapping of floral tape you can add in a pin back or alligator clip to fasten the boutonniere to a suit without the use of a long straight pin later. The final product may also be wrapped with ribbon if you don't like the look of floral tape

Which style is your favorite?

Dollar Store Harvest Centerpiece

If my Caramel Apple Dip wasn't enough to get you in the Fall spirit, here is a cheap and easy centerpiece that may help you out. All of the materials for this centerpiece were purchased at my local Dollar Tree store, so the grand total for this centerpiece was $6 (and I had a bunch of leftover leaves and flowers for another project coming this week).

I love the smell of vanilla in my home, it brings to mind holiday baking. So I started my centerpiece by finding this candle and a holder.

Next up: how to make it more festive? I could easily have gotten out my enamel paints and just painted the holder, but what fun is that? I found a great willow wreath, and bunches of fake flowers and glittery leaves!

To make this project, it is helpful to have a wire cutters, as the fake flowers come on wire stems (which is great for bending them into place on your wreath!). Just cut your stems a few inches below your flowers so you have some wire stem to work with, and start weaving it into your wreath. Bend the ends to secure them, or use glue if you prefer. You could also get a foam wreath and really fill it up with flowers, but since I found a great natural willow wreath, I wanted you to be able to see the wood in my end project.

I arranged my leaves with a red flower in the center of each bundle, this covers up the bare stem of the leaves with bright flower petals.

After spacing out three bunches of leaves with daisies, I added in a couple sprigs of yellow pom pom type flowers. All that is left is to add in your candle in the center. Having a candle holder is important here so you don't risk setting your centerpiece on fire (though my Dollar Store also had some flameless candles in stock, if you went that route you could save the extra dollar for the handle holder and just use a flameless candle).

What do you think?

Caramel Apple Dip

I am so excited that Fall is well on it's way! I am not a fan of hot hot weather and I just burn to a crisp in the sun no matter how much sunblock I slather on. What better way to celebrate weather's return to Fall than with a yummy Caramel Apple fruit dip?

This recipe is so easy and when you dip apples in it, it really does taste like a caramel apple (without the hassle of trying to eat a whole apple off a stick without getting sticky sweet caramel all over yourself--not that that has ever happened to me).

To make this yummy fruit dip you will need:

1 8oz. package of cream cheese, softened (I used 1/3 reduced fat cream cheese)
1/2 cup of your favorite caramel sauce, room temp

Whip the cream cheese and caramel sauce together in a bowl with a hand mixer (you can use a stand mixer if you want, but I find you have to scrape the bottom far too many times and still hand mix some unless you use a hand mixer).

Serve with sliced apples, or any other fruit you have on hand. I am also a huge fan of this dip with sliced pears! Store in the refrigerator in a sealed container (if you happen to have some leftovers). One of my favorite parts about this dip is that it is still creamy and usable right out of the fridge, while a regular caramel sauce hardens and needs to be heated. Gotta love the magical powers of cream cheese!

Friday Food Craft: Phenomenal Pie Crust

It's Friday again already, and I am back with another yummy food craft! I'm still on a kick for the cold weather comfort recipes (it was extra cold and rainy again here last night) so I thought I would share with you my husband's recipe for a super flaky pie crust that can be used with both sweet and savory pies! That's right you can use it to cover pot pies and turn around to use the scraps for apple turnovers for dessert! It's also pretty easy!

You will need:

2 cups flour
1 large pinch of salt
1 1/3 cups cold unsalted butter, cut into about Tablespoon size pieces
about 2/3 cups water (we usually need slightly less than 2/3 cup before the dough comes together)

food processor


In your food processor, pulse together your flour salt and butter until you have pretty uniform "pebbles" of butter, about pea sized. Then, add your water at a slow drizzle while the processor is on a low speed, stop once your dough has just come together away from the sides of your food processor.

Form into a disc and refrigerate for 30 minutes before rolling out, you will still have fairly large chunks of butter mixed throughout. This is a GREAT thing as it will result in yummy, flaky layers almost like puff pastry. YUM!

After 30 minutes remove from refrigerator and place onto a floured surface to roll. You will want to roll it to 1/8"-1/4 " thick. Then use it for the application of your choice: top your favorite stew or casserole for a yummy pot pie, cut up some fruit and make a fruit pie (I generally go for apples mmmmm), make some turnovers, put some lemon curd between two layers for lemony pop tart treats, cut circle from your dough-add filling and fold to make little hand pies!- the possibilities are limitless.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes (for a whole pie) until the crust is golden brown. For smaller applications I would check after about 30 minutes to see if it is done.


*To make the apple turnovers I have pictured above I used about 1/3 of the above dough recipe (leftovers from dinner) along with 2 apples, some cinnamon, a tablespoon of sugar and an extra dot of butter each (I would also recommend using a fork to close your turnovers as I did not so mine came apart a bit, I was in a hurry for flaky apple goodness!).