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!

Mocha Roasted Almonds

It's rainy and chilly here today in Portland and I'm loving it! I decided a yummy smelling snack needed to be made in my oven today and these Mocha flavored Roasted Almonds fit the bill! They only take a few ingredients and about 40 minutes of your time (they also make a great Holiday gift. You know, if you're thinking about that already.).

To make you own Mocha Roasted Almonds you will need:

2 1/2 cups Raw Almonds
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
1 egg white

Preheat your oven to 325 (F). In a small bowl (3 cups or more by volume) beat your egg white until it is just frothy and beginning to lighten. Add in your almonds and mix them around until evenly coated with egg white.

In a zip sealed bag, mix together your sugar, cocoa and espresso powder. Shake until evenly combined. Add in your egg white coated almonds and shake to coat. Pour onto a sheet pan lined with parchment or a silpat mat.

Bake in oven for 30 minutes at 325 degrees, stirring every 10 minutes or so (this will clump together a bit if not stirred often- you can break it apart after it has cooled if necessary). Make sure you line your pan, as the mixture will stick to the pan if you do not (melting sugar just does that, you know).

Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before packaging. Eat these as a snack on their own, or put them on ice cream, cupcakes, etc. as a delicious topping!

If giving this as gifts, an easy way to package this is to put it into clear bags and stick that into one of these little boxes as shown below. You can find them at most craft and hobby stores (paper mache boxes would also work well.). Just tie it with a piece of colored ribbon and you have an easy yet cute treat box that is reusable!

Have you made any extra yummy snacks lately?


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Edible Glitter

With lots of holidays coming up, I decided maybe I would try out making some edible glitter. This would work well for decorating cupcakes or cookies, rimming cocktail glasses, or even use some as face or body glitter on Halloween (it will sure wash off easier than regular glitter!).

To make your own edible glitter at home you will need:

1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon fluid food coloring of your choice
baking sheet
parchment paper(optional but recommended)

Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees and measuring out your sugar and adding in your food coloring. You can use more or less food coloring than this recipe calls for depending on how vibrant and deep you want your colors to be. I chose yellow food coloring, but added enough that my final product really looks more golden orange. I highly recommend liquid food coloring for this as it mixes in much easier and gives a nice even coating without too much stirring and mess. It also doesn't have all the additives that many gel or powdered coloring do. Mix your sugar and coloring together well.

Once you have mixed your sugar and food coloring together, dump it onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. The parchment paper helps keep your sugar from sticking to the baking sheet and will be really helpful when it comes time to put the final glitter into a container (just lift, fold and pour!).

Spread out the sugar as evenly as you can before baking. As you can see in the photo above, it is pretty clumpy and not that easy to spread out, just do the best you can.

I put my sugar in the oven for about 1 minute, then opened it up to give the sugar a little stir. If you don't mix this often you will get lots of huge clumps, or some of the sugar can melt together into a puddle of deliciousness (though not glitter, so keep an eye on this). I turned my oven off after about 3 minutes, as there is plenty of residual heat to finish drying out your glitter. My total "bake time" was about 10 minutes, I stirred the sugar around about every minute or so.

Allow your sugar to cool completely before putting it into a container (I used a small mason jar). While my sugar was cooling, I used the back of a spoon to crush it back up into smaller pieces against the baking tray (a poor man's mortar and pestle if you will). This definitely looks a lot more like glitter in smaller crystals, it's so shiny!

Use a small spoon to sprinkle this over cupcakes or frosted cookies for a little extra shimmer. I also recommend using honey or agave nectar around the rim of a glass and dipping to make festive cocktail rims for a party. If you want to use this as glitter face paint, use a clean paintbrush to apply a design to your cheek, etc. with light corn syrup and then sprinkle the edible glitter on top! Technically, this is more like the brightly colored sugar sprinkles you can get at the store. If metallic glitters are more your style try this recipe I found on Pinterest.

Are you looking forward to Fall and Holiday party season or are you still clinging to the last days of Summer?


This post is featured on the Made From Pinterest Saturday Link Party.

Soy Ginger Pulled Pork

This recipe is a favorite at our house, my husband likes to play around with flavors when making pulled pork (we're not really into barbecue sauce). We usually serve it over rice, but it is great in lettuce wraps (cold or warm), sandwiches or just on its own as well.

To make this Soy Ginger Pulled Pork at home you will need:

a small pork roast or pork shoulder (about 3 pounds)
1 large onion
1/2 cup fresh ginger, sliced
1/4 cup Soy Sauce (I use low sodium)
heaping 1/4 cup of brown sugar (packed)
1 Tablespoon molasses
2-3 cups water
salt and pepper to taste (we generally use about 1 teaspoon of each)

cast iron dutch oven
corn starch to thicken sauce (optional)

Start by cutting your pork shoulder into 4 or 5 pieces (try to keep them all about the same size). You can trim off a bit of the fat if you want, but it is not necessary as the slow cooking will break most of it down. Place the meat in the bottom of your dutch oven. Add water to your dutch oven so it comes about halfway up the sides of your pork (about 2-3 cups).

Next, slice up your onion. I start by cutting my onion in half, then I remove the outer skin. Slice your onions fairly thin, they will end up cooking down to a point you barely notice them (they just give really good flavor to the meat). I'm not really a huge onion fan, and the first time my husband made this I didn't even realize it had onions in it! If you love onions, feel free to slice them thicker or add some halfway through the cooking process so they don't break down as much.

Then, assemble your additional flavorings. As you can see in the photo above, we slice up our ginger in fairly large slices, and leave the skin on. We take the ginger out before shredding the pork to serve. To make this easier you can tie up your ginger in some cheesecloth before tossing it in to cook. It really adds a fabulous flavor to the pork. If you prefer, you could get away with using less ginger overall by peeling a smaller piece and grating it with a microplane into your pork, the smaller you grate it the more intense the flavor so you can cut back on volume by quite a bit. If fresh ginger isn't something you have on hand, you can substitute about a teaspoon of dried ground ginger in a pinch (but really, try the fresh stuff at least once--it's awesome!).

Toss all remaining ingredients into the pot and turn it on to medium high heat. Once it starts to bubble, reduce the heat to low and give everything a little stir. Cover and cook for about 2.5 hours. You will want to check every 30 minutes or so to give the pot a stir and make sure there is still some liquid in the pan, if not you can add more water to keep the meat braising. The meat will be fully cooked after only about the first 30 minutes, but it needs the extra time for the fats to break down and the flavors to develop. This is seriously tender tasty pork! Once done, if you think there is too much water left in your pan, you can add some corn starch (a little bit at a time--maybe 1/4 teaspoon or so) and stir until the sauce thickens up. Shred the pork with a fork and serve over rice, noodles or as a sandwich! Enjoy!

Brown Sugar Molded Chocolate Sharks

I recently saw this post over on the Rise & Shine blog on how to make chocolate molds using brown sugar. I thought it would be fun to try out some chocolate sharks for Shark Week! This is a great way to try out molding your own chocolates because it's really inexpensive (you don't need to buy any molds, only brown sugar!).

To try this at home you will need:

Brown sugar (I used light brown sugar)
a container to hold your sugar
3-D objects to make your mold with (I used plastic sharks)
chocolate (if you want something more colorful, you could test out some colored candy melts)
a microwave safe container to melt your chocolate in

Start by packing your brown sugar evenly into a clean container. Then firmly press your 3-D objects into the sugar, about half way up the object, to create your mold.

Next, chop up your chocolate and put it in your microwave safe dish. Microwave the chocolate at 20 second intervals, stirring between each interval, until the chocolate is melted and smooth (for me this took about 1 minute for a 1/2 cup of chopped chocolate). Once your chocolate is melted, carefully pour it into your mold. I tapped mine on the counter to get rid of air bubbles and make sure the chocolate got down into the "fin" areas of my mold. If you have little helpers, you may want to get small squeeze bottles they can use to get the chocolate into the molds without too much mess.

I was unfortunate in the weather, as it was quite hot the day I did my chocolate molds (room temp was about 90 degrees, ick). As a result, I put my poured chocolates into the freezer to set up and this caused extra brown sugar to stick to the chocolate when I took them out of the mold. If you do this in cooler weather, the chocolate should harden back up on the counter just fine and remove much more cleanly. Either way, this is definitely a fun little craft, I'm thinking about using those alphabet shaped magnets to make some letters for a birthday cake sometime!

Blueberry Zucchini Bread

It's that time of year. You know, the time when if you have a garden yourself, you probably never want to see another zucchini again. Or, if you are lucky, like me, the time when a coworker keeps bringing in zucchini because THEY never want to see any again. Enter blueberry zucchini bread! It's moist and delicious and uses a cup of shredded zucchini per loaf! This bread also freezes well, so feel free to stock up on the spoils of summer and enjoy this year round.

To make my version of Blueberry Zucchini Bread you will need:

2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup oil (if you are watching the fat and calories you can substitute 1 cup of applesauce)
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
2 Tablespoons cinnamon
2 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2.5 cups all purpose flour
1.5 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 2 bread pans by greasing them and giving them a light coating of flour.

Ina large bowl, mix together all of your wet ingredients, including your zucchini. In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (I usually set aside a tablespoon of flour to toss with the blueberries before I add them at the end, it help to keep them all from sinking to the bottom of the bread).

Add your dry ingredients to the wet bowl and gently stir until a batter forms. Add your blueberries and stir until evenly distributed. Pour the batter into your prepared bread pans (batter will come about half way up the pan).

Bake for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the loaves comes out clean. Set on a cooling rack for at least 15 minutes, then remove the bread from the pans and allow to cool completely before wrapping it up.

This recipe also makes great muffins, mine usually take 30 minutes or so to bake. If you like a muffin with an extra crispy top, just sprinkle the tops with a little bit of sugar, or cinnamon sugar before baking. Yum!

What's your favorite zucchini recipe?

The Ridiculous Grilled Cheese

Many of you may be aware, but for those of you who are not, April is Grilled Cheese month. In fact, today is actually National Grilled Cheese day, so take the hint and have an ooey gooey grilled cheese today! Maybe even this one. I have to say, I'm a huge fan of celebrating yummy foods that existed mainly in my childhood. This sandwich is not, however, that American cheese between white bread sandwich that many of us think of when we hear the term "grilled cheese". It happened a few weeks ago, whilst putting together a bit of this and that from the fridge that it came to be, and the husband and I dubbed it "The Ridiculous Grilled Cheese".


To make your own ridiculous sandwich you will need:

brie (if you've never had this cheese, really, go get some brie. It's worth it.)
fig butter (I get mine at Trader Joe's)
arugula
a baguette or some french bread, sliced as thick or thin as you like
mayo (you can use butter, but if you've never made a grilled cheese with mayo you don't know how crispy and golden brown that bread can really be!)

Start by slicing your bread, try to get each slice about the same thickness so it cooks evenly, but I can tell you, it's gonna be RIDICULOUS either way. Next, get some slices of brie, or if it's soft enough, just spread some onto your bread. Be pretty generous, this cheese is awesome and gooey.

Place brie onto one slice of your bread and spread some fig butter onto the other side. Slap some arugula between them and then spread your mayo or butter onto the outsides of both slices.

Place into a skillet that is already warm (I usually go medium to medium high heat on my stove top). Let side one cook for about 1-2 minutes (until that side is golden brown) then flip and cook the other side. Remove from skillet and serve warm. I like to slice mine into two pieces, it tricks me into thinking I have more sandwiches than I really do. I always want more sandwiches.

If you have trouble finding fig butter, apple butter would be a good substitute. Or you could add some apple or pear slices. Fruit and cheese are super yummy together. Go ahead, take a bite. Ridiculous.

Do you have a favorite fancy grilled cheese?

Sugar Skull Masks

I hope you are all enjoying Dia De Los Muertos. I was inspired by the holiday to take this gorgeous piece of scrap book paper and turn it into a paper sugar skull mask. It is super easy, all of the hard work of decorating was done by the paper for the most part, all I needed to add were facial features. Now, to add ribbons so it ties on, or to put it on a popsicle stick?

I used some old newspaper to make my skull shape template, it only took a couple tries to get a shape I was satisfied with. After that, just cut your shape out of the decorative paper of your choice and embellish with anything else you might like!


As many of you know, I was planning on having two giveaways on the blog in October. Sadly, I was not feeling well for a little over a week, so a lot of blog plans suffered along the way. To make up for it, I am adding a giveaway on to this post! It is extra special as you get to CHOOSE what prize you get! What am I giving away? Your choice of ONE of these 3 fabulous books:




Miette




Cakespy presents Sweet Treats for a Sugar Filled Life


OR



Modern Blocks




All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post stating which book you would prefer and why. Winner will be selected at random and announced on November 8th. All entries must be received by 9pm PST on November 7th. Good luck! This giveaway is sponsored by me, myself and I. Due to shipping costs, etc. this giveaway is open to U.S. residents only. One entry per person please.


This contest is now closed. Congratulations to Lynley! Please contact me at craftinomicon@gmail.com with a mailing address to claim your prize. Thank you all who participated.