Brand new to the archives:* a bunch of fall-themed recipes from years past, including an amazing sweet potato pie, my favorite cranberry sauce recipe (along with a muffin recipe for the leftovers), a silly spider cake, and more.
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This Saturday is family pumpkin carving day. I adore pumpkin carving day. Anything that makes me feel like I’m back in school, happily lost in creating my own little spin on the latest art project, is a-ok by me.
I can never bring myself to do just a plain o’lantern. I have to create a spider o’lantern or an alien or Barbara Manatee or a squatty little owl. And then I take way too much pride in lighting it and displaying it – just right – on the porch come trick or treating time.
I’m a dork. But hey, it’s the little things, right?
Another thing to love about pumpkin carving is the snacks we get out of it. The snacks we literally get out of it – right out of the pumpkin. Grab those seeds, season them just right, and roast them in the oven to get all perfectly crunchy and toasty brown while you’re working on your orange masterpiece.
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“Squash” is such an ugly word. Say it 10 times fast. Other than that being sort of an impossible task, it also helps you realize just how ugly the word is.
Which is kind of too bad, because squash itself – as in butternut, pumpkin, spaghetti, delicata – is pretty awesome. Actually, I suppose squashes are sort of lumpy and bumpy and often goblin-colored, but as a foodstuff? Come hither.
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I know how fortunate I am to be able to stay at home with my baby for her first year. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But the whole “stay at home mom” thing is a bit of a misnomer, as I pretty much can’t handle staying at home for more than a day.
Maybe it was because I was holed up for months on end during a tough pregnancy, then housebound shortly after she came along as I nursed my broken ankle (stairs, hyped-up dogs, yeah, fun). It’s like I accumulated this debt of cabin fever over the past year-and-a-half, and I have to repay it by getting out of the house with Miss Thing pretty much every single day.
It’s good for me, and she loves it too. We go to music classes, parent-baby groups, library story times … and occasionally, now that she’s eating solids, we enjoy a little lady’s lunch together, just her and I.
It was during one such lunch that I discovered the made-for-each-other combination of chipotle peppers, butternut squash, and pepper jack cheese.
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Apples. Pears. Cinnamon sticks. Clove-studded oranges. Wine. Rum. It’s White Autumn Spice Sangria. Yes?
I’ll answer for you – and I hope that’s okay: YES. An enthusiastic yes. Imagine Meg Ryan in “When Harry Met Sally.” That sort of yes.
This sangria is seriously that good.
I’ve had delicious red sangria with hints of fall spices here and there (oh, so good), but never white. So I decided to give it a try, and man oh man, am I glad I did?
That would a be a “yes.”
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