I made these one morning when I had some extra time before work:

Obviously, these are much better fresh. They are very slightly curry flavoured, but I bet they’d be good if you did sweet seasonings (a little sugar, cinnamon, etc.) as a dessert fritter with some ice cream or something.

Sometimes though, the sweet pumpkin stuff can be a little overwhelming, which is why I always make a curry soup with my pumpkin.

I follow this recipe exactly, and every time it’s delicious. DOUBLE PUMPKIN CURRY POWER in this meal right here.

I made A LOT of dessert last weekend. I started out wanting to make mini pumpkin cheesecakes, so I took some Biscoff (the same cookies you get on Delta flights) and graham crackers and butter and made some crusts in the bottom of 12 cupcake liners. When I made my cheesecake filling, I was too lazy to open a new package of cream cheese, so I just used the half-package and adjusted.

Here’s where things went a little wonky.

Turns out that only makes enough filling for 8 cheese-cup-cakes (though I should have made 6, really, they should have been filled all the way to the top.) which left me with 4 crusts with no filling. At this point, I decided the best course of action was to make an apple pie. I could just put some of the apple filling in the remaining cups, and since I was using a crumb topping and not a pie crust topping, I’d put that on the little pies too! It would work perfectly!

Except, of course, that the filling I had was barely enough for the pie I was making since the only pie pan I have is DEEP. I managed to eke out two minipies, but there were still two crumb crusts left. Well crap. I just chopped up some apples, mixed them with brown sugar, flour, and craisins and said to hell with it.

I am pleased to announce that not only was my pie the best fucking apple pie EVER…

All three of my mini desserts turned out pretty good as well. So good, even when I dropped a bunch of them they all held their shape!

The pumpkin cheesecakes were a real accomplishment for me though. I don’t bake very often, I’m more of a “make dinner” person than I am a “make dessert” person, so I’d never made cheesecake before. And I was convinced I was doing it completely wrong because they took SO LONG to finish baking, almost triple the time for every recipe I checked.

They are for reals delicious. Better than plain cheesecake. It’s going on my “make every fall” list.

Every fall, I go to an orchard to pick a buttload of apples and pumpkins. I start looking forward to doing this around July, like an antsy kid waiting for Halloween. It was unreasonably warm when we went picking, so it felt a bit strange and un-autumnlike. However, I get to see some of my favourite kids around and spend the morning wandering through the orchard and acting nonsense on a playground.

The bright sunny day made for better pictures than it would have if it was overcast, and since the leaves were changing already, despite the temperature (something in the 80s!) the whole place felt warm and happy.

I got a big bag (maybe a little less than 1/2 bushel) each of Haralsons, Honey Golds, and Honey Crisps. I’ve been eating all of them pretty much every day, but there has been one FANTASTIC pie made so far, and I may try to find a way to make and freeze another pie.

I got two pumpkins too, but the pumpkin patches weren’t as photogenic as the orchards. I had a difficult time finding two pumpkins suitable for my purposes, but I did manage at the end. Many many pumpkin things await!

So, here’s an idea so brilliant that I can’t believe I haven’t seen someone else do it before:  Chocolate Chip Pretzel Cookies!

I saw the idea on Macheesmo, which is one of my new favourite cooking/recipe sites, and said duh, of course. I didn’t use his cookie recipe, intruiging as it is, because I don’t usually have cake flour. I instead used this one and just smooshed broken up pretzel into the top of the dough before baking them. To be honest, they were freaking delicious.

Coming up this week: A run in the park, a lot of pumpkin things, and apple picking!

So, when I have too much time in the morning, I usually do some cooking.  This morning, it was egg pancakes/crepes/french omelets!

Ingredients (*these are optional and customizable, duh):

Egg Pancake Batter (I really like food52.com’s recipe)
Butter
*Ham (deli meat for me)
*Cheese (I used Gruyere this time)
*Diet Mountain Dew (for powering up)

Instructions:
1. Pour some batter into a smallish frying pan and swirl it around just a little. Don’t use too much batter or you’ll make a regular pancake instead.

2. When it starts to look solid on top (kind of like rubber or plastic) flip that bad boy over. I do this by wildly flailing around until it flips. If you’re a coward, you could use two pans. DO NOT, under any circumstances, try to grab it with tongs or a fork or something, or it will fall apart and you’ll have to eat it in pieces, salted with your own tears.

3. Let that side cook for a minute or so, and add your fillings. Don’t use too much!

4. Fold it up. The easiest way to do this, I think, is to fold one third over the toppings, then roll the whole thing over the last third, so the overlap is in the bottom of the pan.

I gave one to my husband as a snack, and packed the other two into my bento for lunch today. YAY!

Normal Person 1 wakes up and looks at the alarm clock.  It is 45 minutes before she needs to get up.

-”Hmm I don’t have to wake up for 45 minutes, I think I’ll go back to bed.” *falls asleep*

Normal person 2 wakes up and looks at the alarm clock.  It is 45 minutes before she needs to get up.

-”Hmm I don’t have to wake up for 45 minutes, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep again, so I’m going to make some coffee and screw around on the internet” *shuffles to computer*

Daintycakes wakes up and looks at the alarm clock.  It is 45 minutes before she needs to get up.

-”Hmm I don’t have to wake up for 45 minutes.  Might as well go and roast some tomatoes and corn.”

I even took a clock photo to document the stupid.

However, they did turn out delicious.