October 2014 Favorite Things

I spent a wonderful weekend with some friends at the Graves Mountain Fall Festival.

We left early Saturday AM and made the 2 hour drive to Syria, VA.  It had rained the day before  and was a little rainy in the AM but was slowing down by the time we got there.

Must come every year

We roamed around and looked at all the items for sale.  It was all you could imagine from homemade soaps, leaf jewelry, spray paint art and of course food.  Clearly there were many apple themed options.  For lunch I had a cider with my meal.  Then it was off to find fun apple foods.  We were in the right place for sure.  We found apple butter donuts, deep fried apples, homemade applebutter.  It was glorious. 

Climb all the things

After we left there, we headed to a vineyard for some samples.  After that, we decided that ice cream was in order.  We stopped at the MooThru.  Ice cream made from local dairy?  Sign me up for that.  After an hour ride home we decided a trip to Cracker Barrel was up next. 

It was a glorious day, we had tons of fun and I for one slept like a baby that night.

September Favorite Things

Happy almost Fall!

I love when the air gets a bit crisp, I find it so refreshing. 

I wanted to share some of my favorite Fall recipes with you:

Squash:
There is the standard spaghetti squash - always a good option
There is traditional roasting - also a good option

-OR-

be fun and try something new with it! (please tell me something fun to do with it....seriously)  I'm on limited internet and can't waste time on Pinterest right now.


Pumpkin Puree:
Overplayed this time of year? Yes.  Still good?  Yes

This year I decided to make my own pumpkin bread at home.  I used my breadmaker and a basic recipe and then added pumpkin puree, cinnamon, nutmeg and a bit of honey.  I generally make up recipes as I go so no exact measuring expect for the basic bread part.  It turned out very nicely, maybe not as sweet as I was hoping for, but probably just as well.  I like it lightly toasted with real butter or cream cheese.

If you have dogs, don't forget to give them some pumpkin too!  They love it (mine love anything, really so.......).  I just mix in about 1/4 to 1/3 a cup into their dry food.  They go bonkers while I am mixing it up because they know they are about to get a special treat.


It's Soup Season!

lol

I made a baked potato soup: It was delish! 

Baked Potato Soup with Bacon (obvi)

Apples:

Some apples are only available certain times of year.  Take advantage.  Do you like apples the size of a small child's head?  You my friend are in luck!  Tis the season for Honeycrisp apples!  These are delicious and with some PB is basically a small meal.

Large Apple

Do you have any favorite fall foods?