Pumpkins!

For me pumpkins represent the autumn.  They are the changing of leaves, gentle breezes and lots of color.  For my kitchen they mean, carved pumpkins, and cooked so they are ready to be made into so many wonderful things.

 

I like to use as many parts of things as possible.  For my Christmas tree last year that meant leaving it up for 2 months so we could breathe in the wonderful scents of fresh pine tree.  The needles were still not willing to fall off when we finally decided that we couldn't leave the tree up any longer.  At that point, it went outside to be chopped up for firewood and branches for me to use to deter weeds as well as to help my blueberry bushes grow successfully.

When it comes to pumpkins, that means the meat of the pumpkin will be roasted or boiled, but the insides will be used to roast pumpkin seeds.  They are so easy too to make delicious!  Just sprinkle with salt or whatever special seasoning you would like and baked until they smell wonderful!  Yum!

Potato Pancakes

Potato Pancakes always remind me of my grandpa who was the person in our family that always made them for us.  He would cook them up and serve them with butter.  They were so delicious!  I don't remember him putting the recipe together, just the sizzling of the pan and the lovely scent which would fill the air.

After having a guest over yesterday, I wasn't feeling more sweet food for breakfast.  I love breakfast and don't like to just have toast or cereal when I have time to cook.  After thinking about what we ate yesterday for breakfast, I decided potato pancakes would be just the thing.  After a quick preparation of the "batter" which is simply potatoes, eggs, salt pepper and onion, they were ready for cooking.  I am always careful to have the perfect balance of crispy as I love the crunch and enough cooking time for the potatoes to be fully cooked otherwise the eating experience would be ruined.  After cooking each for a few minutes and a hot oven waiting so we could eat together, the pancakes were ready and the aromatics from them were filling the kitchen with tasty smells which could not wait to be eaten.  Not long after, the stacks had been decimated and our belly's full.  Another successful breakfast story.

Sugar cookie rollouts - Halloween Style

As I mentioned, I like cookies and will eat cookies before eating any cake.  I tend to go a little overboard on my sugar cookie rollouts though as I dislike rolling out the dough, but I over compensate for the time I spend decorating the cookies.  I have a hard time deciding which cookie is the worst one left, so that I can eat each little masterpiece without guilt for having destroyed all my hard work.  These of course are the Halloween version.  They don't take long...a few minutes to create the dough, time to chill the dough, a few more minutes to roll them out and bake them.  For me the time consuming part is always decorating them.  I really need to find a quicker way to make them look presentable.  Until then, decorating them is the only reason I make them.

Cake

As much as I love chocolate, I love cookies more.  However, I have come to love buttermilk and making a buttermilk chocolate cake just can't get any better.  Especially when it comes to baking at a high altitude this buttermilk chocolate cake is the best.  It is moist, rises well, and while it is chocolaty, it is not overwhelming at all.  Of course, I embellished the chocolate in this cake with a layer of hot fudge and chocolate mouse and then covered the whole thing in a lovely shiny chocolate glaze.  All eaters were pleased with the end result of a quadruple chocolate cake that wouldn't overwhelm you at all.