Fall cooking/baking

 As I have mentioned, I love fall, and here's why

I love the colors and leaves on the ground, and it's a bit cool so makes walking/running nicer. There's not a lot of color with the leaves here but it's still pretty.

My friend and I also got together to do some cooking/baking and we were very tired by the end of the day, but we had so much fun! It started with cinnamon buns

They turned out amazing! They were so delicious! We shared one to try it out, and split the rest between the two of us. The guys also enjoyed them. Then we got busy with some turkey pot pies

We got a small turkey with no wings or legs, and put that along with some red wine, stock and herbs in her pressure cooker, and 15 minutes later it was ready! The stock was very flavorful so we of course used that for our gravy. We added in some onion, celery, carrots, mushrooms, peas and potatoes to our pies. The turkey was shredded with forks, and let that cook a while. We did have to add more stock, some milk, and more herbs/spices to help get more flavor. We added it to a single size serving containers and topped it with puff pastry. They turned out really good! We each got 7 of these single servings, so I kept two out and the rest I put in my freezer for another time. Both my hubby an I enjoyed some for supper a few days later along with some salad.

We were suppose to make apple strudels next, but we used more puff pastry than we thought we needed for the turkey pot pies. We didn't feel like going out to get more puff pastry so we did some research and found our next recipe to try out. We made some apple, butterscotch and oatmeal cookies

These turned out really good as well! It made a lot of cookies too! The following day I was going to my dad's for Thanksgiving supper, therefore I kept a few cookies for my hubby and I, and brought the rest to my dad's. They almost all disappeared, everyone loved them. My dad also had a mix of desserts which I couldn't resist on eating a brownie, which was delicious!

Thanksgiving supper was so good! It was so nice to spend it with family as well. I hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I love Fall!

Fall is my favorite time of year. I'm sad that summer is over and winter is coming but I love the slightly cool weather, and all the beautiful colors! I have been keeping busy in the kitchen again, and last weekend I needed to use up a lot of my jalapenos from my garden, so I made some jalapeno poppers, and they turned out really good!

The recipe I found called for 12 jalapenos but I had a lot more to use up, so I doubled the recipe and halved 24 jalapenos. I did use gloves and it took quite a bit of time to halve them, and de-seed them. Then in my mixer, I put two containers of room temperature cream cheese, added in a lot of fresh chives from my garden, like about 2 tbps of them, along with 2 tsp of garlic powder and 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese. Once mixed together, I filled each one and in a bowl I mixed in 2 tbsp of butter with 1/4 cup of panko bread crumbs, then I took each jalapeno and dunked it into the bread crumbs, the cheese mixture is sticky enough that they held it really well. I ended up running out of the bread crumbs so I made another batch which I had a bit too much, but got the rest done. I then individually wrapped each one in some plastic wrap, which I cut a piece and then cut that in half. Then got them into freezer bags and took the air out

You can bake these poppers at 400 for about 20 minutes, and even from straight out of the freezer. We had a friend over, so I sent him home with a few jalapeno poppers as well as a few muffins I made. The same day I decided to try these apple spiced muffins and they turned out really good!

I got the recipe from the Joyous Health cookbook, her newest one, and they are delicious! I love how healthy they are and they were great for breakfast along with a tea or latte. 

Two weeks ago, I ended up making some shepherd pies, which my friend was over, so she helped. One was vegetarian for me, and the other chicken for my hubby. The usual shepherd's pie is made with ground beef and corn but he's not a fan of corn so I like to make it with chicken. I get the chicken in bite size pieces and cook that up, then add in a chopped onion, carrot and mushrooms and once softened, I make a chicken gravy. I used the Epicure's herb gravy that they have, along with some chicken stock. So I put that as my base, and then top it with mashed sweet potatoes. For mine, I had gotten this vegetarian taco pack from them, it's pea protein and some spices, I used that for my base, again with some onion, mushrooms and carrots and I used the same herb gravy from Epicure with some vegetable stock. I might have also put celery but not sure if I did. Then topped with mashed sweet potatoes. In order to tell which one is which, I added a V with paprika to mine lol

He really enjoyed his, and I really liked mine as well. I will make this for sure again! I didn't make them too big so we didn't have too much leftover.

Now it's Thanksgiving weekend! So far today I have prepared a beef stew. It's smelling so good in here! The only other thing I need to make is to chop up some veggies, and make a dip to bring to my dad's on Monday for supper. Tomorrow however, my friend and I are doing a cooking/baking day and I can't wait!! The plan is to make chicken pot pies, just with a top crust. We also want to make apple strudels, and cinnamon buns. I think we may make a bread as well. It will be a busy but fun day!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!