Mini Pumpkin Tartlets-- Happy Fall, Y'All!

Hello, everybody!  I have a tasty recipe for Fall. I'm a fool for Fall. You know those people who love pumpkin spice everything? Yes? That's me. 

Sometimes I get out the spices and take a whiff of nutmeg or allspice just so I can pretend that cold weather is on the way! Not that I love cold weather, but it's just the season...

Crisp leaves. Frost in the morning. Dark clouds on the horizon. 

Fall is so.... dramatic. 

My writerly heart feels an affinity for the season that's not all sunshine and clear blue sky. 

The spices of fall. Nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. (In this house, we call them "too much cloves" because I can't ever get the measurement right. There's none at all, and then way too much. We just accept that cloves will be "too much" in every dish.)

But before I begin, I have to say this little doggy makes me laugh. He rolls himself up in his favorite blankie when his person leaves him at home. Goodness gracious. Some people have emotional support animals. Our animal has an emotional support person. 

So! Let us begin. Two cups of crushed Nilla wafers, plus 1/4 tsp cinnamon and a dash of "too much cloves".

 Add a few TBS of melted butter and press into a pan.

 Oops, missed a picture but take a can of pure pumpkin puree and add 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 tsp cloves, 1/8 tsp nutmeg, and a dash of ginger. Mix well, then add four large eggs to it will bake together. Most recipes have condensed milk, but I have a child who is lactose intolerant so we skip that part. It gives the pie a less custardy feel, which I like, too.

 Bake at 350F for 30 minutes or until done. I let the crusts brown too much but there you go. It's Friday and the 80th birthday of the publication of The Hobbit so we were watching the movie. I remember my dad reading me the series when I was younger than my youngest child, and now I've read the series to them. Bless you, J.R.R. Tolkien, and thank you for the gift of your stories!

 A latte with a dash of bittersweet chocolate is the perfect pairing...

 Happy Fall, everybody!!

 Leaving you with this fun picture I took of a sunflower in my kitchen. (See how the screen made little tiny squares on the leaves?) I hope you find something with pumpkin spice to enjoy, and a few cheerful flowers to brighten your day!

Blackberry Lemon Cheesecake

Hello everybody!  I love those facebook cooking videos. You know, those videos where you're looking at the food from a bird's eye perspective, or the cook's view? I LOVE THEM. I could watch them all day. everything looks so delicious!

 So I think I belong to more cooking groups than any other facebook group, and now I've passed my obsession with cooking on to my children. Behold... Meyer lemons just waiting for a delicious recipe.
Just a day after I bought a bag, I saw a recipe on facebook for blackberry lemon cheesecake. We knew we had to try it.

 The original recipe had a blackberry puree but we had blueberries, blackberries, and some strawberries left over from the summer.

Berry puree:
1 1/2 berries
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

Mix in a pan over medium heat, bring to a boil and crush gently. I strained mine because one of my kids wasn't thrilled with the idea of lots of seeds in her cheesecake.

 For the crust, the original called for 12 graham cracker sheets, 1/4 cup sugar, and 5 TBS butter. We upped the butter to 6TBS because it always seems dry, and added a dash of cinnamon.

Cheesecake:

2 packages of cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp lemon zest

1/2 cup sour cream

2 eggs

1/4 tsp lemon juice

So, the verdict? It was good. I don't think cheesecake can be NOT good. But it wasn't my favorite recipe. Maybe because I was yearning more for a pound cake than a cheesecake. Maybe because the lemon wasn't that strong. If I made it again, I'd up the zest to 2 tsp, or even 1 TBS. For the amount of cheesecake, it didn't seem very lemon-y.

                                                        
One more shot of those delightful lemons!

 

Jane Austen's Lemon Cake

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I was getting ready to post one of our favorite lemon cakes when I decided to check to see if I'd posted it before.... YEP. So, I'll just paste it here. It's a fun peek at two years ago, anyway! 

From 2014:

So, I have a fun little recipe to share, but first... I got my husband a Ninja Prep Master for Father's Day. That's not as weird as it sounds. Or maybe it is. But he got me a blender for my birthday when we were dating so I say turnabout is fair play!

 It was neat to hear all the recipes on Julie's Confessions of a Half-hearted Juicer and Jan's Trim Healthy Mama smoothie recipes. With all these excellent fruit/veggie ideas, I was primed to buy this as soon as I saw it in Walmart...

OK, they wouldn't sell it if it wasn't good, right?? At least, that was my theory.

 Looks a little weird. Sort of like chicken pot pie before the crust and without any chicken.

 Ahhhhh, okay. Looks like slimy mulch. But it's not slimy and it's like a green slushy. Husband declared it delicious. Score!

 I also bought this bag because it looked good. Definitely can't go wrong here.

 Mr. Ninja doesn't even blink at this kind of job. SUPER blender!

 And the result? I added some Greek yogurt and it looks a bit like chunky ice cream.

 Sooooo good. I made this in the 48 ounce pitcher and between all the kids, it was almost gone! This is a much better set up than the old blender.

 I don't like to sip anything cold unless I have a straw (hurt my teeth) so I decided to blend blueberries, two bananas and some yogurt. Ummmm... Looked and smelled good. VERY SLIMY. I think it was blending the bananas.

 So, I mixed a bit of the fruit slushy into mine and it was just right!
                                        
Now, just as we were being so healthy, something came in the mail. Someone (who just might be named TINA) knows that I have a soft spot for Miss Jane Austen.

She'd seen a book called 'So Jane' by Hollie Keith and thought I might want to try the Lemon Drizzle Cake. Well, of COURSE!
 I was up to my eyeballs in tasks that day, so my dear 12 year old decided to try her hand at making the cake.

Since she'd already made rhubarb pie and some other deliciousness, I thought it would be fine to let her try the Austen cake. And from then on, I knew nothing until it came out of the oven. I didn't even know she took pictures! Pretty soon, I'll just turn over the blog posts to her. You'll never even know I'm gone...

So, ingredients are thus:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup lemon juice
GLAZE
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice

 Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a loaf pan and set it aside. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl.

 Combine the butter and sugar, add the eggs one at a time, mixing well.

 Hm. This pictures gives me pause. But the finished product was good, so I won't worry about it now.

 Add dry ingredients alternately with lemon juice to the butter/egg/sugar mix.

 Mix until smooth.

 Aha, this must be the glaze.

 As we brought the cake out of the oven, we all exclaimed about how it looked so much like the art from one of our favorite fantasy series, Here There Be Dragons.

James Artemis Owen is an incredible human being, along with being a stellar artist and writer. When I ordered a set of his books, he'd signed and drawn in each one. My kids were thrilled to pieces!

By the way, James took our lemon cake comparison very graciously and didn't point out the fact that it looks hardly anything like his noble dragons. That's the kind of guy he is. :)

 After the cake had come out of the oven (around 50 minutes later) we let it cool for 15 minutes, then turned it out onto a plate. Then the drizzling happened. YUM. I decided to chop it into little pieces and put it under a cute cake dome I found at our local thrift store. I'm pretty sure these two pieces don't actually go together, but they looked pretty good with lemon cake inside.

 I do believe Jane would be pleased...

 These are the vintage milk glass that my friend Christalee sent me for my birthday. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

 Another reason I love milk glass... It glows in the light. Fabulous!
So, that's the tale of the Jane Austen lemon cake that arrived in my mailbox. It was perfectly delicious and lasted approximately 10 seconds.

 I have another project or two coming up and I'll post a few pictures here. I found this old coffee table for a few dollars at a yard sale. I really wanted a coffee table but HATE sharp edges. We always have had little babies around, and so for the longest time I didn't even have a coffee table since I couldn't find one with rounded edges. Ta-dah! But it's all banged up.

 

It's a light cream color and I really, really want to stencil some Jane Austen quotes in pale gray around the edges. I know, sounds weird. But I've seen something on Pinterest and it's calling to me! I'll let you know if it's a total fail... Here are some images of stenciled tables and I think they're just adorable!
  I also got this old dresser a few weeks ago and it's been raining too much to work on it. It's pretty beat up, but I have high hopes!

Projects, projects! And just a few more photos... the very best of all. 

 Emma, Mr. Knightley and Chili-Slaw Dogs is coming out in a few weeks and I got my author copies! Hooray!! Now I'm  busy throwing them at anyone who stands still long enough...

AND the uncorrected proofs of the last of the trilogy, Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Carcklin' Cornbread!  It will be out in November and it was such a thrill to hold this book in my hands.

Ok, so THAT, my friends, is life as we know it here at the Munoz household. I hope your summer is just as full of sweetness, projects, and excitement!

OK, back to 2016 and I have to say, as many times as we've made this lemon cake, it has NEVER FAILED US. 

The kitties are doing well and wish you all a very happy weekend!!

Double Chocolate Pound Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache

Hi everybody!
                                           
Here's the recipe I promised last week when I was still unpacking. We had so much fun this week trying new recipes and making cakes, but I'll share those in the coming weeks. For now, it's double chocolate pound cake!
But first...

 It's apricot season!! Oh my yum. These are so delicious. We can pick twenty lbs and they're gone in days. Okay, we do share them but still... So much fresh deliciousness!
                                               
And I love this picture. I had a reluctant reader who decided he WOULD NOT READ. I believe in leading kids to education, not shoving it down their throats, so I told him that was fine. He was only six after all. And so the months went on and he repeated how he would never read and didn't want to. But it happened anyway. You just can't NOT read when you're read to for an hour a night (oh, the wonderful books we've read!), spend hours in a library every week, live in a house where books outnumber people 100-1, and are surrounded by people reading ALL THE TIME. So, I had to snap this picture of my reluctant reader who now reads at a fourth grade level. In fact, he was reading the Redwall series by Brian Jacques last night. Makes my mama heart happy. :)

 So, the cake. A friend sent me her recipe after I tasted it at a BBQ. It was SO GOOD.

You'll need these ingredients:

 1 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 large eggs

 1 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp espresso powder

1/4 cup sour cream

1/4 cup milk

1 cup plus 2 tbs flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

 1/2 tsp baking soda

For the ganache topping:

3/4 cup heavy cream

4.5 oz dark chocolate

Sorry I don't have pictures of the process. I know I took some, but I was also cleaning out my phone from the trip and somehow... That's why I love facebook. At least there was one photo of the cake!

Mix the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla together. Mix all dry ingredients. Mix sugar butter mix and dry ingredients together, then slowly add sour cream and milk. Cook at 350F for about 40-50 minutes. Check often because the color is so dark you won't be able to tell by looking and that last ten minutes can make or break a cake!

So, here's our recipe for next week! Goes right along with Ruthy's Christmas in July collections!

 Orange buttermilk pound cake in a Cathedral pan.
                                               
We actually checked out the pan from our library. How cool is that??

But a word of warning... it doesn't like all cakes. This poor lemon blueberry buttermilk cake was super delicious but not fit for company, hahahaha.

OK, see everyone next week! I'm at the end of a deadline and I ALWAYS cook like crazy. Stress relief... unless it looks like the cake above!

Stay cool and keep cooking!