Pumpkin and Spice

The holidays are rapidly approaching- it's truely the most wonderful time of the year! I love that once you hit October, you get a holiday every month until Valentine's day! Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hannukah, New Year's, Valentine's Day- it's the best. It makes me feel all Hallmark card squishy inside.

 This time last year, I was in Utah with Sissy, and we spent our Thanksgiving with a co-worker and her family. This year, my parents are coming from Kansas, my brother is coming from Kentucky, and my in-laws and sister-in-law are coming from a couple streets over to our apartment for a big family Thanksgiving. It's going to be my first year hosting the Big Dinner, and I'm a ball of excitement and nerves.

I went outside Monday and it was cold! Well, not cold- cold for Florida anyway. It's beautiful and sunny, and a brisk 60F. It was the first really cool day of the season, which makes it finally feel like autumn. The cool temperatures remind me of trick or treating as a wee one back in Kansas and are really putting me in a Halloween-y mood. In the spirit of the season, I thought I'd share a review of some festive seasonal beers. Over the past month and a half, I've tried several varieties, all in the name of blogging, of course. (Oh, the sacrifices I make!)

Right now, I'm in my very last class in pastry school. I've been in classroom classes for the past few blocks, and they really do require a differnt level of work. Not that they're hard, but there's homework, tests, and quizzes to finish and study for. Currently, I'm in a cost control (read: math) class and a wines class. I love the wine class- I'm very interested in wines, and Kyle and I are members of a wine club, so this class is extremely engaging and informative. Wines class is also very time consuming, as there is a lot of studying.

This week, in between studying, work and class I found some time to play around in the kitchen and made the most amazing pumpkin coffee cake. My mom makes a coffee cake every year at Christmas, and while hers is a little different from most coffee cakes, it has sort of spilled over that all coffee cake makes me think of Christmas morning. With its pumpkin, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spices, this smelled like Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled into one. As it baked, I felt like I should be decorating a tree and wrapping a present.

Now that it's fall, I've been craving some good pumpkin recipes. So, I've bought a couple cans of pumpkin puree and have been playing around in the kitchen with them. I have some recipes for pumpkin muffins, pies and bread, but I decided to try something new and tinker around to make pumpkiny versions of some of my favorite treats.

These are a pumpkin-spice version of my oatmeal cookies. Obviously, I added pumpkin and tweaked the spices, but I also used some whole wheat flour and cut out the butter to make these cookies a little bit healthier. Bonus!

     So, how do you all like the new webpage? I'm super excited about it! One of my favorite new features is the "Recipes" tab- once I get all the recipes entered, you'll be able to go to that tab to find printable versions of my recipes there!

     I've been itching to do some baking, but it's going to have to wait for the weekend when I have a little extra time on my hands. Last weekend was busy, but I managed to find a little bit of time to make a Sunday breakfast for Kyle and I. With autumn close on our heels, I wanted to do something pumpkin-y, so I tinkered around and came up with these pumpkin waffles.