Glazed Pear Walnut Cake

The baking bug has bit me. When the temperature drops I have the desire to bake bake and bake. My mind is always coming up with ideas and I’m always finding recipes that I want to try… but the problem is that there is not enough people to feed! So about twice a month I’ll mail off a package of whatever I made so I can get some baking out of my system! I do wish the post office was open longer, who came up with the hours of 9-5?! That’s when most people are at work! Somehow I usually manage to get there usually with ten minutes to spare. And mailing stuff is expensive! The expenses still won’t stop me; I’m just like ahhh 6 dollars to mail my dad some cake?! If you want me to mail you something give me your address, I’ll gladly send you some desserts because I don’t need to be a glutton and keep them all at my house. And I forgot to mention my willpower with desserts is zero, I have absolutely none so I try to get them out of here ASAP.

Birthdays are a great excuse to get baking. Tomorrow is my friend’s 23rd birthday so I made a Glazed Pear and Pecan Cake Recipe at Epicurious.com. Pears are overflowing at the grocery stores so I couldn’t resist this recipe when I saw it. I saw this at 8 pm last night and walked to the store to buy some pears and had this dessert done by 11 pm. I trekked to the post office today after school and sent this lovely cake to the birthday girl. I changed the recipe a wee bit of course; I used walnuts (I had them already) and used 1 cups of sugar in the glaze (the recipe online has a typo, so only one cup of sugar for the glaze!) But other that that, I followed the recipe and it was very yummy and incredibly moist.

Butternut Squash Salad with a Tahini Dressing

I want to apologize for being such a bad blogger lately. I love trying out new recipes but the truth is I get fed too much… At school I eat a wonderful lunch and often get to bring home leftovers. This week alone I brought home pork tenderloin, grilled chicken and fresh bread from the bread class. On Wednesday I volunteered for a cooking demonstration and at the end I got to bring home a quart of hummus, plenty of pasta with pesto, tuna tartar, and they gave me a bottle of red wine. The latter made me the happiest and the volunteering completely worth it. So I do get a lot of food and my roommates love me for it because I try to shove it down their throats (actually no need to when the pilot is home it gets gone quick… I do hope I will get a flight soon in exchange for all the food…)

Anyways enough excuses. To the few fans that like my blog (my dear friends and family thank you) I am jumping right back on the blog train and am going to try to be much more consistent. Fall is by far my favorite season to cook. I love anything with butternut squash, pumpkin, brussel sprouts, cranberries, pomegranates, figs, and the list goes on of my favorite fall produce. I have been seeing a bunch of recipes that I cannot wait to try so here is the first one!

I have trouble with recipes featuring butternut squash; if I had my way I would do ten blog posts in a row featuring my absolute favorite vegetable. I got this from the Smitten Kitchen Blog and it was such an interesting combination of flavors that I urge everyone to try it. I went to the grocery store with a shopping list and I still forgot the chickpeas in the recipe oops. It still tasted wonderful without the chickpeas, in fact I think it’d taste much better with brown rice or any type of grain (couscous, barley, wheatberries) so it can absorb some of the tahini dressing. If you make thins I encourage you to use at least two butternut squashes. I used only one and it fed just me in one sitting… I’m telling you I eat butternut squash like candy. After having to peel and prep at least 50 butternut squashes for my internship the best way to prep butternut squash is to: peel the entire squash first then cut in half separating the bulging bottom from the long skinny stem. From there cut the squash in about ½ inch pieces. Hope everyone has been having a wonderful fall lately. And if you have a seasonal item that’d you like me to blog about please let me know!