8 fall food ideas

Fall is one of those seasons that has such distinct flavors, which I think is one reason cooking during fall is one of my favorite things to do.  Last fall I went mad for soups, but there are so many other treats and dishes that are perfect this time of year, so I wanted to share some of my favorite recipes from past autumns. 

Pumpkin is an obvious major flavor this season, so it pretty much goes without saying that there are a couple pumpkin recipes included.  One of my favorite treats from last fall was Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting.  So decadent and screams "fall."  I'm hosting a little fall party at my house this weekend so I think I'm going to make a mini cupcake version of these big ones.  Since they're pretty rich (especially the frosting), a mini cupcake will be the perfect bite size for a party with lady friends.  

MOAR PUMPKIN.  I love these pumpkin cookies with maple icing.  The frosting is really what makes them.  The pumpkin cookie is light and fluffy, but the frosting has that crunch, plus the maple flavor, that just makes them pop!

Last fall we harvested a bunch of apples and had to come up with ways to use our surplus of apples and I'm pretty sure I made at least two batches of this applesauce.  It's basically not worth it to me to get store bought applesauce anymore because this stuff is just so much better.  Plus, it's super easy to make!

Hi there, pumpkin again.  This time in the form of a smoothie/milkshake type temptation.  I think technically this is a smoothie, but I think of smoothies as more fruity and "healthy," but this is basically dessert.  But, come on, so is a pumpkin spice latte and everyone drinks those on the daily so....

I made this drink earlier this year, but something about bourbon and rosemary feels fall to me.  I mean, somehow you have to warm yourself as the temperatures start to drop.  Sipping on a rosemary old fashioned sounds like the perfect way to do so.  If I had a fireplace, I would have one of these in my hand, while curled up in a quilt, sitting on a fur rug... blogging.  Blogging is romantic, see?

Ginger is a year-round favorite flavor for me, but it seems like ginger gets more popular during the fall and winter.  Make yourself a batch (or two) of this Ginger Liquor to last you through the season.  It tastes great on it's own, but it's also amazing in mixed drinks as well!

Get your comfort food on!  I think one reason I love soup during fall is that I just want warmth inside me, and hot liquids just seems like the most efficient way of doing just that.  This mac and cheese has the same effect, with all it's melty, cheesy goodness.  

Ditto what I said about mac & cheese, except beef stew.  Because beef stew.  So good.  Plus, it's a crock pot recipe so you can have it cooking all day and ready for dinner with minimal effort.  

STLFW // rungolee luncheon + presentation

Last Thursday I was invited to a lunch and presentation for

Rungolee

at the designer,

Anjali Kamra's

, beautiful home in St. Louis.  I went with a group of other bloggers who were also in St. Louis for St. Louis Fashion week, so it was nice to be there with other ladies I knew, and it was truly one of the most wonderful events I had the pleasure of attending during STLFW.  The event started off with a bit of mingling and some drinks with a mini introduction, during which Fern Mallis (creator of NYFW!) said a few words.  I have to say, I felt a bit like a wedding crasher.  I'm at an event with Fern Mallis?  It was a bit surreal.

We were lucky enough to get good weather, since the forecast called for thunderstorms all week, so we got to have lunch out on the back porch.  The tablescapes were so gorgeous.  Everything I aspire to when I have parties in my, relatively, tiny home.  Lovely fabric napkins in pretty prints, gold chargers, fresh flowers.  The food was equally as amazing, created by local chefs, and absolutely delectable.  I probably would've had four helpings if we hadn't been whisked away to check out the collection.

After we'd eaten, we headed upstairs to Anjali's workspace, which is probably the size of my entire house.  I can't imagine what a pleasure it must be to be able to create in such a light and inspiring space.  We got to flip through racks of Rungolee items and I was impressed with the sheer volume of pieces she's created, as well as the level of detail in each and every piece.  So many were covered in beautiful embroidery, which is one of my favorite details in clothing, however sorely underrepresented in my current wardrobe.  Much of her design work draws inspiration from her Indian roots, and she does it in a sophisticated and attentive way.  Much of the creation of her clothing is actually done in India by couture artisans who create the hand sewn, embroidered, beaded, and woven elements in each piece.

After we explored the workshop and pawed our way through racks of Rungolee pieces, taking care not to

actually

drool over them.  We went back downstairs and were met with impeccably styled models lounging about, modeling Rungolee pieces.  Having only been to the standard runway type presentation, this was new for me, and I actually liked this way of presenting clothing items more.  I've seen photos of similar presentations but have never been to one myself.  It's a great way to see the clothes up close, rather than on a model stomping by at breakneck speed.  I do love runway shows and getting to see the clothes in motion as the model walks, but this was a much more realistic way of showing how the clothes would be seen in real life.  The models quietly cycled out of the room one by one to go put on a new outfit and reenter without fanfare, returning to their station, acting "natural." Anjali's incredible home was the perfect backdrop for the clothes, and while most of the outfits were much too fancy for my own everyday personal style, the individual pieces were very versatile and definitely something I could see myself styling.  

Before we left, Anjali gifted us each a scarf in a fabric

similar to this top

 (mine is white and green).  As scarf season is upon us I was pretty excited to have such a lovely, and practical, token from the afternoon's festivities.  Huge thanks to

Rungolee

for inviting myself and the other bloggers in attendance!  You can check out some of the Rungolee items we saw

here

, and they're also on

facebook

 and 

instagram

!

make it work

So, this outfit was something I came up with while packing and scheming outfits for this last week in St. Louis.  The top is actually a scarf that is just tucked into my jeans, which makes it totally backless.  I second guessed my decision to wear this when I put it on before heading out, but I decided to just go for it instead of playing it safe.  Since I felt so naked with nothing on my back, I wore my favorite quartz pendant backwards.  It didn't provide coverage, per se, but it did make me feel like there was at least something back there.  Looking back, I actually ended up wearing pretty much all black and white outfits, which is out of character for me.  Usually it's prints and colors and all sorts of madness, but I liked the simple palette with a few bursts of color here and there.  So brace yourself for more black and white because apparently St. Louis sucked all the color out of me.
It's always funny to be around a group of other style bloggers.  Everyone is so, well, stylish!  There were a couple outfits that I just wanted to steal off of other girls' bodies.  Not creepy at all, nope.  Since we all traveled around in a big group, and sometimes would all file out of one big bus, we were a bit of a spectacle.  It is fun to be among bloggers, though.  Everyone understands all the idiosyncrasies and behaviors that "normal" people see as odd.  Taking photos of everything, doing outfit pictures, instagramming all the things.  It's silly, but it is nice to be around people who "get" what you're doing.  

  top(scarf, similar)/gift :: jeans/courtesy of modcloth :: shoes/courtesy of lulu's bracelet/courtesy of musana :: necklace/courtesy of adorn by sarah lewis purse/some boutique in NYC :: photos by Jackie
Last night I discovered that there is a hole in these pants right on the butt!  I'm slightly devastated because I'd been looking for ages for high waisted black jeans and these ones fit like a dream!  It's right smack dab on the center of my butt right by the seam, so I'm not sure how I can salvage it, any sewing type folks out there have a solution?  I'd rather not have to give these up just for one small hole, but being a hole in the butt, it's not something that's easy to ignore.  I wore them home on the plane, and Dan told me there was a hole in them a few hours after I'd been home, so I'm not sure how long I was walking around with a hole in the butt of my pants.  So it goes.  

our csa experience

Now that summer is coming to a close and we've been getting our CSA for quite a few months I wanted to share our experience.  For those of you who don't know what a CSA is, it stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  Basically, you buy a "share" in the farm and then throughout the year or season you get shares of produce, herbs, meat, eggs or whatever your farm offers!  So you're buying your produce in advance, essentially.

We've been really happy with our CSA and I'm glad we decided to go for it!  Our CSA is through a local farm, Little Eorthe.  There are quite a few farms that do CSA shares here in the Northwest, so we had a few options, but we had friends who had a share with Little Eorthe last year so we decided to go with them.  We had initially wanted to get the full share, which includes everything from meat to eggs to produce, but we couldn't afford it when we paid for our share back in the springtime, so we opted for a half share of produce and a half share of eggs.  I believe the total for that came to $460, and we pick up produce and eggs every other week from June through October.  The full share was $1200 and you pick up every week, instead of every other week.  I'm so glad we didn't end up getting the full share.  We can barely make it through all of our produce before the next pick up day two weeks later.  They fill about 4 big tote bags full of produce and when we get home and put it all in our fridge it's pretty much stuffed with veggies!   Since Little Eorthe does just a summer/fall CSA season, I'm not sure what we'll do for the winter months.  Our friends who introduced us to Little Eorthe used Terra Organics during the off-season, so we may look into that as an option.


 

There are some weird things that come in a CSA, and a lot of things I'd never pick up at a grocery store.  Dragon Tongue beans, Collard Greens, Purple Basil, Beets, Bok Choi, etc.  In order to cook everything I often find myself googling recipes for ingredients I'd never used before, but it's fun to learn new things and try new foods.  I'm pretty sure I'd never eaten collard greens before our CSA and I'd certainly never cooked them.  I've never even seen or heard of a dragon tongue bean before our CSA!  It's definitely a ton of veggies, which, if you're not used to eating a lot of veggies can be hard.  Some weeks we end up with a few rotten veggies we didn't end up consuming, but most weeks we try our best to make it through everything.

We didn't get a meat share in our CSA, since we don't eat a lot of meat anyway.  We've found that we can just pick some up at the farmer's market when we go to get our CSA if we want some that week.  Plus, then it's local meat, which is something I think is important.  When I decided to try eating less meat, I also decided that if I did eat meat I wanted it to be locally raised, if possible.  The farmer's market is a great place to find that, and I love being able to support a local farmer instead of whatever giant corporation makes the meat in the regular grocery store.

But all of that aside, one of my favorite things about our CSA is the community it creates.  We know the person who grew all that food.  We know about how her week was, we know that their apple tree just had it's first harvest of apples after being planted four years ago.  She emails weekly letting us know how things are going, not just around the farm, but in their lives, and what produce we'll be receiving that weekend.    She sends recipes along with the list of what we got that week, so we can know how to use some of the more obscure or abundant veggies.  It's great to know that my investment is going directly to a person I know, and I would be more than welcome to go to the farm to visit and see how everything is grown, how they raise their animals, etc.  In October Little Eorthe has a Harvest Celebration and they invite all the shareholders out to the farm for a potluck and to see the farm, so I'm really looking forward to going out there and actually seeing the farm where all my food came from!

A good way to find a CSA program in your area is to either go to your local farmer's market and ask the produce vendors if they have a CSA option, or google it!  Some of our local livestock farmers even have meat shares that you can sign up for!  In addition to our CSA Dan and I also signed up for a local milk delivery service from Smith Brother's Farm, so on top of the CSA we also get milk, eggs and butter delivered every other week.  They also deliver bread, yogurt, cheese and more, so if we wanted we could have that delivered too!  There's no delivery charge if your order is more than $10, so it's pretty much the same as going to the store, except it shows up on our doorstep!

Some CSA's go year round, but ours is just a summer/fall seasonal one.  Paying for months of produce up front can be a bit expensive, so saving up in advance is a good idea, and I think some farms would let you work out a payment plan if you talked to them.  The amount of produce we get is kind of ridiculous, I'm always amazed at how heavy my bags are when I'm carting them home.  Who knew vegetables could be so heavy?  I would definitely recommend at least trying out a CSA, if you're interested in getting fresh, local produce (and meat, eggs, or milk!).  It's been a blast and we're absolutely going to do it next summer.

homemade tzatziki sauce

I've come to the realization that I don't eat cucumbers.  Because we got some in our CSA (well a lot, actually), and I was stumped as to what to do with them.  We made refrigerator pickles with some, but this is my favorite use of them.  Tzatziki Sauce!  I pretty much only ate Tzatziki with pita for like 3 days after making this, and I made a second batch because I was craving more.  It's so fresh with a bit of spice from the garlic, and the fresh dill just has the best flavor.  I love the combination of all the different flavors in Tzatziki.  
I haven't eaten a lot of greek food in the past, but what I have eaten I've liked.  As I've gotten older I've started enjoying more and more things.  I've never been a picky eater, by any means (I did hate grilled cheese sandwiches as a kid.  Like, loathed), but I've always been one to at least try something, and as an adult I'm starting to like more and more exotic things.  Exploring new foods is so much fun.  I think doing a trip to europe, or anywhere really, would really just be a tour-de-food for me.  Dan loves exploring new food and drinks too, so it's great to be able to share that experience of trying new things together.  

Ingredients

1 cup cucumber, peeled and finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, peeled & minced finely

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp dill, finely chopped

16 oz Greek yogurt

Salt, to taste

Pepper, to taste

1. Line a sieve or colander with a paper towel and place the greek yogurt in the bowl.  This will allow the excess liquid to drain out.  Do this for about an hour to as much as five hours.

2. Place the cucumber in a sieve and place the sieve over a bowl for the excess water to drip into.  Salt it abundantly and let it stand for 5-20 minutes.  Press all the excess water out of the cucumber, place it in a food processor and chop for a few seconds to chop it a little more finely, if you prefer (if not, just skip this!).  Remove from food processor and squeeze out excess water again.  If you don't do this step, you'll end up with watery tzatziki!

3. Add the garlic and olive oil along with the cucumber, dill and yogurt to a big bowl and salt and pepper to taste. Mix the ingredients until all the elements have dispersed evenly.

4. Place the dip in a bowl, drizzle it with olive oil and enjoy!  Great in Gyros, with pita, or as a sauce along with lamb kebabs!