Pumpkin Time

I love fall. I think it is my favorite season... Winter is a close second though. Why is fall so fantabulous? Well, first of all, it's beautiful. The colors on the trees (especially in the mountains) are enough for me but it gets better. Fall has the best weather. Fall means there is no grass to mow anymore. Fall is almost Thanksgiving and Black Friday time. Fall is Halloween and I loooove dressing up. Fall means crunchy leaves. Candy. Apples. Pears. Warm pies. Cinnamon. And... Pumpkin.

If there is one thing I love more than fall, it's probably pumpkin. I don't really know when this obsession started but it is indeed an obsession now. I love it. I tried to make myself a delicious loaf of pumpkin chocolate chip espresso bread, but alas, as I said in my last post I am no good with the bread baking thing. Who knows what's wrong with me. I quickly overcame this bread obstacle and immediately made around 5 dozen pumpkin oatmeal cookies. They. Are. Amazing.

So thanks to My Baking Addiction I had the perfect recipe to work from.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies Yield: I got 5 dozen small-ish cookies

2 cups all purpose flour
1 ½ cups old-fashioned oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter; softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup pure pumpkin puree
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup craisins; roughly chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line your baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly spray.
2. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Add pumpkin, egg and vanilla extract. Mix well. Add flour mixture; combine until all ingredients are incorporated. Fold in white chocolate chips and craisins.
3. Drop by rounded tablespoons onto prepared baking sheets. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until cookies are light brown. Cool on baking sheets for a couple minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.

*** For about half my cookies I used white chocolate chips and craisins/raisins. Here's the thing though, I made the other half with butterscotch chips and chopped pecans and they were INCREDIBLE. Seriously. The added fruity taste of craisins is nice, but the butterscotch and nuts just took these cookies to a whole new level.

A Chocolate Cookie Fix

As much as I love cupcakes (which is a LOT), sometimes I just go on a cookie kick. These past couple weeks I have been on full cookie-mode. The best thing about cookies is how easy they are. I mean, you make the batter, you put it on a sheet, you bake it, you eat them! Cookies are also pretty hard to mess up which is a bonus for me because I have discovered recently that I do not have a gift for breads and muffins. The sad thing is, most of the recipes I have stock piled are breads. Because bread is delicious. It just doesn't think much of me...

Anyway! More about breads later. This is all about COOKIES. This first cookie I found the recipe for on Brown Eyed Baker's site. The original recipe comes from Dorie Greenspan and were dubbed "World Peace Cookies" because they are so good if everyone ate them there would be peace. What are these epic cookies you ask? Chocolate Salted Shortbread's. And *bonus* they are easy!

Chocolate Salted Shortbread Cookies
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons butter, at room temp.
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1/4 granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt, plus extra for sprinkling
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Whisk together the flour, cocoa and baking soda. Beat butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add sugars, salt and vanilla. Beat for another 2 minutes more.
2. With the mixer off, add dry ingredients. Turn the mixer on and off low speed (pulse) for a second or two about 5 times so that the flour mixture gets incorporated. Then mix on low speed for about 30 seconds, just until the flour disappears into the dough (the dough will look crumbly).
3. Turn the dough out onto work surface and divide it in two. Shape each half into a 9-inch log. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated up to 3 days)
4. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325. Prepare (grease or line with parchment paper) 2 cookie sheets.
5. Using a sharp knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 in. Leave about 1 inch between the cookies on sheet. Sprinkle a small amount of extra salt on top of each round. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm. Serve immediately or let them reach room temperature.

Everything Deep Fried!

The North Carolina State Fair is here at last! From October 14th-24th you can buy anything and everything your heart desires in deep fried form. This means twinkies, oreos, peanut butter cups, milkyways, snickers, pickles and cheesecake. Not to mention giant turkey legs, gourmet funnel cakes, ribbon fries, lollipops as big as your face, bbq (I mean it IS North Carolina), philly cheese steaks, popcorn, nachos, gyros, corn dogs, candy apples, hamburgers, foot long hot dogs, lemonade EVERYWHERE, pizza, blooming onions, corn on the cob, cotton candy and so much more. Sound healthy? I think eating two or more of these foods together on the same day is bound to take a few months off your life but that's what the state fair is for!!!

Deep fried twinkie. Surprising delicious.

Deep fried Snickers. If the twinkie was surprisingly delicious, then the snickers was absolutely amazing.

Ribbon fries! There was a mountain of them originally but Steven and I ate most of them before I remembered to take a picture. We were standing in line about to buy our deep fried twinkie right here.

Apparently there is a "flavor burst" cone option... I didn't spend the $5 to figure out what exactly those flavors were.

Candy Land garden!

Vegetable exhibit :) Looking at this made me feel healthier. I think that might be why everyone else is there too. They just had a sausage dog and funnel cake too probably.

You can pick these little cuties up and play with them! It's always been my favorite part of the state fair. Too bad I just realized this year they're labeled as "baby poultry".