Gingery Cinnamon Rolls

It's mah birthdayyyy! I made these cinnamon rolls yesterday because I think we both know I wasn't getting up early enough to make them today. I think we both know I ate one yesterday too.

Pumpkin Spice Affogato

I've had this in my head for a couple of weeks. How to make a pumpkin spice latte seem...fresh. The obvious answer is ice cream.

Pumpkin ice cream is where it's at. I admit my first taste of pumpkin ice cream came at the verrry beginning of the season. Like September 1st or 2nd. It was at Scoops by Holden Beach, where we held a bachelorette party for my dear friend, Shana. The store sells Blue Bell ice cream, and they'd just started selling Pumpkin Praline. It was heaven.

Pumpkin Pie Spice

It was...a heckuva a week. In between Halloween, a family emergency (don't worry, everything's fine), and just general stuff, I was a leetle busy. Also, I met my future self at Fresh Market's Thanksgiving sampling event.

Okay, so I know there are 1,284,792 "recipes" for pumpkin pie spice floating on the interwebz. This is my personal version. It's heavy on the cinnamon with a floral finish from cardamom.

You'll need: freshly grated nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and ginger.

Pumpkin-Yogurt Bread

Pumpkin bread might be my favorite of the quick breads. Or maybe that's just the fall-euphoria talking. Oh who am I kidding, I've never turned down a piece of bread in my life. But! This bread is not so bad for you, seeing as it only has half a stick of butter and is mostly non-fat Greek yogurt and pumpkin. It's practically healthy. Except for maybe the powdered sugar I sprinkled on top.

Blueberry Crumble Pie

Pie is a labor of love. Clearly I love myself since that's exactly who I was making this pie for. And since I was making it for myself, I decided I would combine the things I love about pie and the things I love about a crumble or crisp. P.S. I tried to figure out the difference between a crisp and a crumble and they're pretty much the same. I assume a crisp is crispier and a crumble is crumblier because they pretty much have the same topping. This should probably be called Blueberry Crisp Pie but it doesn't flow as well as Blueberry Crumble Pie. So there ya go.

Barbecue Shrimp

One of my absolute favorite dinners is this barbecue shrimp. It's perfect for eating outside on a screen porch with plenty of paper towels and cold adult beverages. In fact, this was the first meal my brother-in-law ate with my family. Which in retrospect was a little...mean. It's hard to be charming and graceful sucking juice out of a shrimp shell. That's kind of mandatory too. You can't just peel the shells and eat the shrimp. First, you suck the juice out of the shell, then you peel it, then you dip it back in the sauce and eat. The leftover sauce on the plate gets sopped up with buttery french bread.

Molasses Spice Cookies and Pumpkin Dip

Confession:  I probably most likely definitely watch too much TV.  No, it doesn't keep me from exercising or doing other things.  But I keep it on constantly as background noise, and I have about 1,000 shows I watch regularly.  Sundays are a big night.  Once Upon A Time, The Walking Dead, Pan Am, and I catch The Good Wife on Hulu the next day.  The Walking Dead is by far my favorite.  I'm way into creepy shows (American Horror Story anyone?!), and zombies totally freak me out.  And last night had potentially the grossest zombie kill of the season.  Gah.  I'm also into Glee and I die for Modern Family.  Modern Family might be my favorite show out of all of them.  We're pretty sure Phil is Will in 10 years.

I feel like I have to say that I like to read, too.  When I read a book, I tend to read it all at once.  I might not finish it in a day, depending on how long it it and what else I have to do, but I'll read for hours at a time.  I think I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in less than 36 hours.  I'm sure other people finished it a lot sooner than I did, but I was in grad school at the time.  Will's mom likes to read too, and there's always a book here that I pick up and read.

Don't Mind Me. It's the Benadryl Talking.

I've been in a Benadryl haze for two days now.  It knocks me out, makes me have crazy dreams, and makes me feel like a crazy person.  Cray-cray.  This always happens with the change in seasons.  My allergies go nutso and I have a few days of sore throats and congestion.  It doesn't surprise me, but it does throw me for a loop.

The only thing making me feel like a real person right now is this pumpkin bread:

Spiced Blueberry Muffins

It was an average Wednesday.  I was at gathering supplies for the weekend at The Pig, when a craving for blueberry muffins hit me like a ton of bricks.  Wham-o.  I hightailed it back to the produce section and got a pint of blueberries that looked purty.  I don't always ask for inspiration.  Sometimes it just comes over me.  In the aisles of Piggly Wiggly.  So be it.

I scoured cookbooks and recipes online for a muffin recipe that a) I had all the ingredients for---a ridiculous amount of recipes use sour cream, which I'm sure makes for a moist muffin but wasn't in my fridge and b) excited me just a bit.  I stumbled upon a cinnamon blueberry muffin recipe that seemed a little different. Cinnamon is one of my favorite spices.  I just think it warms you right up, even if it is 90º outside and you don't need actual warming.  It's a soul thing.  Cinnamon warms my soul.  It's a happy ingredient.  Then I remembered a recipe for blueberry buckle or cobbler or what-have-you that used coriander.  I haven't had much experience with coriander, but I do know it can be used in savory and sweet dishes.  I thought it was worth a shot in my muffins.