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I've been baking a lot. Recipes soon to come. Hopefully tomorrow.

Happy Owl-oween!

Two of my Favorite Things: Owls + PB

So I've realized that I've started posting on here more often, regardless of the fact that I've been busier with school than ever. I'm a bit surprised, myself, that I've been able to do so, on top of all the baking I've managed to squeeze in. But I've realized something. It's what I have to do to stay sane. I need a creative outlet. Something to get my mind off of TEETH, for goodness sake. Something to help me recognize myself. It's an identity crisis of sorts, really. My entire lifestyle and schedule and just life in general has completely changed, 180 degrees. And this is what makes me happy. I just want to bake and obsess over finding awesome recipes and cute owl things and waste my time a little. So, with that being said, I'm just trying to not feel guilty about it. It's a distraction, I'll admit. But I feel as though I can't focus on the stuff I do need to do otherwise. Yadda yadda yadda. On with the show.

Yeah, so, before I eat my breakfast and head out the door in the morning, my vice is looking at my favorite blogs. And then I somehow manage to open up about twenty five million tabs within 10 minutes before I leave (or rather, I realize I'm running a few minutes late...). Like this morning for instance, I found this super awesome owl pillow:

Cost Plus also has some of the cutest owl stuff available known to man.

I have to stay out of that store.

And these chocolate peanut butter monster brownies from the CPB Gallery!!!

They remind me of Ugly Dolls.

And how cute is this idea?!?

Peanut butter pumpkin cookies!

Speaking of peanut butter, I currently have a batch of vegan peanut butter banana bread baking, experimenting with this new peanut flour stuff from Trader Joe's. I'm totally curious. It smells pretty darn good, but we'll see. Trying to figure out what else to use this stuff for. I'm sure the possibilities are endless... perhaps also try out this peanut butter dutch baby recipe with this in place of regular flour?

Oh yeah, and I wanna make this. Except with pumpkin instead of mango.

I have visions.

Gold Digger Chocolate, Mad Men, DIY Log Cabin, & other Nifty Things...

Just discovered this awesome chocolate company that lets you customize your own chocolate bar combinations! You can add up to five ingredients (spices, nuts, candy, herbs, even 23 karat GOLD flecks!) to a dark, milk, or white chocolate base. All starting at around $3.85 a bar (not including extras), it ain't cheap. This particular combination I made up would end up costing me $15. FOR ONE BAR.

But hey, great idea to rip off and maybe do on my own at home? They even do bulk orders for parties or weddings, allowing you to put your own photo in the middle of the dang chocolate bar!

Crazy, huh?

"Tropical Island Bar"

-dark chocolate

-banana chips

-coconut flakes

-mango dices

-pineapple dices

Pure chocolate bling aka "Rizzoli & Isles" bar.

-dark chocolate

-23 karat gold flakes

"Fresh Face Forward Bar"

-dark chocolate

-dried cantaloupe melon

-blueberries

-goji berries

-roasted sunflower seeds

-organic flax seeds

"Trick or Treat Bar"

-milk chocolate

-candy corn

-fall leaves

-candy bats

HOW CUTE IS THIS?!?

Also happened to stumble upon these great black and white photos from the set scenes of Mad Men. I love this show, although I am ashamed to say I am behind by like 2 seasons, practically. Saving them all up for a crazy Mad Men marathon weekend party, I suppose?

Joan is my idol.

-Also just discovered this really awesome artsy design blog that has sucked me in a bit these past few days: Lox Papers.

-Instructions for how to build your own log cabin. So freaking rad. Ever since I was little and had a log cabin building doll-house set, I have had dreams of living in one some day. This might just be what I need to make that dream come true!

-Design Squish, a blog about all things I adore: nature, trees, art, design, sustainable living.

-Eight sweet lavender recipes from the Kitchn, in addition to sweet potato cakelets and jack o'lantern cocktails.

-Also completely in love with this wallpaper over at ModCloth (that is temporarily out of stock). That website is dangerous.

I actually DO need some wall hooks and these might be a winner...

Now as far as food goes, here are some recipes that have me excited:

-Sugar Pumpkin Lasagna

-Lavender Dark-Honey Chocolate Tart with Cardamom-Lemon Crust

-Rosewater and Pistachio M'Hencha

-Cornbread Pudding Baked in Acorn Squash

-Spiced Pumpkin Butter Pancakes

-How to make your own pumpkin syrup

-Mexicali Sliders with Mango Sauce, Guacamole, and Yam Fries

-"Killer" Halloween Desserts

-Creamy Pumpkin Penne with Crispy Sage & Toasted Pecans

Holy moley. I just need some extra time, money, and energy. I WANT TO MAKE EVERYTHING!

Date-Nut Butternut Squash Muffins

Alright, we'll I'm not going to waste any time with this one. These are, hands down, the best muffins I have ever made. Better than any pumpkin or bran or blueberry or vegan whatever muffin there might have been, these are #1 ruler of the Muffin Kingdom. And, yet again, I went off of a recipe but tweaked it a bit. I bought this particular book, Pumpkin: A Super Food for All 12 Months of the Year (might perhaps be the #1 ruler of any pumpkin or baking book to exist... I know, big statement, but it's pretty much the shizzle) in Seattle three years ago and remember being astounded that someone was genius enough to come up with a cookbook with a ton of fabulous pumpkin-including recipes. I pretty much squealed with delight in the middle of the Elliott Bay bookstore. There are recipes for every style and part of a pumpkin you could ever imagine. Sometimes I have to shame myself for not utilizing it more often. I want to make everything in it: roasted ginger pumpkin-pear soup, wild mushroom pumpkin risotto (and sage-pumpkin risotto), blue cheese and pumpkin galette, pumpkin chutney, pumpkin pizza with gorgonzola, pork stew with pumpkin and prunes, crepes with spinach and creamy pumpkin sauce, mexican pumpkin lasagna, ten different versions of pumpkin bread, coffee cakes, scones, white chocolate pepita apricot pumpkin bars, pumpkin baked alaska, lemon pumpkin strudel, pumpkin-rice pudding... okay I'll shut up now before you kill me for making you so hungry and enticed. I suppose typing out all of the recipes that I've been meaning to get to stirs up the motivation process and reminds me.

So yeah, back to how amazing this muffins are. My grandparents even called and left me a voicemail this morning exclaiming how they were (are?) the best muffins they have ever had. I can't delete it, it's so precious. I have already listened to it 3 times. In her twangy Texas accent, "Hi Kylie, this is Nana, I just wanted to say those muffins were the best I've ever tasted, including the Silver Spur or the Buttery" (um, if you had any idea how amazing the pumpkin muffins or any other baked good those places make, that's saying a lot). Then she goes, "and your Pops agrees..." (hands over the phone). Pops: "Me too." (In the background) Nana: "Well, you could've said more... but, you know..." (phone clicks).

They crack me up.

So the recipe originally calls to use pumpkin, but I have had this can of butternut squash puree lying around for a bit too long, saving it for something "special" or a rainy day, perhaps, and this was my chance to be daring. So I went for it and have no regrets. Also used 1/4 cup of walnut oil and 1/4 cup of Smart Balance EFA butter in replacement of 1 stick of unsalted butter. I tend to go for oils > butters in muffins as they tend to turn out more moist. On top of that, there is a buttload of pureed dates, in addition to the moist squash puree, so over all this is definitely not a dry muffin. Me no likey dry muffins. And dates are amazing. And so is butternut squash. And figs. Basically what I'm saying is you'd be crazy to not make these.

And I couldn't resist topping a few with fresh fig slices.

These muffins practically scream Autumn.

Date-Nut Butternut Squash Muffins

Adapted from Pumpkin: A Super Food for All 12 Months of the Year by DeeDee Stovel

Makes 12 muffins

2 eggs

1 cup canned, unsweetened pureed butternut squash

1/4 cup walnut oil

1/4 unsalted butter

1 cup dates, pitted and chopped

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup walnuts, chopped

1/4 cup pecans, chopped

1 cup spelt or whole wheat flour

3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

pinch of clove, cardamom, & ginger

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with 12 cup liners (bonus points if you use ones with Halloween/autumn themed cheer).

2. Whisk together eggs, butternut, oil, butter, and vanilla in a large bowl. Stir in the dates, walnuts, and pecans.

3. Sift the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, clove, cardamom, ginger, and salt into the pumpkin mixture. Using a rubber spatula, mix in the flour mixture until it is just moistened.

4. Evenly distribute the batter into the muffin cups. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from pan when cool and either cool completely on wire rack or eat immediately. I would recommend the last bit.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

Happy Autumn! Why is there only one week left of October?!? It went by wayyy too fast (but I'm not complaining since that means I'm half way done with the school semester!) Oh how I wish it could be October all the time... anyhow, I've finally managed to go a little pumpkin crazy the past few weeks at least, thank goodness. I've needed something to balance out my busy studious life. Pumpkin patching, baking, and eating are all enough to make me pretty stoked on just about everything in life. All I need is pumpkin. Seriously.

Or maybe I could just turn into a pumpkin.

That would be really cool.

(I probably will turn into a pumpkin at the rate I'm going...)

My lovely friend Tyler and I went to Farmer John's Pumpkin Patch up highway 1 a few weekends ago and had a pumpkin freak-out. It was awesome. The October issue of Sunset magazine featured this place as one of the best farms to find "offbeat" pumpkins. So of course that sparked an interest. And I got about 5-6 pumpkins and squashes that ended up costing me only $20! Way cheaper than I expected. Maybe it was because I had a little self control (as opposed to the other years I've gone). It was pretty darn cool. I just wish some place around here carried cheese pumpkins! I've been searching all over for them. But they may just be an east coast squash because of the climate. I'm not sure. More research is needed to be done... supposedly they are the best pumpkins for pies and soups. Maybe I'll have to resort to buying some seeds perhaps...

As far as the baking and eating goes, this vegan chocolate pumpkin date (fat-free) bundt cake is what started it all off. It was a recipe from the Vegetarian Times cookbook that I'd had dog-eared for quite some time, but I added my own spin on it by using spelt flour (bad idea) and by mixing a little cocoa powder in there for an extra twist. How did it turn out? Not so good. Dry. Flavorless. Boring. But the chocolate sauce made with brown rice syrup and almond extract was quite good! So, needless to say, I won't be posting the recipe. It's just a bit disappointing. The words "fat-free" should have been cautionary enough. No oil in vegan baking is just bad, bad, bad. A big no-no. Add to that spelt flour and what you get is yikes! dryness. So yeah, there you have it. If you're looking for a NON-vegan version of this (what inspired me to make it with the cocoa swirl from the get-go), maybe try out this recipe. I think I'll go that route next time... it calls for buttermilk and eggs. How can that fail?

So as much as I do love vegan baking, this little experiment turned me off a bit from it. I haven't given up on it of course, but I suppose it turned me into the complete opposite direction. Like into the direction of eggs. Cream cheese. And BUTTER.

Yes. You heard that right.

That equals out to be these delicious pumpkin cheesecake bars!

I have never made or baked with cream cheese to make any sort of cheesecake before. I'm typically not a cheesecake kind of gal. It is usually sickeningly rich and after the first few bites, I'm over it. But you can give me a piece of pumpkin cheesecake any day and I'll happily take it off your hands. Who knows what brought on this craving, but I was certainly feeling it one afternoon and I was in the perfect baking mood. And I just so happened to have a block of neufchatel cheese. Only one though, so my cheesecake cake had to be scaled down into bars because typical recipes like this one typically call for four packages or so. I find that a bit unnecessary, especially as it can add up cost-wise pretty quickly! So I made it into bars by using a few various recipes. And they came out amazingly well. Not too rich, just the right amount of creaminess, spiciness, pumpkin and graham cracker goodness. And those little bits on top are crystallized ginger, incase you were wondering. Pretty much is equivalent to the cherry on top. Yes, I'm pretty proud of this one. Just wait. Make it and you'll understand.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

Makes 8-12 bars, depending on many factors of course... (you may not want to share)

For the crust:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup chopped pecans

zest of one lemon

For the filling:

8 oz. neufchatel cheese, softened

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cup pureed pumpkin

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

pinch of cloves and cardamom

Directions for the crust:

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until the crumbs look moistened by the butter.

Press into an 8x8 pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes or so until the crumbs look a little browned.

Let cool slightly.

Directions for the filling:

With a handheld mixer, beat together the cheese and sugar on low to medium speed until combined. Add the eggs, pumpkin, vanilla, and spices and beat on low until all combined and smooth.

Pour over the crust.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, or until set and slightly browned on the edges.

Cool and/or refrigerate and cut into bars (or cut em up with cute cookie cutters!)