photo op: this IS fall

RER 10.28.16

Fall is spicy and sweet, pumpkins and apples, warmth and cool air.  Fall is the mix of cold mornings and sunny afternoons with the rustle of leaves, amber from the changing seasons. Fall is light when it used to be dark and dark when it used to be light.  Fall is a mix of dichotomies, opposites that attract and mingle and meld to make the beautiful.

RER 10.28.16

RER 10.28.16

RER 10.28.16

RER 10.28.16

A few weekends ago, fall was the smell of sliced fat apples warming in brown sugar and butter, seeped in spices. I finally was able to use some gifted apples (I am a teacher) and made fall tumble into my newish kitchen.  The roasty caramelized apples sat atop some plain Greek yogurt and meal-prep protein waffles for a scrumptious and comforting autumnal brekkie. No recipe, just brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, vanilla, allspice, love, and fall.

RER 10.28.16 

RER 10.28.16

RER 10.28.16

RER 10.28.16

How have you cooked up fall?

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11.12.16

RER 10.28.16

MangiaMore: APPLE cinnamon white cake

RER 11.11.14

Somehow apples always seem to get abandoned in my boyfriend’s fridge. He knows I love apples (they say an apple a day keeps the doctor away) so he buys me some and then they sit. He likes to get me my favorite varieties, so that means sometimes there’s a few Honeycrisp waiting for me or a plastic bag with gala apples inside. We like to pretend we use them for whole bunch of things, but in the end, those autumn jewels wait patiently in the refrigerator until their time is almost up.

RER 11.11.14

RER 11.10.14

RER 11.10.14

This time we had three pretty bright red and yellow green gala apples aging and getting tired. We were supposed to make something with them this weekend, something delicious to celebrate Fall. I gave up baking over the weekend but found the recipe I wanted (I was literally ready to eat it, just not too enthused to make it).  So, on Monday afternoon I got to work and ended up with this Apple Cinnamon White Cake.

RER 11.10.14

RER 11.11.14

The extremely easy recipe involved layering delicious vanilla intensive batter with fresh chopped apple(s) and the spicy sweet mixture of cinnamon and brown sugar. Easy as 1-2-3. The loaf cake is like a coffee cake with brown sugar and cinnamon crunchy and crumbly on its crown and a multitude of soft and tangy sweet apples inside. Despite having no spices in the cake, there is a lovely swirl of cinnamon throughout, making this a great autumn breakfast, especially with the apples. It’s buttery, spicy, fruity, fall-like and above all, super yum.

RER 11.11.14

RER 11.10.14

RER 11.10.14

What do you do when you have extra apples? 'Tis the season for apples, most def! Would love to hear about your favorite fall apple recipes!

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11.10.14

RER 11.11.14

MangiaMore: free-form PEAR tart

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RER 10.27.14

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It’s fall. And things are falling— temperatures, leaves, and pears. There is a pear tree near my boyfriend’s house, so in recent weeks he had accumulated a fair number of freshly fallen or plucked pears. Before long, we had more than we really knew what to do with, so we decided one free Monday, we would make a free-form pear tart.

Neither of us had any free-form tart experience other than gazing at all the beautiful fall galettes on Instagram, featuring perfect spirals of fruit and just browned edges. So this was an experiment.

RER 10.27.14

JAR 10.27.14

Experiments in my mind involve mixing, and as usual, we combined recipes in search of a delectable result. To make the crust, we took the base of this recipe as the ingredients were simple and readily available in the pantry. Our pear filling came from the Ellie Krieger’s Food Network Rustic Pear Tart guidelines. 

RER 10.27.14

RER 10.27.14

In the end, our tart looked just like our fresh pears- organic and imperfect. It was like a kindergartener got its hands on shapes and playdough. We didn’t put care into arranging our fruit filling into a lovely pattern or fit the pear pieces into idyllic moments. It was simple, fast, and to be euphemistic, rustic.

RER 10.27.14

RER 10.27.14

Despite its unpolished aesthetic, it was pretty tasty. The pears were just sweet enough, and still a little firm, holding up to the surprisingly buttery and flaky crust. It had hints of fall through cinnamon and brown sugar and made for a satisfying afternoon snack with warmed apple cider from Demarest Farms. #thisisfall

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10.27.14

RER 10.27.14

 

not just nourishment: fall fun with PUMPKIN(s)

RER 10.27.14

So we saw beautiful fall harvest foods when we went to Demarest Farms over the weekend. We ate some tasty snacks from the farm, and picked out a pumpkin from the patch to bring home with us. The next day was dedicated to carving that pumpkin of ours and roasting the seeds for a yummy treat, like we did last year.

RER 10.26.14

RER 10.27.14

RER 10.26.14

RER 10.26.14

Ok, we also ate more apple cider doughnuts and made a fall dessert of our own. Stay tuned for more fall fun and deliciousness. Don’t forget to follow on facebook, instagram, twitter, and yelp to keep up with all the food adventures.

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10.27.14

RER 10.26.14