fall eats | Anecdotes and Apple Cores

Here we are again, with another recipe and another post. I think many who don’t blog often wonder how we do it. Or why. This endless parade of dishes, photographed and styled with care, and the words, post after post with words describing how sweet something tastes or how smoothly it glides across the tongue. And there are days when even I wonder how and why I continue to do this. To share my story through pictures and words.

But then I remember the simplicity of standing in a kitchen with a counter of ingredients. Bags of sugar and flour. Aluminum cartons of baking powder. Freshly ground spices. And fruit browning in a bowl. I remember the pleasure of watching those ingredients come together. The art in taking things that are disparate and making them whole. To share those creations is a way of saying that beauty and pleasure still matter. That food is much more than what you put on your plate. Food can be the root of conversation, the root of love, the root of family. And by sharing it with all of you, I affirm that the gift of food has measurable worth.

This pumpkin bundt cake came together on a crisp fall afternoon. I pulled it from oven, let it rest, and it fell (beautifully and painlessly) from its pan onto a cooling rack. If bundt cakes have taught me anything, it’s the value of patience. Turn a bundt cake out too soon, and you end up with a puzzle you have to try to put back together again. Once upright, I slathered my cake cake with a mixture of melted butter and maple syrup, and then generously coated it with cinnamon and sugar until it glistened and smelled like my grandmother’s house on Christmas morning. And when I took pictures of the cake an hour or two later, I felt that familiar rush of joy that comes from a job well done.

Pumpkin Bundt Cake

2-1/2 cups sugar
1 cup canola oil
3 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin
Confectioners’ sugar

1/4 cup melted butter

1/4 cup maple syrup

Cinnamon Sugar (about 1/2 cup)

1. In a large bowl, combine sugar and oil until blended. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and cloves in a separate bowl; fold into egg mixture alternately with pumpkin, beating well after each addition.

2. Transfer to a well-greased and floured 10-in. fluted tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 60-65 minutes or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 20 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack. While cooling, whisk together melted butter and maple syrup in a small bowl. Coat sides and top of cake with mixture and dust generously with cinnamon sugar mixture.

Monet

Anecdotes and Apple Cores

Time to go traipsing. Through forests covered in thick layers of moss. At least this is how I feel after the rainy weekend we’ve had in Austin. My longing for outdoor days is awakening. We’ve had such heat these past months, and with the promise of a cooler season, I’m rummaging my house for outdoor gear.

This is what I want to be doing. Wearing a white dress with a classic pair of wellies. There are ample creeks and rivers within miles of our home, and I know they’d welcome me. I’d bring myself, long legged and still pitifully pale. Run, walk, splash. This is how fall is meant to be done.

And to make a day even better, I’d find an apple orchard somewhere in Austin. I don’t think these exist here (much to my dismay) but in my dream world, they do. I’d pick a pound or two, and then cut them into paper thin slices, which would later rest on the racks of a dehydrator until they were ready to be chopped and added to this apple almond granola.

Because outdoor weather calls for outdoor fare, I can think of nothing better than a bag of granola to keep me satiated as I explore. This apple almond granola is full of the good stuff–flaxseeds, oats, sunflower seeds, honey, dried apples, and a heap of almond butter. Simple, satisfying, and sure to keep your body strong.

Not only is this apple almond granola perfect for outdoor hiking, but for school and work too. I keep a bag with me wherever I go, and you can often find me with a few granola crumbs on my shirt (embarrassing but true).

So while I order this season’s pair of Hunter wellies. You make this granola. I have a glass jar in my kitchen that I keep stocked year round, and I’m happy to be moving into more fall-inspired granola recipes. What I like most about this apple almond granola is how well it clumps together (a granola making win thanks to an ample helping of almond butter!). And then, of course, anything with apples makes me smile. And it will make you, your little ones, and your friends smile too.

Apple Almond Granola

1 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or pecans)
4 cups old fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup finely shredded unsweetened coconut flakes
1 cup dried apples
1/4 cup ground flax seeds
1/4 cup raw, organic honey
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup almond butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Mediterranean sea salt

1. Preheat your oven to 300 degrees Farenheit. Set aside two large cookie sheets.

2. In a large bowl, mix together almond, walnuts, rolled oats, coconut flakes, and flax seeds. Set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together honey, maple syrup, almond butter, vanilla, cinnamon, and sea salt. Pour wet ingredients over oat mixture. Stir with a large wooden spoon or spatula. Divide between two cookie sheets, spreading into a thin layer.

3. Bake in oven for 30-50 minutes (this is a matter of granola preference…the longer you leave it in, the crisper it becomes). Once removed from oven, add in chopped dried apples. Allow to cool completely before storing in a glass container.