Crisp

Fall is finally here or at least I think it is. After a long hot summer the weather has began to cool and the leaves have begun to change color. This is my favorite time of year! These cooler temperatures are such a nice break from the crazy heat we've experienced this summer. It's nice to be able to snuggle up in a cozy sweater and to wear jeans and not melt. This past Friday I went Geocaching with my buddy Ross. It was so wonderful because we weren't dying of heat and we weren't freezing. It was the perfect temperature. During the winter we had gone caching and on that particular day it was absolutely freezing and a good majority of the caches we searched for were under waist deep heights of snow....it was quite the adventure. But this last caching trip was great. We found loads of caches and found so many interesting things. I love geocaching because it's such a learning experience. It takes you to places you may have never been before, to places you never knew existed. Also many caches will bring you to historical sites where you learn something about that particular area or some historically significant person. Caching gives you both physical and mental exercise! It's awesome!! When we were caching on Friday we even ran in to 3 fellow cachers. I felt like such a nerd afterwards because when we introduced ourselves we introduced ourselves as our caching names not our real names and we also had talks about the weather and how there were few "muggles" around which means few non-geocachers. It was quite the day!

Fall also brings out the fall smells and flavors. It's one of my favorite parts of this time of year. I've been baking a lot with pumpkin! I love the mixture of pumpkin with the amazing spices that usually are mixed with it. The smells of cinnamon fill the house when one of my pumpkin creations are in the oven. It's such a relaxing fragrance! The other fall ingredient I have been using is apples. I recently made homemade applesauce. I had some apples sitting in the fridge that were most likely going to go to waste so I looked up an applesauce recipe online and was able to find a super simple recipe. It was:

4 apples peeled, cored and chopped

1/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup water

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix all the ingredients together in a saucepan and cook on medium heat until apples are soft. Once soft let them cool and then mash up with a potato masher. (I was lazy and have a crappy potato masher so I through the mixture into my Magic Bullet and mashed them up that way).

The recipe only yielded about a cup or so of applesauce but it was absolutely delicious!! I highly suggest making some if you are an applesauce fan like myself. Now that the weather is cooling, I've been baking so much more. I have many plans of what I want to bake. Today I'm going to make some mini banana loaves because I have some bananas that are rather brown sitting on the counter right now. The current issue of Rachael Ray's magazine is full of so many fall cooking/baking inspirations. I am most looking forward to making severed finger cookies!! The sound disgusting but look amazing and fun. From the recipe I believe the cookie will have a shortbread taste to it. You roll it into a finger shape. Cut in some knuckle lines and add a slivered almond as a finger nail. After the cookies are baked you dip the "severed" end into raspberry jam that has been reduced on a saucepan. They are going to be AWESOME!!! Can't wait to make them.

Enjoy the crisp weather and I encourage you to experiment with the flavors of fall!! :)