Vors Of Fall | Bake & Cook With Me Using Autumn Ingredients!

You are well and having a beautiful start to your October. I cannot believe it's October already, I feel like September just flew by and I'm determined to savor all of the rest of our autumn days. So today I thought it would be fun to cook a bunch of different recipes and really utilize and highlight those fall flavors. So I put together a bit of a menu for us, it's basically going to be one giant cook with me and we're going to make some of my favorite fall recipes. So first and foremost, an absolute classic, pumpkin muffins. We're not even going to get too fancy with this, I just love a classic pumpkin muffin. I recently made pumpkin bread a few days ago and it was divine, so I'll link that recipe as well. It's just so simple and I love when the pumpkin's really highlighted. So we're going to make some pumpkin muffins, switch it up, we have pumpkin bread, now we'll do muffins. It's so great in the morning with coffee and it's just perfect for this time of year. And then we're also going to make a honey crisp harvest salad. I feel like this is a great option if you do live in a warmer climate like I do, I still love making soups and those warm dishes, but it is sort of more of a refreshing recipe as well and the dressing that goes along with this is my favorite part of it. Just the flavor combinations are really beautiful. And then we're also going to make some stuffed sweet potatoes, which sweet potatoes are one of my favorite ingredients. They're so versatile and you can really play with the flavors, whether you want to sweeten them up even more or you want to make a savory and really just juxtapose those savory and sweet flavors. Love those. So we have a fun filling for the sweet potatoes. And then lastly, we're going to make butternut squash pasta. So we have a great lineup. I also made a soup the other day, which I'll show you the ingredients and also link that recipe. As I was putting together this menu, I'm like, we're not going to make a soup on this day. That just didn't feel right. So I want to highlight a soup I made a couple of days ago. That's just a classic go-to and I'll give you a look at that, but really excited to cook and really, again, soak up and savor the rest of the autumn season together. We're also working on our sourdough loaves today, which it is looking really good. It's currently in its bulk fermentation, but it rises so much quicker in the warmer months. It's just always, I'm always in awe by it. And I was a little nervous because I ran out of bread flour, which I usually exclusively use bread flour for our sourdough, but we did run out. So I subbed all purpose flour for the rest of the recipe and we're running low on all purpose flour. So I may just half the pumpkin muffin recipe, or we might be okay. It only calls for about one cup of flour. So we'll see what we can do. We are scraping the bottom of this flour dish. We almost use every last bit of flour. I don't have a technical pumpkin pie spice mix, so I always just sort of DIY it when a recipe calls for pumpkin pie mix. I'm just going to give Palmer this little lid lick. This is how the sous chef receives his payment. I save pretty much every single eggshell and I love to put it in the garden because it adds extra nutrients, but this little guy, he loves to eat them. So I try to put it in places where he can't really reach them, but they're actually good for dogs too. So thankfully it's not a huge concern. Every time I'm baking, if a recipe has vanilla in it, which in my opinion, the best baking recipes do have vanilla, I always put extra because I just love the vanilla flavor and I've never regretted that decision. I'm adding in some walnuts for a nice little crunch. Instead of adding cupcake liners, I'm going to grease the pan with some coconut oil. Our first batch is in the oven, so I'm making eight muffins in total. I did half the recipe due to our lack of flour, but that's perfectly fine. I honestly kind of like having recipes because I just feel like baked goods taste the best the first couple of days of eating it. And just between the two of us, we can't really consume 14 muffins. Well, we could, but you know, we might get kind of sick of them. So it worked out perfectly. And while the oven's on, I actually want to start prepping the sweet potatoes so that we can just transition right into baking those, be more energy efficient. And I also wanted to talk about the autumn bake off, the 2023 autumn bake off. Last year, my friend Liz, she hosted a bake off for our friends and it was so fun. It was just a cute concept. And I love watching the Great British Baking Show. Really any baking show competition is just fun to watch. So we got to live that in real life. And last year I ended up winning, which I was not thinking I would because, well, one, I baked it for the first time that day and I messed up a few things. So I was like, okay, well, we're showing up where we tried our best, but I did end up winning. So this year I really, I feel like I got a step up my game and I was thinking what I wanted to bake. And last year I baked a chocolate bourbon pie. Oh, a chocolate bourbon pecan pie. So I wanted to go with that because I just felt like it was a little different opposed to, you know, your classic pecan pie or, you know, the apple pie or anything pumpkin flavored. I thought it would be a little different because I was thinking, oh, well, everyone, not everyone, but quite a few people will probably make something pumpkin-y. So I wanted to sort of have something different. And I feel like that worked out nicely. And personally, I'm such a chocolate lover that selfishly I wanted something chocolaty at this bake off. So I'm thinking, what if I just did it again? What if I made the same pie again? Is that lame or is that smart? And then it'll be like, well, this is the winner of last year, this baked dish. So if you win against this, like it's, I don't know, it could be kind of cool. So I'm brainstorming, but I think I'm going to go in that direction, but just try to level up and learn from my mistakes from last year. Okay, the muffins are complete. They smell amazing. We have a special guest ready to do a taste test. Tell me about them. Automatically, as soon as it hit in my mouth, my taste buds, it just was a fall explosion. Wow. They're just pumpkin muffins, but I put walnuts, walnuts. I love the crunch of the walnuts. Yeah, I was going to say, that was a really good addition. Sorry, I ate the whole thing on top. It's okay. We have honey. And the pumpkin, like comes through really well too. What's your rating? Must. It's not too much. Minus 10 out of 10. It's like my perfect pumpkin muffin. Same. It's perfect. And you know, he's a harsh critic. Here are the finished sweet potatoes. It looks and smells amazing. I will say one downside of cooking or roasting the Brussels sprouts is that you won't have as much of a crunch as you would if you had them raw. So just do what you think would be the yummiest. But I did try the salad on its own and it's very, very tasty. I love the apple cider vinegar in it. Okay, taste test. Number two. Sweet potato in a mushroom bowl. This one's actually mine. That one's yours over there. We probably could have just shared one at this point, but we need to pace ourselves. We still have two more recipes to make. The smell is lovely. It might be kind of hot, so. I like it. I like it a lot. The Brussels sprouts, I'm just not that big of a Brussels sprouts kind of gal. But it's good. And it's healthful. And it gives you that full flavor profile. What do you think? It's good. You like it? For real? Yeah. Yeah, just a lot of flavors. Interesting flavors together. But I mean, it's like just a lot of things I like together. It's different. I had to change my mind coming from that muffin. Yeah, the muffin. We can't stop talking about the muffins. Something I really want to do soon that I'm just looking forward to is the chili and baked potato combo. Just that classic combo. So good. This actually gets yummier the more I eat it too, so. No, this is good. Like the apples. And the crunch. Nice. That's good. We have officially begun our third course, our butternut squash pasta. And I'm also going to make the salad too, but just focusing on cooking the butternut squash and all of that. Because that will take a bit of time. And I used most of the butternut squash, but I do have this part left over. And I'm just going to roast it once I'm done with what we have in there now. And probably give it to Palmer. Because I love recipes with butternut squash, but only like one recipe a week. I get a little tired of it. So I don't know how long this will last since I already kind of cut into it. But apparently it's really good for dogs, so I'll just cook this for him. And I did save the seeds because I'm going to roast these just like we would pumpkin seeds. They look almost identical to pumpkin seeds, just a little smaller. So I'm going to roast them with some paprika and some ground pepper, salt. Oh, it's one of my favorite snacks, the pumpkin seeds. And I feel like we've done this before last year. I just don't really remember exactly. But from what I do remember, it tastes similar. So that'll be a nice little bonus item. The butternut squash seeds are so delicious and crunchy. And they really do basically taste exactly like the pumpkin seeds. So I am all about it. I have cooked my heart out. We have such a nice feast. We've been eating good today, huh? Yeah, indeed. Okay, so the pasta looks stunning. What do you want to try first, the pasta or the salad? We've had the salad before last year. I don't know if you remember it. Okay. It's the half-baked harvest recipe. We love her. We love Teagan. Yes. Do you want to try this first? Sure. Should we already have it? Something about Brandon, he loves kale. Like, loves it. Especially lately. You know my thing. Kale, cheese, like the parmesan and all the others. Apples. And you like fruit in salads, too. I do. Pomegranates. There are nuts. I see nuts. Walnuts? Delish. Pecans, actually. Pecans? Pecan. With maple and cayenne and cinnamon. Love it. I tried to get it all mixed, like a little sampler for us, because I don't know. I didn't want to put the dressing all over the whole salad. Like the spice. Yeah. Autumn spice. It's very autumnal for a salad. Love it. Is that from the nuts? Yes. And the dressing has sage and thyme, so that's some good flavor notes. Okay. Now for the pasta. And I want to pick our favorite recipes of the day. Like an order of favorite to least favorite. Out of four things, right? I like these noodles. Yeah, me too. You really taste the butternut squash. It's really good. I'm glad you found the sun-dried tomatoes. Yeah, I could not find the sun-dried tomatoes. It was one of those moments where it was literally right in front of my face, but you found them for me. But without the sun-dried tomatoes, that would have been a loss. It would not hit the same. It's really good. Yeah. Okay, again. You have your ratings? Yep. I'm going to guess. How should we do it? Okay. I'll guess yours. Yours is pumpkin muffins first. Go through all of it. Pumpkin muffins, the pasta, the salad, the sweet potatoes. Yep. I know his palate is so good. Okay, let me think of mine. I think mine might surprise you. I have it though. Muffins? Sweet potatoes? Salad? Pasta? And sweet potatoes. I was trying to see what the surprise is. Yeah, I threw you off. No, that was unfair. I thought having the salad high up would be a surprise to you. So, basically, moral of the story, make the muffins, but all of the recipes were really delicious. And the salad. Yeah. All of them were good. The potatoes were just different. They were interesting. It was good. It was good, but the other stuff, like everything else was really good. Phenomenal. Thank you so much for watching. I really hope you enjoyed this Flavors of Fall video, and I hope you have a beautiful rest of your autumn season, and I'm excited to see you next. Bye!