HAPPY CHALLAH-WEEN (Pumpkin Challah Bread recipe)

We picked up some amazing pumpkins at White Gates Farm and one is just aching to become our jack-o-lantern. The pie pumpkins have been our table centerpieces.  I love pumpkins in the fall and winter because they store well, they can be added to many dishes for a depth of flavor (and vitamins and nutrients).  They make great baby puree and blends.  But the desserts are really why we know and love pumpkins the most. 

Autumn Apple Sticky Bun (recipe)

I tend to read cook books like novels. Yesterday I watched as my daughter flipped through our weathered copy of Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Clearly, that book gets a lot of love in this house! She was thoroughly entranced in the images of fluffy brioche, croissants, pizza, “mama, what’s this PURPLE bread?” “that’s a sourdough with blue cheese and walnuts…” “oh, I like purple bread! mmmmm.” She asked which ones we had made and which ones we could make.  Then she grabbed the next cookbook, Rustic Fruits Desserts and flipped and dreamed about eating all the other yummy things, I certainly was..  We finally decided on mixing up two recipes we had tried before with apples.

Curling into Autumn

It is September, the in-between month up here in New Hampshire. I can feel the shift to Autumn and the change in the air.  Oh goodness, most of us get all excited when the coffee shops start to make pumpkin flavored things and our flannel and sweaters start creeping from the boxes in the closet or that bottom drawer.