salad time: diy pomegranate vinaigrette

Mister and I usually dress our salads with a mixture of crushed garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. Lately I have been wanting to jazz up our salads with a bit more and decided to whip up a vinaigrette or two. Having previously made dressings using blood oranges from our garden I thought why not pomegranate? I had a lovely batch of seeds/arils camping out in the freezer and thought it shouldn't be too difficult to juice 'em but then I found POM Wonderful on sale at my market for $1 and promptly picked up a wee bottle.

pomegranate vinaigrette

*1/2 cup olive oil

*1/2 cup pomegranate juice

*1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

*2 T finely chopped red onion, garlic, or shallot

*salt and pepper to taste

Pour ingredients into a jar, add lid and shake, shake, shake! Dress a salad of mixed greens, add chopped red onion, and sprinkle with pomegranate arils and roasted pepitas. This makes enough dressing to dress your salads for a week, store in the fridge and use up in ten days, enjoy! 

sweet november: breakfast time

Good morning, friends! Here is a nifty french toast treat for all you pumpkin spice adorers. If you are a fan of pumpkin cheesecake and/or cream cheese fill french toast then this is the recipe for you. There is a nit of texture involved so if you like yer french toast on the toasty side skip the complicated fancywork and add a bit of pureed pumpkin to your egg batter instead.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese French Toast Bites

*soft bread such as potato (8 slices)

*8oz cream cheese

*1/2 cup pureed pumpkin +2T

*1/4 cup powdered sugar

*rolling pin

*serrated knife

*3-4 eggs

*1/2 cup milk or half n half

*1 tsp vanilla

*1 tsp pumpkin spice

*skillet

Allow the cream cheese to soften and mix in the 1/2 cup pumpkin with a hand mixer until fluffier than fluffy. It will look a bit like frosting and would probably taste amazing on a batch of fudgy brownies.

Grab a slice of bread and roll out flat. Do not trim the crust off, when the crust crisps up in the skillet it adds to the overall tastiness of these french toast bites. After your slice of bread is nice and flat add a small dollop of the pumpkin cream cheese mixture and spread it across the bread and then gently roll your bread up.

Repeat for each slice and gently slice 4-5 bites out of each bit of rolled bread with a serrated knife. It may get a bit sloppy so use a serrated knife so as not to squish your pumpkin rolls too much.

Pile it all up onto a platter and prepare your batter. Crack eggs into a shallow bowl, add milk beverage of your choice, pumpkin spice, 2T pureed pumpkin, and vanilla and whisk it all up. Add a dollop of butter or butter substitute of choice to your hot skillet and get ready for some toasty goodness to happen. 

Place french toast bites into the batter and submerge before adding to your hot skillet. The heat will cause the cream cheese mixture to melt a bit so your bites won't be super pretty but they will be tasty! Cook until it reaches your desired bit of crispiness.

 Serve with a smattering of maple syrup, a sprinkle of roasted pepitas, and a dusting of powdered sugar, enjoy! 

sweet november: sweet treats

Happy day three of sweet november! I had planned to post a diy today along with my fall ensemble post but had a smidge of a snafu when I awoke with very unhappy ear and sinus pain. After a trip to the weekend doctor I am now loaded with meds and a bit too sleepy to do any crafting. I'm sure I will bounce back after a nap so for now you get two recipes of a sort with a couple of pretty pictures for good measure.

I left early this morning to be at the doc when the doors opened so as not to have to wait too long, because of that I left with no breakfast and well, a sick girl needs to make sure there is food in the belly when she begins dosing antibiotics and steroids. After I picked up my meds, I gave the mister a quick update with a phone call and asked if her would prep some oatmeal for me. When I got home, I made a few adjustments so I could enjoy a bowl of pumpkin oatmeal. Lookie...

While it was cooking, I added a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice and a tablespoon of pureed pumpkin and stirred it all up. In my bowl, I added a teaspoon of honey, a handful of pepitas, pomegranate seeds, a sprinkling of granola and a tablespoon of half and half.  It could definitely look a little prettier but I needed to eat and not stage a photo! Delicious! 

I've had some pumpkin in the fridge that has been camping out there for a smidge too long. I had previously read about all sorts of recipes using box mixes and pumpkin or soda or other bits so I thought why not? I dumped a box of brownie mix into a bowl, added the pumpkin (a little more than a cup) and then a wee bit of half and half when the dough looked a bit too cookie-doughy. 

The batter spread nicely in the glass baking dish and I popped the whole thing into a 350F oven for 28 minutes. After adding some pumpkin spice powdered sugar (a pinch of pumpkin spice with a pinch of powder sugar mixed up in a little bowl) I took some pretty pictures and got ready for a snack. I will now warn ya, this is super easy to make and appears to be a super dense brownie. Appears. It may be a little prettier than it tastes...sort of. The flavor is ridiculously rich. I have no sense of smell and the chocolate lingered in my mouth in a very pleasing way. The texture, however, is another species. The pumpkin makes the baked up brownie feel a lot like playdough. While the flavor is enticing and rich, the texture is a bit on the rubbery side. Methinks if you add an egg it will fluff up nicely so I would recommend that. Would I recommend this recipe as is? I would and am because the flavor is so tasty, just remember that the texture is on the wonky side so proceed at your own risk. 

Thank you for visiting sweet november and don't forget to check out the pink couch for a delicious recipe from Tara.

sweet november: spice it up

Lately it seems that fall is synonymous with pumpkin spice, not that I'm complaining but my last trip to Trader Joe's revealed more pumpkin spice goodies than you could shake a stick at. I may only be a tad bit whiny about it all as I love me some pumpkin spice but now that I am anosmic and have absolutely no sense of smell I can't help but be bummed out about missing all that goodness. I do have to tell you that I think all that pumpkin spice out there is a whole bunch of smoke and mirrors (she types as she takes a sip of her pumpkin spice chai latte) see there is no pumpkin in pumpkin spice, nope. Pumpkin spice is a lovely mashup that may contain cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg. It depends on the maker. 

I like my pumpkin spice on the fragrant spicy side and have a recipe to share with you. My recipe adds a bit of black pepper which you can leave out if you like, it also has a fair amount of ginger in it and if memory serves, I do believe Ms. Tara is not a fan of the ginger so you can leave that out as well. 

 This recipe will make a little more than you need to fill an empty spice jar, my little jar came from Cost Plus World Market. Pick up a bunch of spices in bulk and you can make a small army for holiday gifties. I use a teaspoon of the spice in my oatmeal and often add it it to my oatmeal cookies. This also works just dandy on apple dishes as well...it's what I use on my apple pie! I hope you enjoy me little recipe and project, don't forget to hop on over to the pink couch, I believe there is a lovely picnic to be looked at!