homemade pumpkin puree.

I've had two baby pumpkins forever (only one is shown above .. the other was already chopped). They've been waiting patiently on the counter for about a month, while I've been watching them decline into what was soon to be foul fish-smelling, melting, rotting orange flesh (I hope none of you have ever experienced a severely neglected pumpkin).

Fortunately, recently I was able to come back to the apartment in time to make dinner! A rare occurrence mind you. 

And before I starting sauteeing onions, mushrooms, corn, and alfalfa sprouts with farro and egg, I prepared these pumpkins for a nice toasty visit to the oven.

red wine chocolate cake.

I recently bought this wine - it's called Sweet Red and total college budget level (Carlo Rossi anyone?). Wine is definitely growing on me, especially red. I mean no big deal that I can't pair it with food or make any knowledgable comment about it whatsoever, but I'm slowly learning!

So this Sweet Red. I tried it, and was like, yeah it's totally sweet! Then I looked at the label and was like oh yeah. It's totally less than 10% alcohol. So it's sort of like juice. Right?

Ha ha. Kidding. But that's more sugar than I would want in an occasional drink with dinner. So I decided that it must be put into cake. It made perfect sense to me. And apparently to Deb from Smitten Kitchen, too, because that's where I found the recipe for this delicious cake.

chocolate chip cookies II.

Oh baking. It's been so long.

This is embarrassing to admit, but from the moment I started beating butter with the sugars for these (albeit normal, but delicious) cookies, I literally became so happy. It was like somebody injected ... I don't know what drug makes you super relaxed (crack pie from momofuku??), but that, directly into my veins and instantly circulated throughout my body.