halloween-inspired treats.

I'm not the scary Halloween type - I'm more the "let's make halloween-themed desserts and decorate the house with huge spiders, witches, ghosts, and pumpkins so I can pretend I can handle scary" person.

Hence these desserts came out a little cuter than planned. Nonetheless! I made a vow to make one themed dessert for every week of October, and I was able to mostly stick to it. Below are a couple examples that of what I made to celebrate Halloween.

intense pumpkin pie.

I know Thanksgiving passed, but I heard a Christmas song today that referenced pumpkin pie.

"When they pass around the coffee and the puuuummmppkin pie."

So this pie is still relevant. The "intense" part of the name is a reflection of how I like to live life - intensely. Running the Big Chill (5K) in the freezing cold at 9am on a Saturday? Intense. Breaking down 50 boxes and getting a major paper cut on my wrist at work? Intense. Brushing my teeth this morning? Intense.

Whether you agree with me on the above is irrelevant - just know that making this pie is not a simple process. It is totally different from the pumpkin pie recipe I posted 2 years ago. [Wow has it been two years?!] This one involves a cooked filling, ginger, candied yams, and heavy cream. Sounds pretty good to me so far ..

eggnog ricotta cheesecake.

Coming home is the most wonderful thing ever. I am always reminded of how important family is, and that there is more to the world than just education, although that's obviously important too.

I have also become enlightened in many different ways. For one, my parents are an unending source of wisdom. And humor. Yesterday my dad mentioned how he totally expected me to come home with a puppy, as I've been wanting one for a while. 

I said our current dog would act motherly towards the puppy. He responded by saying no, the puppy would just be annoying to my current dog, and bite her legs all the time. 

My mom countered by pointing out that my little brother doesn't bite my legs all the time, so why would a puppy bite my dog's legs?

cranberry walnut stuffed french toast.

Sometimes you want to forego the oatmeal and cereal for a hearty, sweet, satisfying breakfast. This definitely fills all those requirements.

specialty pans: zoo animals & stars!

Holiday time has arrived! I am inclined to put a little more effort into making things look nice and be more themed around this time of year.

Enter: these molds.

Look at them. They're adorable! I want to go buy a pretty plate so I can display them on something other than a scratched up 9x13 baking pan or the really old white bowl I eat oatmeal in. Actually, with only one final to go and all day to study, I may just go shopping now ...

But that's besides the point. The focus is on these molds.

owl cupcakes! (+ other Halloween-themed ideas)

Do you have any plans for Halloween?

I'm not a fan of the holiday. My favorite part are those thick Reese's peanut butter cups shaped like pumpkins! And the candy corn. Brach's has my back. 

Despite my general aversion to Halloween festivities, I did think writing a piece on Halloween-themed finger foods for the university newspaper would be a fun idea! These adorable cupcakes were featured.

cutout cookies.

It was hard not putting an exclamation after the name in the title - these cookies are so attractive!

I almost had a heart attack when my mom told me she'd given away all our Christmas cookie cutters, as I was rolling out this dough and ready to bake up some Winnie the Poohs dressed up as Santa ... #firstworldproblems. I survived, you'll be glad to hear.

peppermint bark medallions.

Oh hai thur! I'm home for good, fellas. Fellas makes me feel like I'm from a Spaghetti Western, the genre of Western films that were produced by Italians, namely Sergio Leone, who also went by Bob Robertson in order to appeal to a larger American audience.

I took a History of Italian Cinema final a couple days ago, if you can't tell. That's an immediate side effect of finishing finals - your brain, now saturated with copious amounts of information, starts making relations of mundane things to things you learned in class. 

Someone said "rules" yesterday .. immediately thought of cadherins. Thank you, cell biology. I still feel a need to wholly understand how those proteins work ..

More importantly though, are peppermint bark medallions, which might be the easiest things you could make in the history of ever.

pumpkin pie.

I'm aware it's December (isn't that crazy?! it's already the end of the year!) and that pumpkin pie is a more fall thing. Frankly, I don't give a damn.

Look at me going all Rhett Butler.