Glide Zen

I just couldn't wait any longer. I say it's officially time for a Fall inspired post. I love all the flavors of Fall. The aromatic spices, the caramel apples, the pumpkin pie and the fresh off the cob corn. One of my favorite Fall flavors is pumpkin. It's natural sweetness and moisture along with it's power packed nutrition makes it a perfect choice for countless dishes and desserts.  I created this recipe to be a thicker bar than my banana bars because I received several comments of people saying they'd like a thicker bar. These are basically the same thickness of cake, so you can call it pumpkin cake if you'd like. I chose to make this a bit lower fat than your average pumpkin bar by using half butter and half applesauce (rather than all butter or  oil). You would never know it is halfway healthy =). I love when I can turn a Superfood into a dessert (if you top them with walnuts you can get two Superfoods between the pumpkin and walnuts). Try these bars...

I know I've already posted these caramel apples, but since I've been doing this food blog nearly a year I've learned a few tricks about food photography so I just wanted to share some new photos. Plus these are one of my favorite treats so I figured I may as well share them again for those of you that weren't following along last year to see them.  I've made these caramel apples countless times and everyone always loves them. I mean who doesn't love a delicious, chewy, generously coated in caramel, chocolate covered, sprinkled with tasty toppings caramel apple? To take one bite is simply pure bliss. The chewy bite, the perfect texture and buttery stretch of the homemade caramel, ahhh. Words or pictures don't do them justice. I like to make them pretty and fancy, but if you want you can just dip and coat the entire apple with caramel. I just love having that vibrant beautiful green show through though. The natural color of fruit is just gorgeous, so ...

Wahoo! Time for the holidays... er... I mean next month, time for the holidays! My favorite time of year is the holidays. Why? All the food of course =)! That's why I'm getting way ahead of myself. I can't help it though, I saw these little candy pumpkins at the store the other day and thought, Oh I've just got to bake something with these. I bought a big bag then hid some up in the cupboard but somehow my family managed to sniff them out.  I guess the baking cupboard is a given, everyone knows I've got a huge stash of goodies up there =).  Luckily there were just enough left to make the perfect cupcake toppers for these delicious, bite size, Mini Pumpkin Cupcakes.  For this recipe, I basically combined my Pumpkin Bars recipe with the cupcake portion of my Pumpkin Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache and Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting (one of my favorite cupcakes). These cute mini cupcakes pack a lot of sweetness, moisture, flavor and pumpkin-y goodness int...

So maybe I'm a pumpkin addict. What a strange thing to be addicted to =). I love it! Hate it plain but love it in baked goods. Is there anyone out there that eats it plain by the spoonful? Ugh. Horrifying. That would be like eating canned beets! No no, not that bad. There's nothing worse than canned beets. I tasted a bit of plain pumpkin puree when I was making these and it tasted like a spoonful of mushy, far too healthy to be good for you, baby food. Maybe if you were to jazz it up with some sort of spices and lots of butter than maybe, just maybe. Add a little sugar in there and I'll eat it for sure. Not sure why I'm talking about that... so, onto the cookies! I love love LOVE Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. I don't know how you could not love the sweet, delicious little pillows of baked pumpkin-y goodness.  I found this recipe over at allrecipes.com. I created my own adaptation, because really how do I stick to a recipe? I love to put my own spin on things....

That's right people, I'm getting my craft on =). I don't craft much, I used to a lot more when I was younger. Secretly I want to be the next Martha Stewart so I wish I had more time to do it all =). I call this my Pumpkin Snowman, although the site I adapted it from calls it a "Halloween Jack-O'-Lantern Totem." Pumpkin Snowman is just easier to remember and easier to say. I just wanted to share because if you don't craft (or if you do) this is one of the easiest crafts you could possibly make. I'm talking paint, glue, ribbon over some faux pumpkins with a little bit of cutting. It was actually really fun to make and I love having him on my front porch to welcome visitors and soon all the Trick-or-Treaters. I made it last year and it's actually held up really well since it's made from the faux pumpkins. Happy Halloween! Here is what you will need: 2 white faux pumpkins 1 orange faux pumpkin (make sure they pumpkins are all they clos...