Pumpkin Eggnog Waffles with Chocolate Chips

Tender pumpkin waffles made with pumpkin spice eggnog, with chocolate chips inside and out.

Chocolate is a comfort food, and comfort foods are good in lousy situations. Traditions are comforting, too. So a tradition that involves chocolate can sometimes be just the ticket for comfort.

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I'm not certain how we started the tradition of going out for chocolate chip breakfast foods en route home from the airport after seeing off my spouse for a deployment. I think he had an early flight and we didn't want to wake the kids up until just before we were ready to leave. Dawn was breaking as I drove home, and I just wasn't ready to face reality so we stopped for breakfast. I ordered chocolate chip pancakes. The kids were young, and the idea of mom eating a mountain of chocolate for breakfast must have surprised them. The next time he deployed we had chocolate chip pancakes deliberately--something to look forward to after saying goodbye. After we moved to Ohio we had to adjust the tradition, as all military families learn to do. The next departure was on Mother's Day, and while at Waffle House eating chocolate chip waffles I got a carnation from the staff. Too sweet.

That brings you up to speed for the reasoning behind this recipe. This time the kids said goodbye and headed off to school, knowing that we'd get our chocolate chip waffles in a homemade version/after school snack so I could blog about it for #Choctoberfest.

Military children are nothing if not resilient. A food blogger's kids are nothing if not resigned to eating when the photos have been taken.  The day turned dark and gloomy, though, so I greeted my returning children with:

Yes, I know it's our tradition to eat chocolate chip waffles the day your father deploys, but the lighting is bad for taking photos. We'll have our waffles tomorrow, ok?

Gotta love kids that will roll with the changes life brings.

Some people celebrate ALL THINGS PUMPKIN by choice. I do it by necessity.

Despite never purposefully planting them,  I grow about a dozen pumpkins in my back yard every year. I hate to waste food, so that means I spend time each Fall processing a pile of pumpkins into puree. It also means that while my pantry is not stocked with cans of pumpkin the freezer has bags of puree stuffed every which way. I don't mind all the pumpkin. Because I put it up, I can choose the amount I want to have in each package. [If you're using canned pumpkin just double the recipe and use the entire can. It will be close enough.]

For more recipes using pumpkin, please see my Pumpkin Recipes Collection. This is part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me who eat seasonally or have a backyard prone to producing pie pumpkins. Want to know how to use this blog? Click here.

S'mores-filled Peanut Butter Oatmeal Blondies

Layers of thick whole grain oatmeal peanut butter cookie surround plenty of dark chocolate and mini marshmallows in this thick, gooey, and chewy treat.

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Hey ho! No, your calendar is not off. I've got a rogue Tuesday post because it's #Choctoberfest week! Raise your glass/fork/a little hell/spoon/hand and join in!

Let's talk about pans. Over the weekend I incinerated a pan of green beans that I'd merely meant to roast. I posted the photo of my epic fail over on my FB page, where I share all my epic fails. A friend asked if the pan was OK, and I replied 'you can't keep a good pan down'.

Do you have any well-loved kitchen items that you've received?

A good pan can last generations. The pan these blondies were baked in was handed down from my mom. [I baked Jujube Butter Oatmeal Bars in it last week, and she emailed 'is that my old pan?'.] Well, mom, here's your old pan again. I like to bake bar cookies in it for a few reasons--first, it's metal so the bars get a nice crisp bottom. Second, the bottom of the pan lifts out--leaving a clean edge to the bar. Third, it's an 8 inch square pan which means I've got less dessert staring me in the face.

My kids made a 9x13 pan of Sunny Hello Dolly Bars over the weekend because I am being a Good Mom and teaching them how to pull a dessert out of the pantry when you're craving something sweet and don't want to think too much or head to the store. Except no one wanted to pulverize graham crackers in the food processor, so I did it, and I didn't measure out the amount before transferring it to a bowl. When my son dumped the entire amount onto the melted butter . . . well, like I said, I'm teaching them. Life is a learning process.

I've got plenty of hand me down kitchen items. The stainless steel bowls from my mom and my late Grandma-in-law are used near daily, and the baking pans are used several times a month. It makes my heart smile to use a pan that's been loved by someone before me. I don't even have to know them--I get great stuff at thrift stores as well!

I'm damn lucky to live within walking distance of an awesome grocery store. They serve Killer Brownies® and we get them--and give them--for special occasions. Salted Caramel flavor is the best!
I decided to try my hand at making my own version of a filled bar cookie--but with s'mores flavors, since I haven't gotten enough s'mores this year. After a couple of attempts [like when testing the recipe for Cheater Margarita Smoothies, repeated testing is necessary] I'm happy to say this recipe is a keeper. Along with the pan.

Jujube Fruit and King Oyster Mushroom Sauté (Eating Direct from Farmers with Barn2Door)

Subtitle: Get Your Produce Direct From The Farmer

Jujube fruit and King Oyster mushrooms sautéed with a bit of farm share onion in roasted garlic-flavored olive oil and butter. An elegant appetizer made from produce direct from the farmer.

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Today's recipe uses rare-to-me ingredients that I got directly from the folks that grew them but in different ways. Disclosure: I received the jujube fruit from Barn2Door in exchange for writing about this new way to buy directly from the farmer. As a dorkily passionate supporter of keeping sustainable farmers in business, I am delighted to help spread the Good Word.

Last weekend was the last local farmer's market of the season. We walked down with a big bag to stock up on long-storing local apples and also picked up some candy onions to caramelize and freeze for Fall and winter stews. The mushroom folks had a nice array of King Oyster/Trumpet Royale mushrooms, so with my remaining small bills [pay cash for local businesses whenever possible, please] I picked up a container. The lovely lady manning the booth offered me recipe tips and I headed home thinking I'd make some kind of mushroom appetizer for my spouse.

We returned from a Saturday afternoon bike ride to this sight--boxes on the front stoop, watched over by ⅔ of the canine population [Vincent is too little to look out]. I'm not usually one to get excited about printer ink, but the other box, from Fairview Orchards, did give me a little thrill. The folks at Fairview Orchards picked these organic jujube fruits and I got them from California 2 days later.

If you think, when you visit the farmer's market at 10 am on a Saturday, that all of the product on display was freshly picked that morning by an army of minions in fields with football stadium lighting--well, you've got another think coming. Farmers like to sleep just like the rest of us, and plenty of weekly offerings are picked in the days before and stored until market day. Heck, the garlic and onions were harvested and cured before being offered at market. A mere 2 days for jujube fruits all the way from California? Amazingly fresh in my book!

With two exotic items staring me in the face, I knew I wanted to combine them. After biting into a jujube fruit (we all tried them fresh out of the box, a crunchy light apple-pear kind of flavor with a date-like pit in the middle), I thought of the Trumpet Royale Mushroom, Apple, and Walnut Sauté I'd seen on the recipe sheet from the mushroom folks. I adapted that recipe to use the jujube fruits, and my spouse and I enjoyed this gourmet date night appetizer at home.

This got me thinking about the power of the internet and how Janelle and her folks at Barn2Door are harnessing that power to enable farmers to sell directly to a wider audience than just the local folks who choose to visit their market stall. There are small pockets of local supporters all over, but their reach is limited to their local areas. I mean, the grocery store down the street also supports local farmers--they spotlight the family who supplies their sweet corn in summer and the folks who grow their turkeys for Thanksgiving. To give their customers greater access to seasonal items, Hatch chiles are trucked up from New Mexico and wild caught salmon is flown in from Alaska. Yeah, and I can walk to all of this seasonal abundance. But what if you don't live near my fabulous grocery store? You've got an online resource in Barn2Door.

My town is known for the electric car starter and the pull tab for beer cans. We are not at the cutting edge of the local food movement. However, between in person and online interactions, I was able to sit down to a savory appetizer of exotic produce direct from the farmers who grew it.

Apple Oatmeal Muffins, A Whole Grain Muffin #MuffinMonday

Chunks of apples mixed with buttermilk-soaked oats in a whole wheat muffin, topped with streusel for a sweet and wholesome treat.

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I realized that my muffin recipes, over on the drop down sidebar, are lacking in basic apple muffins. I've got sugar-less Apple Cider Muffins. I've got savory Cheddar Apple Multigrain Muffins. I've got 'throw everything in there' Cranberry Apple Pecan Tangerine Mini Muffins. I didn't have a basic apple muffin recipe. Until today. For my inaugural recipe with the #MuffinMonday crew [thanks for having me] I thought I'd remedy the deficiency.

This muffin has a streusel topping which is fancier than my typical 'feed the kids muffins for breakfast or a snack' muffin although I did keep the sugar inside at my usual amount. I made them for a morning coffee that I ended up missing because my visiting folks arrived at the same time. I did manage to snag a picture before I dropped them off, in true food blogger fashion. I even had enough batter to bake some regular-sized muffins to greet my folks.

NOTE:  The base of these muffins is my standard Soaked Oatmeal Muffin base. You can start these an hour before baking by combining oats and buttermilk in a bowl on the counter, or you could plan ahead [boy I wish I were the plan ahead type] and fill a bunch of wide mouth pint canning jars with a cup of oats and a cup of buttermilk. Screw on a plastic storage cap [Amazon affiliate link] and store in your fridge for up to a week for soaked oat muffins in a jiffy. (Shown are not wide mouth pint jars, they were all full of salsa.)

I used a blend of apples in these muffins--Gala and one other from the farmer's market that wasn't labelled--and I recommend any eating apple (i.e., not a cooking apple) for these. Chop them into small pieces, but do leave the peels on--they provide a pretty color.

As I was serving unknown guests at the morning coffee, I left out nuts. I think some chopped pecans would be an excellent addition to the streusel topping if nuts are not an issue.

For more recipes using up the seasonal abundance that is my fridge and spilling over onto the kitchen counter during apple season, please see my Apple Recipes Collection. This is part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks eating seasonally like we do. I've got a fruit board on Pinterest for ideas from around the web. Want to know how to use this blog? Click here.

How to Make Dill Butter When You've Got a Lot of Herbs

Got a lot of dill? Quickly turn it into an herbed butter. Use this butter on potatoes, fish, or bread. It's a fast way to add a little something local & homemade to your holiday table.

Time for another Practical Support for Local Eating lesson. This one is about herbs. When we get herbs in our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share it's not usually a sprig here and there. Instead it is a significant amount.

Sometimes I view the abundance of herbs as an opportunity to use them all in Pot Luck Tabbouleh. Sometimes this will coincide with another vegetable and create an opportunity to put something up [a bunch of cucumbers and dill means I'll throw a few jars of quick refrigerator kosher dills into the back of the fridge to cure]. Sometimes a large quantity of basil from the farm share coupled with my own large quantity from the garden means I can Process a Pile of Pesto. Most of the time, however, the herbs are on their own.

Making herb butter when you've got a lot of fresh herbs is one way to make the most of the farm share. This freezes nicely and makes a special addition to a holiday meal. Too early for Thanksgiving talk? Canadian Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away and I've got a beautiful bunch of dill from my farm share so I think it's quite timely.

Before I get to the recipe, though, I asked a few food bloggers for additional ideas on how they deal with a large amount of herbs. Brandy of Farmer's Wife Rambles shares how she dehydrates parsley. Tara of Noshing With The Nolands turns her basil abundance into Basil Ice Cubes. Sheri Silver freezes her herbs in oil--with a clever tip for telling them all apart in the tray. Meghan of Clean Eats Fast Feets shares how she deals with her chives (and shares a recipe for Blue Cheese & Chive Drop Biscuits). Janelle of Barn2Door dries thyme, oregano for cooking, mint & blackberry/raspberry leaves/fennel seed for tea, and freezes finely chopped chives. She even has a Pinterest board of herb-y ideas.

Left to right photos from Brandy, Tara, Sheri and Meghan. Thanks!

Cream Cheese Toffee Dip for Fruit (My Apple Dip)

A fruit dip made from cream cheese, yogurt, brown sugar and the crunch of milk chocolate toffee bits. This is great for parties or special afternoon snacks and appeals to all ages.

Apples have been appearing at my local farmer's market. I buy a handful, take them home, slice them up and we eat them. [The rest of the household would eat the core and everything, but someone around here needs to have standards.] Local apples** are bred for flavor, not ability to look pretty for 6 months, so it seems kinda silly to share a dip recipe to eat with such tasty apples as a Buckeye Gala. This is not gilding a lily, though--my Caramel Apple Toffee Parfait with Cream Cheese Ice Cream? Total lily-gilding, that one. This is just a simple dip to have on hand if you want to dress up a fruit snack or have something special to go alongside a healthy snack at an event.

You gotta have a couple of good dips in your repertoire. Dips that you can make practically with your eyes closed using common pantry and refrigerator staples. Dips that fit a variety of occasions and please folks of all ages.

This is one of those dips. [My Spiced Cottage Cheese Potato Chip Dip is another.] When I searched my sent emails folder to confirm the recipe I realized I've been emailing folks this recipe for more than 10 years. It evolved out of an amaretto fruit dip I'd had at the same church basement wedding reception where I learned the pineapple juice hack for keeping apples from turning brown. I don't usually have amaretto on hand, so when I tried a Cool Whip-based fruit dip using Heath bar bits I knew that would go great instead of amaretto.

Note: I don't usually recommend brands of food on this blog, I'm more into the local produce, but I do make exceptions. This dip tastes best with Heath bar bits, the milk chocolate-covered toffee bits. The bag has an orange banner--like this Amazon affiliate link shows [but don't buy it from Amazon--sheesh you can find it for ⅓ the price in a grocery store]. Each time I move, as I am settling into our new neighborhood, I check the chocolate chip aisle of the local grocery stores. Most will carry only the plain Bits o' Brickle variety with a blue banner as shown in this outrageously expensive Amazon affiliate link but keep looking until you source the milk chocolate variety then buy a couple of bags for the pantry stash. They are good in cookies, too, like my Toffee Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies.

For other recipes using apples, please see my Apple Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, and generous neighbors with apple trees. I've got more appetizers on my Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks board on Pinterest, and more fruit from around the web on my Fruit board. Want to know how to use this blog? Click here.

Apple, Gouda and Pecan Pizza

Chunks of apples, bits of pecans, and loads of melty Gouda cheese in this savory vegetarian pizza.

When you make pizzas nearly every weekend, and you like to keep things lively on the pizza stone [don't think too deeply on that one] inspiration comes at you from every direction. This pizza was inspired by a photo of a grilled cheese sandwich on this post. Apparently that's enough for me to go off in a pizza direction.

A vegetarian, savory, pizza with fruit direction.

When I shared my Fresh Pineapple and Shaved Ham with Mascarpone Pizza recently, a friend said her spouse didn't do fruit on pizza. What?  Fruit on pizza rocks!  I'm not talking sweet fruit dessert pizzas. In the multitude of pizzas in my Visual Pizza Recipe Index by Ingredient I do not have any dessert pizzas. I'll eat them, don't get me wrong, I just haven't made any. I'm just not that into it. In my world, fruit on a pizza is not a dessert thing. It's a Savory Pizzas with Fruit thing.

So I'm bringing you yet another savory pizza with fruit. Yet another pizza with apples on it, this one inspired by that grilled cheese sandwich photo and the fact that I had a Costco-sized hunk of gouda cheese in the fridge.

I get cheese obsessions, probably a good thing when I've got a Costco-sized hunk of whatever flavor obsession du jour fromage. Having an ample amount of cheese makes for interesting recipes. I've used gouda in Roasted Sweet Potato and Turkey Sausage Breakfast Casserole and Three Cheese Fast-baked Cauliflower so far. Stay tuned for more, like this vegetarian savory pizza which is lovely for Fall.

For more recipes using apples, please see my Apples & Apple Cider Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share or farmer's market. I've got an assortment of other pizza ideas on my Friday Night Pizza Night! Pinterest board and my Visual Pizza Recipe Index.

Local Eating on the Road--Six Ways to Make it Work

Subtitle: How to Survive a Summer Vacation When You Have a CSA farm share

Regular readers will note that my posts have been a bit 'off' recently. I apologize. I tried to blog while on the road and without my ailing laptop. It did not work out swimmingly. The long miles on the open road have given me time to think about this post, though, so that's a plus. Rather than share my vacation slides interspersed with my rumination, I'll give you the BLUF [military acronym meaning Bottom Line Up Front] now. If you're interested in the epic family road trip dubbed Flora Fauna Americana, keep on scrolling.

• Do your homework before you go. But be flexible!

• Be willing to explore a bit off the interstate. Don't be afraid to call an audible.

• Ask locals for recommendations.

• Try local specialties--splurge, you can economize in other ways.

• Raid your farm share for snacks on the road. And speaking of farm shares, 

• Have a friend take over your farm share pickup while you are away.

Pay attention--don't make me turn this wagon around.

Before I get into the details of these suggestions, our vacation by the numbers:

3800 photos taken, mostly by my spouse
3600 miles on the rental car, mostly one way
17 National Forests, Grasslands, Historic sites, Memorials, Monuments and Parks
12 times we drove over the Continental divide
11 bighorn sheep
10 hotels, mostly Holiday Inn Express because of their pancake machine
9 De Laval cream separators in 3 museums
8 states (three of them start with I)
7 museums 
6 glaciers
5 geysers
4 ships inside buildings
3 time zones
2 dinosaur sites
1 cave
Finding my relative's signature on a church record on the Ingalls Homestead in De Smet, South Dakota:  PRICELESS

We saw bison, Columbian ground squirrels and 13 stripe chipmunks, prairie dogs and pronghorn antelope, elk and osprey and eagles, and cows, sheep, and goats.

We explored state sites, parks, and forests in Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota.

We enjoyed the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum and Dugout site in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. The Ingalls Homestead and Museum in De Smet, South Dakota. The Vesterheim Norwegian American Museum in Decorah, Iowa. The Buffalo Bill Museum in LeClaire, Iowa. The National Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque, Iowa. The Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana. The Miracle of America Museum in Polson, Montana. We did not miss the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota nor Al's Oasis and Wall Drug off Interstate 90 going across South Dakota.

Did you know Abraham Lincoln had his own BBQ sauce?

We ate at the Steer Inn in Indianapolis, Indiana, the St Olaf Tap in St Olaf, Iowa, Nick's Hamburger Shop in Brookings, South Dakota, Pauly's Pizza in Rapid City, South Dakota, the Wagon Box Inn in Story, Wyoming, and the Belton Chalet in West Glacier, Montana.

Spotted at Danebod in Tyler, Minnesota.

Do your homework before you go. But be flexible!

We [ok my spouse] got the Roadfood book (Amazon affiliate link) by Jane and Michael Stern. Check your local library, and there's even a Kindle edition. He printed out the pertinent pages--regions of the country we'd be passing through--and included them in our travel folder. Because of his efforts I sat on a shady deck in Story, Wyoming enjoying ripe avocado slices and crisp bacon tucked into a soft roll in a turkey bacon avocado sandwich at the Wagon Box Inn.

Things did not always go according to plan. We intended to eat lunch at the Mug 'n Bun while passing by Indianapolis, but a mix up in directions and the GPS sent us to the Steer Inn. I had a tasty Pizza Burger. We learned after we arrived that it was featured on Food Network--so check out the website before you go to see if there's something nearby you'd like to try (Food Network restaurant search link).

Be willing to explore a bit off the interstate. Don't be afraid to call an audible.

When we crossed the Mississippi river into Iowa we knew our end goal was north to Minnesota, but we had time and no need to stay on the interstate. Plenty of time to wander among the rolling hills of NE Iowa to St Olaf and a delicious pork tenderloin sandwich and frosty mug of root beer. Call an audible and explore the Buffalo Bill museum in LeClaire if you're in the area.

Ask locals for recommendations.

After a tour of Wind cave in Wind Cave National Park we asked the rangers for ideas for a place to grab a bite on our way to our next [Mammoth] site. They steered us to a lovely restaurant, Woolly's, for a bacon cheeseburger salad and Dorothy Lynch dressing.

While visiting family in Montana we ate at Belton Chalet. There were flowers on the food when it was served, people. Edible flowers--on bison meatloaf, grilled pork chops, mac and cheese, and these amazing porcini-filled pasta purses with shaved Brussels sprouts! That's so not my usual burger and fries. It was quite a treat. Such delicious meals can be found more easily by talking with the folks who live and eat nearby.

Try local specialties--splurge, you can economize in other ways.

Military families tend to spend vacation time heading home to spend time with family. While that is lovely, we welcomed the opportunity to see some of the rest of the country and just went for it. When we ate in national parks my spouse and I made it a point to try local specialties. I had Idaho trout for breakfast at Jackson Lake Lodge and smoked fish for lunch in Yellowstone National Park, as one example, and the couple dollars more over the other entrees was worth it. Sure, you could eat burgers every day [I believe my daughter did, if you include bison burgers] but why not branch out a bit? To economize, we mostly stayed in hotels that had breakfast included, we brought some snacks from home, and typically ate out once a day. [Had we not been flying home at the end of the trip we could have packed in more food, drinks, and a better cooler.]

Raid your farm share for snacks on the road.

The day before we left I sliced up all the carrots, radishes and celery left in the crisper [I put the tops & tips into Soup Packs in the freezer]. Kohlrabi, beets and banana peppers went into pickling brine. With some store-bought hummus in disposable containers we were set for the first few days of the trip. Long-storing Costco snacks and stops at grocery stores carried us the rest of the time.

Have a friend take over your farm share pickup while you are away.

Lots of folks want to try the idea of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, but a 20 week season can be a daunting commitment. Having a curious friend take over a week helps you out and could gain your farmers a new subscriber.

One more--throughout our time in Yellowstone I had terrible cell phone reception. I'm not complaining--I was on vacation and even if I felt weird being unreachable that's my problem. However, while walking on the boardwalks near Old Faithful my phone rang.  Of all the places for it to ring, and all the reasons for it to ring, here I am arranging a wheelchair fitting appointment for my son in the middle of rare geothermal features. I could only laugh.

Enjoy your vacation. Stay off the phone and the computer and make lots of memories.