Fall Flavors are my Favorite

It has been two weeks since I returned from my glorious trip to Africa, and while I still don't feel fully acclimated to being back in real life, I am so excited that Autumn has begun. It has always been my favorite season- especially when I lived in New York and could feel it in the briskness of the air while walking down the street, watching people clutch their steaming hot mochas and pumpkin spice lattes as they lingered in coffee shops or on the street corners. Even hearing Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett playing in the stores while I shopped or grabbed some food brought a smile to my face, and it is still something that, when I happen to experience it here on the west coast, always reminds me of Fall in NY.


But I have to admit that while I love to see the leaves change colors and feel the weather decline toward winter so I can don my big coat and fashionable scarves, my favorite part of Autumn is the flavors. Any excuse to cook or bake with pumpkin, butternut squash, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves--among many other things-- is something that I look forward to all year. So in honor of the first day of Autumn last weekend, I decided to give in to temptation and buy some canned pumpkin. Normally I would go through the effort to make my own pumpkin puree by baking a sugar pumpkin and scooping out the gooey interior (as well as roasting the seeds with cinnamon sugar!) since that tends to be more rewarding in the end. But I figured I would wait until closer to Thanksgiving to do that, when the presentation of dishes requires much more intricate preparation. At least, for my family it does.

Plus I decided that since this first recipe was more of an experiment, I didn't want to put in too much effort in case it completely fell apart. This was my first time attempting a roll, or log, and is something that I had actually been wanting to try for a long time now. So once again my coworkers acted as my guinea pigs to test if I had succeeded in pulling it off. Although I was not too thrilled about the presentation of it, the fact that it was nearly gone by lunch told me that I had at least gotten the taste part down. The decorative sugar pumpkins on top were gifted to me by a coworker last week, which is actually what prompted me to start this baking extravaganza in the first place. I'm not sure whether to thank her or curse her.



And then since I had half a can of pumpkin left, I decided on a whim last night to throw together some pumpkin chocolate bars-- much like brownies but with pumpkin instead of chocolate. Smelling the aroma of pumpkin and spices drift through my apartment again was enough to tell me I had made the right decision. I only hope my coworkers won't chide me for throwing tons of buttery baked goods at them so early in the season.