Apple Picking and Jammers

These are a few shots from last weekend...fall is really heading to Portland in all its rainy, cozy glory. The Jammers up top are a new recipe from the Grand Central Bakery cookbook and they were really, really good...light and flaky and salty-sweet. I'll try to post the recipe soon. 

Almond Date Breakfast Bars

Breakfast bars are a wonderful thing, especially when they hit that perfect spot between sweet, nutty, chewy and wholesome. There's nothing much better when you're in need of a quick snack but the clock's a tickin' and the door is beckoning.

Cranberry Orange Pecan Bread

Let's talk about gray, drizzly days, cups of tea and toast. Particularly this toast, from the Grand Central Bakery Cookbook, which is studded with sweet cranberries, crunchy pecans and bright and zippy lemon zest. It's just what you need when you require a little fall morning pick-me-up. 

English Muffins

Breakfast can be beautiful in its simplicity or astonishing in its breadth and complexity. What is not beautiful or astonishing is when your boyfriend (a grown, 26-year-old man) informs you that for breakfast he had a cookie and some yerba mate. I am not a nutritionist and I am a professed fan of ramen noodles, but that sort of thing strikes me as not the best thing you can do for your body, especially after you've made it wake up at 6:55 in the morning. And while I religiously eat cereal for breakfast most days of the week, I can appreciate those who, like Peter, are in search of something more. Enter the English muffin.

The Galveston

Peter and I celebrated our first anniversary on the 19th, and since we'd been tripping the light fantastic for the past weekend, we decided to keep things low-key and treat ourselves to a nice homemade brunch to celebrate. And when I think brunch, the first place I turn to is The Black Dog Tavern Cookbook.