Happy Halloween!!

My Director of Pest Management would like to wish you a very Happy Halloween! 

Fudge and Pumpkin Pie Popsicles

I bought these BPA free plastic Popsicle molds and never got around to actually making any Popsicles.  Luck for me, we get summer weather well into October here in northern California and this year is no exception.  The temperature has gotten as high as 80°, hot windless days, what I like to call earth quake weather.  (In fact we’ve had three minor quakes already this month)  Inspired by the weather and my apparent current fascination with pumpkin, I made some pumpkin pie Popsicles.  When I mentioned to Mr RK that I was going to make pumpkin Popsicles, he didn’t look interested until I offered to make him some fudge pops as well.  

Daring Bakers' Challenge: Povitica

The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk.  Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat! 

Povitica (pronounced po-va-teet-sa) is traditionally served during the holiday season.  The best description would be: amazingly tender cinnamon nut swirl bread.  I would imagine that you could get very creative with the filling, maybe substituting with poppy seeds or by adding some chocolate chips or cranberries and it would be just as good. 

Pumpkin Cheesecake Squares

We had our annual end of summer block party late this year, it’s usually in early September.  I live on a dead end street and we like to get together for an annual BBQ pot luck in the cul de sac.  Inspired by the fact that it’s October already, I made some pumpkin cheesecake squares with a ginger snap crust.  Last year I made a family favorite, oatmeal carmelitas.  

Like many of the recipes I develop, this one is a combination of several vegan pumpkin cheesecakes that I found online.  What I liked about this my recipe is that it doesn’t contain any tofu.  I love tofu and eat it often but I really don’t like my desserts to taste like tofu.  However, this recipe is not soy free because the non dairy cream cheese is made from soy.  

Fall Garden Update

The thing I love about living in Northern California is that we are still able to harvest a lot of food from our garden in October.  Typically, we have very warm weather in September and October and this year is no exception, except for that freak rain storm we had last week.  It usually doesn’t start raining here until the end of October.