Pear & Arugula Salad with Candied Walnuts & Cheese Croutons

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Pear and Arugula Salad with Candied Walnuts and Cheese CroutonsIt may look like a salad but really it’s my thinly veiled attempt at dressing a grilled cheese sandwich in healthy attire.  And what could be wrong with that?  Make it, taste it, and agree with me: absolutely nothing.

This salad began as a late-night, got-to-use-up-this-and-that kind of dinner.  This and that that night was a handful of lettuce, a nub of cheese, and a stump of baguette that added up to a really good dinner that I was more than happy have an excuse to grocery shop for a few days later and share with you.

And I’ve got to say, this salad has got it going on!  We have greens and pears for our health, candied walnuts for crunch and pizzazz, and melted cheese for creamy decadence.

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Sour Cream Apple Cake with Brown Sugar Crumble

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Sour Cream Apple Cake with Brown Sugar CrumbleRemember a few weeks ago when I told you I was on the prowl for a go-to apple cake recipe?  I made a French apple cake with caramel sauce and was fairly convinced that I’d found The One.  It was simple and full of apple-y goodness, embellished with a ridiculously good caramel sauce.  Perfect…

…until my mind started wandering.  It wandered off into dangerous territory with thoughts of crumble and streusel.  Thoughts of a cake you might get away with serving as breakfast.  Rings, tubes, bundts.  Buttermilk, sour cream, oh my…I had to bake another cake!

This time around, I went for a cinnamon-spiced sour cream apple cake, loaded with fruit, and topped with an addictive brown sugar crumble.  It’s perfect, warm from the oven with a cup of coffee or your afternoon tea.  Go for decadence and top it with a scoop of cinnamon ice cream and you’re looking at a very worthy fall dessert.  I think it’s safe to say there will never be just 1 apple cake in my life; this is a field I’ve got to keep playing.

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Escarole & Anchovy Soup with Garlic Crostini

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Escarole & Anchovy Soup with Garlic CrostiniI’ve been trying to take it fairly easy on myself in the kitchen lately.  You see, I have this dream of one day carving out time to finish painting my cupboard doors, getting them rehung, and putting an end to my drawn-out painting project.  I thought I was being clever and made this super quick, super tasty soup for dinner, thinking I’d free up my evening to deal with doors.  But, in typical Sarah-fashion, I opted out of the tedious housework and into making an apple cake instead.  Yeah…

We’ll cover the apple cake later in the week.  For now, I’ll show you my easy escarole and anchovy soup so you can get yourself fed quickly and spend the rest of your day being productive.  Or baking.  Your choice.

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Cauliflower Steak with Currant & Black Olive Gremolata

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Cauliflower Steak with Black Olive and Currant Gremolata

It’s amazing how good something as simple as roasted cauliflower can taste after you’ve been relegated to ordering takeout or eating a can of chickpeas and calling it dinner a few nights in a row.

You see, last weekend, I bit off a big kitchen project.  I’m not talking about a fun kitchen project; there were no homemade ravioli, certainly no baked goods, rather hours upon hours of scrubbing, sanding, taping, painting, and, naturally, a few bouts of insanity.  When I finally got things (mostly) back together, I couldn’t bear the thought of making anything that might splatter my newly grease-free, freshly painted walls, so I took it easy on myself and made the restaurant and culinary magazine vegetarian darling du jour: cauliflower steaks. 

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Baked Pasta with Pumpkin, Caramelized Onions & Chèvre

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Baked Pumpkin Pasta with Caramelized Onions, Sage, and Chevre

Who does that?!  Who writes a recipe that calls for half of a can of pumpkin?  That’s just asking for trouble; asking for a scary forgotten container of fuzzy pumpkin in the back of the refrigerator.

I would have felt a bit guilty, posting that recipe for pumpkin gingerbread that called for only half of a can of pumpkin, but I had this gem of a quick and comforting baked pasta dish that uses the remainder up my sleeve.  

This is what we’re looking at today: pumpkin-coated pasta with pockets of sage caramelized onions and chevré with a crispy bread crumb and parmesan crust  It takes mere minutes to assemble, it’s warm and comforting, and just feels right for a late fall dinner.  And if that’s not good enough, how about this–most of its rich creaminess comes from pureed pumpkin not cream, so eating a big scoop won’t require digging out your fat pants after dinner.

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