A Pinch of Falling Back

That extra hour of sleep felt great yesterday. Walking out of my office today with the sun setting already didn’t have quite that same feeling. Today was a busy daze that has my brain all sorts of jumbled. And that’s actually not due to Hallo-weekend, though I did get to celebrate some great friends’ at their engagement / Halloween party on Saturday. And the real scary part was that fun came after running 20 miles that morning! Spooky!

With the clocks going back an hour, it appears that my hopes for diving into a good home cooked meal and a baked good fell back too. In reality, I’m really just eating simply – both from a cost and a running perspective. So the meals are lacking creativity for now. And I’ll leave the baking to the crew on the Great British Bake Off. The final episode of the season coming out this week! I’ll miss the wholesomeness that only exists within that tent.

But of course I had to get a big meal in after the long run. Before I even stepped foot in my door, I had placed my favorite usual Mahalo order of course.

After the long Saturday, I had to head back to West Chester to pick up Lucy where she spent the weekend with my family. She had as much time outside as she dreams about each week. My mom enticed me to spend the day there with the promise of Sunday sauce. So the mix of the best weather of the weekend and the early Sunday dinner had me happily lounging to round out the weekend.

What’s Cookin’

And you best believe that after the (what felt like) long work day and the darkness coming early, the leftovers hit extra well. Now with a full stomach of rigatoni with leftover sauce and meatballs, my brain’s already thinking about tomorrow morning’s coffee and baked goods I am COMMITTED to making this week.

So what have I saved these past couple weeks:

• Cinnamon-cocoa Babka from Ben Siman-Tov – pretty cool way of baking this babka to fill the dish for a consistent shape. Guess I need another baking dish to add to the collection. The real kicker: the babka is soaked in rose water lemon zest syrup. Talk about a flavor twist. And the suggestion to turn it into french toast the next day… a MUST.

• Pumpkin Mac and Cheese from Reilly Meehan – three ingredients for a perfect fall pantry pasta? Let it rip! If you’re like me, you probably have a can of pumpkin puree that you thought you were definitely going to use last year. Grab a package of Boursin cheese and you’ve got yourself an easy plate.

• Maple Sea Salt Latte Custard Tart from Red Currant Bakery – this may just be a semi-weekly column of my favorite recipes of hers, but the flavor choices and the baked goods always look so good and haven’t failed me this far! This tart’s layers look incredible.

What else is on my immediate to do list: getting to the newly-renovated Buttery in Malvern. It’s one of my favorite bakeries in the area for a reason. So with plans to already be back in West Chester to round out the week, I’ll be making it a requirement to treat myself to some goods.

Treat yourself this week 🤘