autumn Archives | Page 59 of 74

So it’s been nearly a month since I’ve posted. How the heck did that happen you wonder? Well, I moved, or rather re-located if you will. I moved back to my hometown of Houston and was welcomed with a nice humid embrace despite my yearning for fall weather. In addition to the move, I quit my archaeology job in order to figure out and create my “dream job”. So, for the first time in a very long time, I’m sort of job-less. The first week here I felt discombobulated. I couldn’t find basic things like clothes or shoes and was moving through a constant obstacle course of boxes and random stray items. This week, there’s still some boxes and stray items, but I felt it was finally time to make a plan for this space and shoot a post. It’s nice to be back 🙂

Fall is such an inspiring season for me. I LOVE it. It’s by far my favorite season to shoot recipes for and as you may have noticed, its influences sometimes find their way into other posts throughout the year. Although the weather here isn’t really screaming autumn, I’m in full on autumn mode. What better way to come back than with some beautiful fall colored root veggies?

I originally made this dish this past weekend based on an idea that had been swimming around in my head. For this version the only real change I’ve made is to add some lovely pomegranate arils for a contrast of color and a sweet/tart pop of flavor. I think it would also taste equally as delicious with a heavy sprinkling of fresh mint or parsley instead of the pomegranate.
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Pumpkin bread has always been my favorite of the quick bread varieties and I’m sure you can guess why. I can remember my mom making several mini loaves at a time with the intention to freeze some, but few would actually make it that far. I’ve said it here, and I’ll say it again, I LOVE pumpkin. Period. But, enough about pumpkin because I want to show some love to bananas. I have found that people either love bananas or don’t particularly care for them. I’ve met many banana haters and banana lovers. I’ve met people that couldn’t even stand the smell of bananas and those that preferred waiting until they were black and shriveled before they ate them (I might have made some of you gag right there, sorry!). It’s quite the dichotomous world we live in when it comes to this fruit.

I don’t get to bake banana bread as often as I want to because it requires the forethought of buying bananas and letting them basically shrivel up, all the while having my apartment smell like ripening bananas. Sure, I could roast the bananas beforehand to help them soften and release their sugars, but that requires an extra step and more time with my hot oven on. I decided this past weekend it was time to bake some banana bread. I realized I have not been baking much for myself or anything other than the farmers market the past several months (mostly because it’s summer and turning my oven on is a pain) so I designated Sunday as a baking day. Dare I say it was actually sort of fall-ish weather as it was cloudy all morning and only in the 70s. Perfect banana bread baking weather, or at least as perfect as it will get in Texas at the beginning of September.

I’m going to give you the basic recipe for banana bread below and leave the add-ins up to you. This go-around I did a combination of pecans and chai spices but I encourage you to go with whatever suits your fancy. This isn’t a very sweet bread so please taste the batter and adjust it to your liking. Do be mindful though if you add too much more liquid to the batter that you might have to adjust with a bit more flour. I chose to bake 3 mini loaves, but you can also bake the bread in a regular loaf pan as long as you adjust the baking time. I’d say about 45 to 50 minutes would do the trick. Also, in case you haven’t realized by now, I bake in weights as it’s more accurate with gluten free baking so please don’t try to convert it into volume. You might have a banana catastrophe.

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Roasted Root Veg with Spiced Yogurt Drizzle

Banana Bread