This is my favorite time of year. Fall encompasses most of it, but really, it’s the beginning of Fall until my daughter’s birthday in mid-January. The weather stops being unbearably hot (although it will remain quite warm here until at least Thanksgiving), and there are all kinds of occasions to bake for. And I LOVE to bake.

Several weeks ago, I picked up the Harvest Baking magazine that is part of the Land O Lakes recipe collection. Shortly after bringing it home, I informed Land O Lakes on Twitter that I would be attempting to make every recipe in the magazine because they looked just that good. The only one that I’ve made and has hung around long enough for pictures (I’m not good at taking pictures while cooking/baking yet), is Sparkling Candy Corn cookies, and that’s because the recipe makes about a million (yes, that’s an exaggeration) tiny cookies. They’re a hit though!

I tried to get creative with mine (I just CAN’T seem to follow a recipe exactly as written), and use plain, orange and lemon layers, but really, you can’t taste the lemon, so please, follow the instructions to save yourself some hassle. There’s no need to complicate the recipe when there’s no benefit! Also, in my need to get the cookies done, I forgot to make them sparkle with a little sugar sprinkled onto fresh out of the oven cookies, but no one missed it.

My last comment before I leave you is to note that these make tiny cookies. They’re not even an inch square. If you have big eaters, or want serious definition in your layers, you might want to double the recipe.

Enjoy!

Pizza is never going to be low calorie, but there are so many options that are better for you than delivery, including some frozen varieties. When I need pizza NOW (for whatever reason), I usually grab a DiGiorno Crispy Flatbread Tuscan style Chicken from the freezer section of my grocery store. This provides me with the quantity of pizza that I am looking for without breaking my calorie restrictions for the day. They also have small deep dish pizzas that, when shared, won’t break the calorie bank either. However, it is definitely a smaller quantity.

When I have the time and desire, I prefer to make my own pizza because I can measure the ingredients and know exactly what is going in to my food. This past week, I made two different pizzas (one for dinner and then a few days later for lunch). I wish I had a picture of the second, but the husband and I were too hungry. We inhaled it straight out of the oven along with huge glasses of ice water.

The pictured pizza was inspired by two recipes in the Land O Lakes Harvest Baking magazine that I picked up a couple weeks ago, and is supposed to resemble candy corn. I went an extra step and shaped the dough like candy corn (Heh, it really sounds like I did it on purpose! ) and layered the cheeses. Apparently the American cheese we keep around isn’t yellow enough, but hey, it’s what was here! I also didn’t measure the cheeses I shredded, so this is going to be a little more difficult for others to re-create, but I’ll try.

Hamburger and Caramelized Onion “Candy Corn” Pizza
2 T butter
1 medium sweet onion, diced
2/3 lb lean ground beef
1 small tomato, diced
2 slices Land O Lakes Sharp American cheese (pre-packaged)
3-4oz Monterey Jack cheese
3-4oz Sharp Cheddar cheese
Garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste
½ pizza dough ball (found in my grocer’s deli)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium sauté pan over med-low heat, caramelize the onions with butter and a sprinkle of salt. Then add in the ground beef, season to taste and cook thoroughly. While the onions are caramelizing, shape the dough into your favorite pizza shape and lay out on a baking sheet sprayed with non-stick spray. Once the ground beef is cooked through, spread the onion and beef mixture evenly over the dough. Starting in the middle (or the small tip if you made yours look like candy corn) spread an even layer of Monterey Jack cheese, then working out from the center (or towards the wider end) layer the American then cheddar cheese. Sprinkle top with diced tomato. Bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool, and enjoy.

The second (un-pictured) pizza was inspired by Carrots N Cake. I used the other half of the pizza dough from my candy corn pizza and the following ingredients.

3oz Sargento shredded Swiss and Gruyere
2T butter
1 medium onion, sliced into half moon shapes (or however you want to cut your onion)
½ Granny Smith apple, thin sliced
12 pecan halves
Salt, garlic powder and pepper to taste

I caramelized the onions with butter, salt, and a miniscule amount of pepper. After rolling out the pizza dough, I layered thin sliced Granny Smith apple over the dough, then spread the caramelized onions in an even layer over the apple, covered with a thin layer of cheese and garnished with pecan halves. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. It was inhaled as a Saturday lunch before I could even consider photographing it. If I make this again (I rarely make the same pizza twice since it’s not a common food in our house), there will be an entire Granny Smith apple used and it will be a small dice rather than a thin slice, and I’ll crumble the pecan halves over the top rather than leaving them in chunks. It didn’t make for a very uniform addition to have the big pecan halves. For anybody who MUST have meat on their pizza, thin sliced pork would probably taste fantastic with this. Either go to the deli and pick up the kind that’s used for Cuban sandwiches, or if you have some leftover pork roast from dinner one night this would be a great way to use it.

What’s your favorite kind of pizza? How often do you indulge?

Now that we’ve covered the babe’s and my favorite breakfast and lunch, let’s talk about the snacks that sometimes come before and/or after these lovely meals.

Fruit has become a big thing in our house. The babe will eat fruit whenever and wherever without complaint. Pineapple, strawberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, apples, bananas… Have I forgotten any that a toddler can eat?

Then there’s the “standard” junk food. Chips and dip (usually homemade pico de gallo or guacamole), Chex mix, Goldfish, sandwich crackers… But while those fruit and junk foods are all pretty tasty, none of them make the top of our snack list.

Larabars. Other than Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, I have yet to find a flavor that I wouldn’t buy again. The babe thinks they’re all fabulous, which helps, cuz then they don’t go to waste if either myself or the husband decides that one wasn’t the flavor we were looking for. I do have to add a teensy little disclaimer here… We have not yet tried ALL the flavors. There are still three (that I know of) that we haven’t tried, so maybe there’s another one not worth spending the money for, and I will voice my opinion again when I finish the flavors. Have no fear!

What is your favorite snack food? Do you eat it frequently, or is it only for “special” occasions?

To kick off this food blog, we’re going to be posting some of our new favorite foods or meals. Today I’m going to start with my daughter’s favorite breakfast.

Oatmeal.

And not just any oatmeal, but maple-brown sugar oatmeal. I do not care for regular instant oatmeal, whether in a packet or in a canister. Without a lot of doctoring, it just tastes like paste. Quaker’s Multi-Grain oatmeal is now my go-to product, and since my 19 month old likes it, it’s a keeper! Fiber is extremely important in her diet, and is definitely not something to be ignored in a standard adult diet either.

Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal

• ½ c oatmeal
• 1 T dark brown sugar
• 1 T real maple syrup
• ½ c natural applesauce
• ½ c water

Mix the ingredients together in a microwave safe bowl and microwave on high for 90 seconds. The time will probably need to be adjusted for personal preference and for the power of your particular microwave oven, but 90 seconds works for us.

This makes a large bowl of oatmeal, so my daughter and I usually split it since I have a hard time eating first thing in the morning. I also appreciate any meals that feed her that do not require me to make a special meal for her.

Now that breakfast is taken care of, we’re on to lunch! Lunch in our house is pretty easy, the babe enjoys sandwiches of all kinds, which are real easy to throw together. But some days, I really want veggies or a salad, and I have an obsession with avocados, so next up is my fave salad! And yes, we keep all these ingredients on hand. That’s how much we like them all!

My Southwestern Junk Salad

• 2 big handfuls (about half the bag) of Fresh Express 50/50 spinach and spring mix
• ¼ c black beans
• ¼ c corn
• ¼ c pico de gallo
• ½ avocado
• 1/8 c cheese (I use any cheese in the house except 6 cheese Italian)
• 2T Hidden Valley Light Ranch dressing (the only light ranch worth eating)
• Optional: 4 oz Grilled chicken strips, hot sauce to taste

Grab a small mixing bowl and mix the lettuce with the ranch dressing. Then add in the black beans, corn, pico de gallo, and top with avocado and cheese. Gorgeous! For those who need extra protein/calories or just like spice, top with grilled chicken and/or hot sauce to taste.