Stuffed

I've been making a lot of food the last couple of days. Maybe I'm just warming up for the holiday baking that starts in approximately 3.75 days. Or maybe it has something to do with this sudden and terrible need I seem to have to eat all the time. (Seriously? How can one tiny little person possibly need so much food? And why does my body, in trying to make me eat enough and frequently, make me feel so much like not eating. I mean really? Nausea? That makes me want to eat? Um. No.)

Some of the things I'm making are for a fun little get-together we're having over the next couple of days with some friends in Indiana. We're going to head down there tomorrow morning, and I'm going to be packing some yummy treats for everyone.

Treats like jalapeno cheese sourdough bread.


And super yummy cinnamon rolls!




Yeah... you know you want a cinnamon roll now.




For a breakfast change-of-pace, I made some sourdough English muffins yesterday. I finally found a pretty good recipe and wow, are they yummy. I love English muffins.




Can't figure out why they're called "muffins" though. Jonah was confused all day, poor kid. They're really more like a yeasted biscuit. If the English call these "muffins", what do they call... um... you know... muffins?

I'm actually dying to know.

I had a few small Chinese cabbages out in the garden still and the chickens were just mowing them down. It was time to get them in and do something with them before there was nothing left.

Instead of Kim Chee or Tsukemono this time, though, I decided to try making them into apple-cranberry kraut. I shredded the cabbages, grated some apples, and added a handful of dried cranberries (and then remembered that I have fresh cranberries in my fridge! Doh!)





Jonah helped. He had to make sure the cranberries tasted okay.




Hmmm... I wonder how this might taste with turkey?

I also made that Faux Pumpkin Pie (made with a super-sweet squash, but you wouldn't know the difference). Do you know that pumpkin pie makes an excellent breakfast? It does. Eggs, cream, pumpkin-- perfectly legal breakfast foods. Especially on stumbling down the stairs in the morning needing food now! Or else!

I have a cast iron pot of Beef Burgundy simmering away on the woodstove for supper. (Hey, why run the propane when I have a built-in slow cooker right there in the living room?) If you have never made Beef Burgundy and only made plain ol' beef stew-- you just have no idea what you're missing. Red wine makes ALL the difference in a pot of stew. Oh, and the bacon helps. A lot.

Yes. I'm definitely either gearing up for holiday food, or a long, plump winter. Or both.