Whoopie!

Whoopie pies are the new black. I'm pretty sure of this. They may even be the new cupcake. They're everywhere and I'm pretty sure they can't be stopped. I've never made them before and thought maybe I should. I mean, we are pretty close to Lancaster, PA, and those Amish folks do claim the whoopie pie as their own.

Thanks to the awesomeness that is Pinterest, I found a link for Pumpkin and Maple Cream Cheese Whoopie Pies recipe here.

I must say, that not only did they taste fantastic, they turned out much prettier than I ever imagined!!!

I followed the recipe this time with only a few minor changes. I doubled the amount of spices (the cinnamon and ginger) and was pleased with the result. The cookies would have been bland (to me) had I not made that adjustment. My readers who tasted them can weigh in on that in the comment section!

I used my small cookie scoop to put the dough on the pans. I knew using this method was the only way I stood a chance of getting cookies the same size. I just hoped it would also result in cookies with a rounded shape. Also, whenever I bake cookies, I ALWAYS use my Pampered Chef baking stones. ALWAYS. If I had Silpat Cookie Sheet Liners I'd use those, but with the issues I have with my oven, I can't use a straight cookie sheet.

It worked!

Once I saw that the cookies looked perfect, I wanted to make sure I didn't make the filling look messy. So before I squished the two cookies together with the filling in the middle, I sort of formed it onto one cookie and smoothed the sides a bit. Then pressed the two together so the filling then just spread out in the formed shape.

Ta da!

I would absolutely make these again!

In other, non-whoopie pie related news, I thought I'd share a little cinematic masterpiece created by my friend, Candy's husband, who is obviously a skilled filmmaker.

I bet you'll never guess which phone is me!

Party like it's 1802

I picked up The Bucolic Plague (the book, not a disease) at the library not intending to enjoy it. I take that back. It wasn't that I was planning to read something I thought would bore me to tears, it's just that given the subject matter and the title, I just figured it was long-winded story of how you, too, can be a better person by buying and running an organic farm. I loved the book! Yeah, it has undertones of the trials and tribulations one may encounter when embarking on the task of becoming a gentleman farmer, but it is really a very well written and quite funny story of real life on a small farm.

I remember seeing the book in my local Williams-Sonoma back in the spring. Then earlier this week the Beekman Farm popped back on my radar when I was glancing through the recent issue of Country Living.  The Fabulous Beekman Boys are two guys from Manhattan who purchase a farm in upstate New York, and then commit to bringing the run-down farm and house (built in 1802) back to life. The book turned out to be very funny, regardless of whether or not you care about such things as heirloom plants or organic farming or killing your first Thanksgiving turkey with your bare hands. I really loved the tidbits that were planted throughout the book, which provide an insider's glimpse into the "real" Martha Stewart  (Brent Ridge, one of the two men, is a former Martha Stewart Omnimedia employee). I will spare you of my lame attempt to highlight some of the humor and the charming tales of life down on the Beekman Farm, but it's worth your while to read an excerpt of the book here. Farming eventually lead Josh and Brent to develop a very Martha-style omnimedia empire, developing a lifestyle brand called Beekman 1802 which includes the website, books, blogs, forums, and a TV show.

Beekman 1802 

The Fabulous Beekman Boys have recently released a cookbook of  heirloom recipes, The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook. The recipes focus on using heirloom produce and organic ingredients, giving home-cooking a 21st century farmhouse spin. And, just in time for Thanksgiving, some of their recipes were featured in this month's (November 2011) issue of Country Living magazine.

One of the recipes featured in the magazine was a Honey Apple Pie with Rosemary. I love rosemary and I love apple pie, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Since the recipe isn't posted on the Beekman site or the Country Living site, I can't (unless I want to get in sued) post the recipe here. After a little "internet research" I found that their recipe was VERY similar to this recipe (which I can post and link to since it's already been posted):

Honey Apple Pie with Thyme originally posted back in 2006 in the New York Times.

3 golden delicious apples, peeled and cored 4 granny smith apples, peeled and cored 1/2 cup honey 6 thyme branches 1/2 cup unsalted butter cut into small pieces 2 T instant tapioca 1/3 c light brown sugar 1/2 t ground ginger 1/4 t salt flour for dusting dough for 2 9 inch pie crusts. 1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Slice Golden Delicious apples and 3 granny smith apples into sixths. 2. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, bring 14 cup honey to a boil. Let simmer about 2 minutes, until honey is caramelized. Add 3 thyme branches. Arrange half the apples in a single layer in skillet. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons butter over apples. Cook apples, turning until well caramelized on all sides, but not cooked through, about ten minutes. Scrape apples and honey mixture into a bowl. Add tapioca and toss to combine. Repeat cooking process with remaining honey, thyme, butter and sliced apples. Add a second batch of apples to bowl, combine. Discard all thyme branches. 3. thinly slice remaining granny smith apple and add it to bowl. Stir in sugar, ginger and salt 4. On a lightly floured surface roll out both crusts to a 12 inch circle. Place one crust in 9 inch pie plate. Scrape apple filling into crust and top with remaining crusts. 5. Bake for 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 and continue baking about 45 min. Let cool for 30 minutes before slicing.

So, taking that recipe, here are my changes to make a Honey and Rosemary Apple Pie...

Crust
I didn't make the crust. If you want to make a pie crust and have time, go for it. I used a store-bought crust.

Pie Filling (this is enough to make one deep dish 9 inch pie or two regular 9 inch pies)

4 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, sliced

4 Honey Crisp apples, peeled, cored, sliced

1 cup light brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon ground cloves

2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary (I will probably use 3-4 teaspoons of rosemary next time...it wasn't rosemary-enough for me)

3 tablespoons instant tapioca

½ cup honey

2 tablespoons butter

1 large egg, lightly beaten with 1 teaspoon water (this is the egg wash for the top of the crust)

Cinnamon and sugar (for sprinkling top of pie crust)

In a bowl, combine apples with brown sugar, spices, and tapioca.  

Add honey and stir until combined.

Preheat oven to 400. Place crust in 9 inch pie pan. Add pie filling to pan. And dot with 2 tablespoons of butter (not melted).

Place second crust over top of pie. I have a leaf-shaped cookie cutter that I like to use to cut out the crust for the top of the pie.

Brush egg wash over crust, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

Bake pie on middle rack of oven .After 20 minutes remove pie and cover edge of crust with foil. Continue to bake until juices are bubbling 50 minutes more. Cool on wire rack.

The pie was fantastic! I loved the addition of rosemary, even if it wasn't enough rosemary for me. I'll play with it on the second try to see if I can add more rosemary without over-doing it.

Autumn Earrings

Taking inspiration from two new Fall scarves I recently purchased (one on sale at Target and one at Nordstrom Rack), I pulled out my jewelry supplies and made a few new pairs of earrings. A few to sell, a few for upcoming birthday gifts.

I found this really pretty pumpkin colored scarf at Nordstrom Rack last week. 

I really love using these long kidney wire earrings. Some people don't like them because the earrings are too long. I have a mix of sizes so I did a few of the standard long ones (1.5 inch) and a few using shorter ones (1 inch), that I purchased off Etsy a few years ago. On a recent trip to Hobby Lobby, I came across these metal findings that look very organic and stem-like so I thought they'd be perfect with Fall colors.

I purchased this really cute leopard print scarf off the clearance rack at Target for $9.99! I like that it's light weight and a girl can always use a little leopard print and it's very popular right now!

I did a pair playing up the browns.

And then with the black.

I love them all! How am I going to give them away or sell them? Good thing I made two sets of each. :)

Fall Dinner

I just thought I'd share a few recipes I used over the past weekend when we had friends over for dinner. Two are new and one is an oldie, but a goodie!

SMOKED PAPRIKA PORK

I tried the Smoked Paprika Pork Tenderloin recipe that was in October's Southern Living magazine. I highly recommend it! Using the grill made things much easier than doing this in a crockpot or the oven, which is why I selected the recipe in the first place.

My adjustments to the recipe are:
I used garlic powder in the rub instead of a crushed garlic clove.
I added wood chips to smoke things up in the grill.
I skipped tying the tenderloin up with string and it was fine. I don't think you cook it long enough to encounter an issue of the meat starting to fall away (and it's not on the bone to begin with...maybe these people just like tying things with string?).
I also didn't make the BBQ sauce. I had some sauce from 12 Bones (in Asheville, NC) so I used that. I'm pretty sure any brown sugar based BBQ sauce you have or buy will be fine.

Tying things with string for no reason....making your own BBQ sauce...really people? I don't have time for that.

SWEET POTATO CASSEROLE
I also thought I'd share my sweet potato casserole recipe, since friends often ask for it. The problem with those requests is that I don't really use a recipe. I mean, I think I did in the beginning, but now I just sort of make it up as I go along. Here is the closest thing to a real recipe with measurements I could find.

Here is my Amy-style recipe:
1. Wash and cut into half about 6-8 sweet potatoes (you want enough mashed sweet potatoes to fill about half of your casserole dish)...so you get about 4-6 cups of mashed sweet potatoes. If you cook too many, then you have some left to make sweet potato brownies!
2. Cook them in boiling water for about 20 minutes or so, until they're soft and the skin is loose but not coming off in the water
3. Drain them and let them cool, then remove skins and mash them
4. Whisk together two eggs. Add some vanilla. Some sugar if you want. You can add some milk too. Then start mixing in the sweet potatoes. I usually add some cinnamon and maybe some nutmeg.
5. Grease a casserole dish. Spread out the sweet potato mixture evenly.
6. In a separate bowl mix together about 2 cups of chopped pecans (you want to cover the entire top of the sweet potatoes in the casserole dish so you'll need this much), a cup of brown sugar, about 2 tablespoons of all purpose flour, some cinnamon, ground cloves, ground ginger (maybe a teaspoon of each depending on how "spicy" you want it). Then melt a stick of butter and pour it into the nut mixture until it's fully incorporated. Spread the nut mixture over the top of the sweet potatoes in the casserole dish.
7. Place in oven at 350 and cook for about 30 minutes. Until the edges are starting to brown. Just check it occasionally. You don't want the pecans to burn.

If you want to add the marshmallow on top, and I do this sometimes, I just buy the plain mini marshmallows (I do want to try spreading a layer of marshmallow fluff on top one time!). Sprinkle the marshmallows on top of the cooked casserole and put it back in the oven under the broiler for a few minutes. You really have to keep a close eye on the casserole under the broiler because the marshmallows burn quickly and you want them just lightly browned on top.

'SMORES
I saw this recipe on Pinterest last week and thought I'd give it a try, but I'm not making marshmallow fluff or my own graham crackers. So I bought a jar of marshmallow fluff and a box of graham crackers. They now sell graham crackers in boxes with four sleeves instead of two and the graham crackers are already broken into squares, instead of rectangles. This was a HUGE break-through (thank you square graham cracker inventor) when it came to making these things a snap. You don't have to worry about breaking the graham crackers yourself, which will for sure end up in a mess and a bunch of broken-in-the-wrong-way graham crackers.

So, I just laid 8 crackers out on a cookie sheet. Spread marshmallow fluff on one side. Put another cracker on top and lightly pressed it together. I put those in the freezer for an hour or so. Then I came back, melted my semi-sweet chocolate chips (I did it in the microwave which works just fine, but you have to heat it carefully only a few seconds at a time and then open the door and stir the chips...then do that over and over again until the chocolate chips are fully melted and the chocolate is smooth) in a tall glass container (a pyrex measuring cup). I wanted something tall so the chocolate would be deep enough to dip the graham crackers straight down into and back out. Then I dipped them, and put them back on the cookie sheet (lined with parchment) for about an hour. After that I removed them and put them in a plastic air-tight container in the fridge. Unfortunately, I don't think the store bought graham crackers will last two weeks in the fridge like the original recipe suggests. I made them the night before and used them the next day and they were fine, but by the second day the graham crackers were starting to get soft, so I'd just suggest making them the night before or the day that you need them. They were really good!

Velvet pumpkins

I thought this project would make a perfect fall-inspired Pinterest project for the Pinterest Challenge on Young House Love this week!

Check out these really cute velvet pumpkins with real pumpkin stems. Are they cute or what? I was inspired by similar pumpkins I saw at Terrain last weekend and decided that instead of blowing $40+ on one small one, I could probably make myself an entire velvet pumpkin patch for less than $20.

These are the ones that caught my eye at Terrain. They're beautiful. And expensive. They only sell the small one online. The large ones in the store were running about twice that price.

So, I did a little exploring online when I got home. Check out the gorgeous color combos I found on Pinterest!

Hot Skwash

Hot Skwash

Hot Skwash

Plush Pumpkin

I found this tutorial via a search on Pinterest.  This tutorial is very close to the steps I followed (although read it AFTER I made my pumpkins). My only changes, to either tutorial (because the cutting and sewing steps are the same), is that I filled my pumpkins about half full with rice (I wanted them to be very stable) and then added polyfill, and that I glued the pumpkin stem onto the pumpkin. I didn't stick it inside the opening in the top, like the first tutorial. Instead, I glued it straight onto the fabric as described in the second tutorial. I went to Joann's Fabric & Crafts at lunch one day. They didn't have silk velvet, like used to make the ones in the photos above. They did have TONS of colors in crushed velvet (which I'm not a fan of, but since I had no other option I just went with it). I chose a black and light grey because they'd go well with my Halloween decorations and I wanted to do something other than an orange pumpkin. Also, I knew I wanted to make some in non-traditional colors to use in my dining room, but I thought I'd give a black and grey one a try to see how they look out of the crushed velvet.

I just got a half a yard of the crushed velvet in each color ($3.00 in fabric total). A bag of rice (about $1.50). I had polyfill already at home in craft supplies.

Getting the stems (if you want more than one) seems to be the most difficult part of this entire project. Look what happened to my Kate Spade purse when I went to the pumpkin patch!

I am probably the only woman in history to fill her Kate Spade bag with pumpkin stems. I just walked around the pumpkin patch and picked them up off the ground. Yay free stuff!

If you can't find ones laying around your local garden or pumpkin patch, then you're going to have to buy pumpkins and murder them for their stems. Luckily I've been able to find very inexpensive victims at the local farmers market for only $1. I bought a few and removed the stems and left the pumpkins in the backyard for the squirrels.

I bought a cheap pumpkin and hacked off the stem. Grey stems are best because they look better and they're much easier to get off the pumpkin. I just cut out a square around the stem, popped it out of the pumpkin and then trimmed away the orange. This is much easier on a grey, or dried stem, than it was with this "green" one, but I had to work with what I could acquire on my lunch break!

At home, I just cut a piece of the black fabric into a 20" x 20" square (to make about a 10" pumpkin), and then folded it into quarters to cut a rough circle. 

I gathered and stitched up the circle, as described in the tutorials I mentioned above. Be sure to leave the needle and thread still attached. Then I filled the pumpkin half way with rice. Like I mentioned, I wanted it to be stable and not like a cotton filled fabric ball. 

After the rice, I added polyfill and then pulled the opening closed (with the the needle and thread that were still attached from gathering the edges) and tied it off. Because of the thickness of the bunched fabric, it didn't close all the way, so I ran stitches across the opening until it was pulled close. I chose to go this route because I noticed that some of the Plush Pumpkin and Hot Skwash pumpkins seem to have a "tufted" shape about them and I wanted that same look. I also suggest using button thread to make the gathers and then to pull it closed. Using regular thin thread may not be the best idea when you have thick fabric and you're pulling against it.

Closed but a little polyfill was sticking through.

The finished product! I made one large black 10" pumpkin and two small 4" pumpkins. I just hot glued the stems onto the fabric. They seem to be holding just fine. I'm just careful not to pick them up by the stem.

The orange pumpkin is actually store bought. A friend who knew I was making these saw it at a local store and bought it for me. It's amazing how much the stem on that thing looks real (it's resin)! And it was definitely cheaper than the ones at Terrain too.

I think I'll make a bunch in various neutrals for the dining room.

I started with six. I still need a few more. I'll get to those later this week.