September 2012 Recipes

It’s the end of the month and time to recap the noteworthy recipes and events from the month:

15 Un-Labor Day Recipes – Fast, easy, and unlaboring recipes

Fluffernutter Banana Smoothie (vegan, GF) – Marshmallows + Peanut Butter + Bananas are a win

Zucchini Banana Bread with Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting – The frosting alone makes me want to make more of this bread

Sweet Potato and Red Pepper Coconut Milk Soup (vegan, GF) – 3 ingredients and ready in 15 minutes. My new favorite soup

Recipes and Flavors of Fall – 15 of my favorite fall recipes

Peanut Butter and Jelly Blondies – Dense, peanut butter-fudge-like in nature, and swirled with jelly. My new favorite way to eat PB & J

Pumpkin Banana Bread with Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting – My first pumpkin recipe of the season and I had been formulating the recipe in my head for about two months. Thankfully it lived up to my expectations

Peanut Noodles with Mixed Vegetables and Peanut Sauce (vegan, GF) – Dinner’s ready in 5 minutes flat with this easy vegan meal. Plus everything tastes better when it’s drenched in easy homemade peanut sauce

35 National Peanut Day Recipes – 35 of my favorite peanut butter recipes. I actually have more but narrowed it down to my top 35. If you need peanut butter recipes, this is the post to bookmark

Spiced Apple and Banana Bundt Cake with Vanilla Caramel Glaze – This is my favorite frosting or glaze of all time, ever, and I’ve made hundreds in my day. The cake’s not half bad either

Cinnamon and Spice – 15 of my favorite recipes using cinnamon

Pumpkin Spice Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Granola (vegan, GF) – The second pumpkin recipe of the season and this granola is so easy. You’ll never have to buy overpriced, stale, storebought granola again

Vegetable Lasagna Casserole (vegan, GF) – A noodleless non-traditional lasagna that using grated carrots and zucchini to form one giant noodle-like pancake. Many people have written to say they’ve already made this and it was a big success

Bananas Foster Shooters (vegan, GF) – I made these after a cake-tastrophe and they taste just like the beloved dessert. Rum optional but recommended

25 National White Chocolate Day Recipes – Bookmark this post if you like white chocolate because I shared my favorite 25 recipes

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies + KitchenAid Stand Mixer + $200 Williams-Sonoma Gift Card Giveaway – A soft pumpkin cookie meets a chewy chocolate chip cookie. I made so many batches of these cookies to get them exactly the way I wanted them and love the final results

Cinnamon Oatmeal Date Bars with Chocolate Chunks (no-bake, vegan, GF) – A decadent looking bar that takes less than 5 minutes to make, has no refined sugar, and could even be considered healthy

Carrot Pineapple Banana Bread with Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting – Carrot cake meets sweet pineapple-banana bread. The bread is loaded with so many great ingredients and it’s my favorite banana bread recipe, to date

Baked Chipotle Sweet Potato and Zucchini Fritters with Homemade Spicy Mustard (vegan, GF) – Baked not fried, which means you can have extra

Noteworthy:

  I’m a contributing author in the new Trader Joe’s cookbook and it was released this month. I just got the actual hard-cover copy of the book in my hands Friday afternoon. It felt amazing seeing four of my recipes, and my own picture, staring back at me from the glossy pages of this gorgeous, creative, and fun book. There are almost 300 recipes, most of which are a snap to make, and even if you don’t have a Trader Joe’s in your area, that’s okay because you can substitute with ingredients from other grocery stores. Not just because I contributed to it, but I can already tell I’m going to get lots of use from this cookbook. My friend Marla did an amazing job as photographer and each recipe is accompanied with a photo.

I continued with Banana Bread Fest and posted four recipes this month that were either banana

bread

or

banana

cake

I participated in a Virtual Baby Shower

I stared a giveaway for a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer and a $200 Williams-Sonoma Gift Card and it’s the biggest giveaway I’ve ever hosted in three and a half years of blogging, and I’ve hosted nearly one giveaway per week, every week, over the years. This will be quite the nice little prize for someone.

What did you make or do in September that was memorable?

At the end of August I discussed my desire to post more classic style recipes. Less over the top Pinterest-style sugar bombs and crazy cockamamie ingredient combinations and just more classics or recipes that people will actually make. In general, I feel like it was a good month in that regard. I posted four banana bread or cake recipes, a classic Apple Bundt cake, vegan granola, and no-bake vegan bars with no refined sugar. Nothing that was over-the-top, and recipes that can be make over and over again and that are practical. Everyone loves granola and always has ripe bananas to use.

I also posted four savory recipes: red pepper and coconut milk soup, peanut noodles with peanut sauce, vegetable lasagna, and sweet potato-zucchini fritters. I also linked up some of my favorite savory recipes in the couple of roundup-style posts I did. I try to post one per week and it doesn’t always happen, but I try.

The reason I don’t post more is a that we eat a re-heated dinner that night. I make and photograph the food during the day and reheat it for dinner because there’s no way I could photograph our dinner at dinnertime. It’s just too chaotic and my family is too hungry and patience is not anyone’s virtue; plus the lighting is poor. Most savory food needs to be photographed hot and immediately after making it to look it’s best whereas desserts can be made any time, are always made ahead of time and at my leisure, and can also sit out without degrading. No-bake dessert bars don’t mind waiting, for a day or two sometimes. For all the savory-food bloggers, my hat is off to you. In the meantime, I try with one savory dish per week.

In life events, Skylar started first grade, we got back into the swing of a school schedule, including homework in both English and Spanish (it starts young), and she’s thriving and loving school.

Tell me about your month.

Previous Months:

January 2012
February 2012
March 2012
April 2012
May 2012
June 2012
July 2012
August 2012

Thanks for the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies + KitchenAid Stand Mixer + $200 Williams-Sonoma Gift Card Giveaway entries