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
or
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
So many lovely recipes :) Congratulations for your participation on the book!
Have a nice week
It was a good month, lots of banana goodness and an incredible giveaway. I hear you about the savory recipes and re-heated dinners!
Ahhh, so you’ve been there, too, eh? :)
Congrats on the book!
Note to self – stop blog reading before breakfast. I’m STARVING now. Great recipes!
Awesome month of recipes (as always, of course). I think I’ve bookmarked all of these!
Impressed with all you cooked and baked during this hot month we are ending – big congrats on being in the Trader Joe’s cookbook!
Thanks, Liz! Surprised we don’t bump into each other more often at that store :) No – instead it’s just literally running into each other in Ralph’s :)
Hehehe… This September sure was memorable: for the first time in my life I missed my plane (https://www.picnicatmarina.com/2012/09/my-little-adventure-in-dallas-tx.html), and I think that would even make it for a whole year! :)
Hehe! Was just thinking it could be called “the September issue” – great minds think alike! ;)
Averie- this is post is absolute sensory overload in the best way possible! The photos are beautiful. I can’t wait to try some of these!
You’re so sweet, thank you, Tiffany!
Eeek! Ive missed a few in my life. One time on a trip to Grand Cayman we decided to stay at an airport-area hotel so that we’d be close the airport and wouldnt have to deal with traffic in the a.m. Said hotel forget to give us our wakeup call and we never made the flight and had to wait 24 hrs to catch the next one!
i think we need to relive september, just for these recipes. oh yes, pass th e donuts!
Ditto everything above! The recipes are classic, but still feel new, you know?
This coming weekend is applefest here, and I think I have to make your apple banana cake. And I’m making the vegetable lasagna tomorrow to have for leftovers for the week. YUM.
Such a great round-up this month!
Entering the pie contest here in LA and acting in a short film were probably the most noteworthy September activities. I also started some new acting and improv classes which have been scary and hard(in good ways). This month felt really short but it seems like a lot happened!
Sounds like the classes are challenging you, which is always a good thing to be taxed like that! (in a good way of course!)
love the way your blog has evolved over this month especially. And it seriously seems like yesterday i was reading your august roundup. I love your tidbits about real life too :)
I figure I may as well throw a few real life tidbits in and I am glad that you notice things evolving, that’s the plan :)
I’ve had a good month–no catastrophes other than a clogged kitchen sink. My stepdaughter started college here in town and got her first tattoo! It’s on the bottom side of her wrist and goes up her forearm a little (and it looks good–suits her well). Just finished dinner and the sweet potato zucchini fritters were delicious. I made seven big ones for the 3 of us…and there is 1 left! I’ve tried several of your recipes this month as I look back–veg lasagna casserole, banana bread and the peanut noodles (which I’m making tomorrow to clean out the vegetable drawer). What can I say–they’ve all been great!
I got more work done on my tattoo this month! I just didn’t blog about it! But here I am… :)
And you make so much of my stuff and I appreciate it, seriously! Why else would I want to do this if no one made anything! I am so glad they were all hits! And glad you loved the fritters. I was a little worried about the ‘leaking’ with the egg/butter mixture or the water from the zucchini and hope I covered it well enough in the post and sounds like you had good results. That’s awesome :) And tomorrow peanut noodles. Yum!
Been holding onto the Pumpkin Banana bread recipe to make for thanksgiving. The PBJ Blondies however were AWESOME!!!
Very interesting about how you photograph savory food. When I post savory food I just photograph it at dinner time because I want to eat it at its peak. It seems no matter what time of day I photograph, I still have a lot to learn about picture taking.
Averie–I really like the recent recipes that are a bit more classic, and that you’ve thrown in a few savory dishes (for those of us that are baking-challenged!). :) I love what you do!
Thanks, Michelle, for the feedback & kind words :)