elsewhere: dumplings and cake

It’s a fun, fun day at Smitten Kitchen–did you know that? Today I am presenting you with not just one new recipe but FOUR. Four recipes! Someone is trying to be the valedictorian of food blogging NaBloPoMo, huh? Valedictorian, medalist and also winner, mind you.

Funny story about that, actually.

Recipe

black bean pumpkin soup

I know this sounds like the tiniest of triumphs in a world of people who have respectable accomplishments to be proud of, but nonetheless, it brings me great pleasure to announce that I have found a pumpkin soup that meets my approval.

Yes, I know, who talks about pumpkin soup in November? It seems like strictly an October affair. Pumpkins crowd the markets, and the people gather round with an evil glint in their eyes, eager to carve them up and roast their innards, mwa-ha-ha. You can barely turn your head without finding another half dozen pumpkin recipes, and oh, I know, I’ve spread my share around.

Recipe

simplest apple tart

Apples at their simplest can be their very finest. Sure, I love an oozy, heavily spiced and lidded apple pie, but I also think there is something matchless about apples, butter and sugar, baked until bubbly. This classic apple tart is from Alice Waters, but she says that it was actually Jacques Pepin who created it at Chez Panisse more than 20 years ago. I can see why they’ve never gotten tired of it.

Recipe

roasted stuffed onions

Short and sweet tonight because someone (aheeeem) already forgot that she had something she was supposed to be doing every day in November!

Recipe

lemon ricotta pancakes with sautéed apples

You know how you know it’s November? I actually made breakfast this morning. I’m sorry if that shattered your pristine image of me. Sure, I occasionally cook big, elaborate brunches for friends or family and I even spoil myself from time to time with yogurt with pumpkin butter and pepita granola, but pretty consistently, Saturday and Sunday morning I chew on my fingernails until Alex wakes up, or sometimes, if I’m really hungry and he’s still sleeping (the boy is a sleep MACHINE) I’ll sit next to him on the bed and stare until he wakes up and brings us either bagels from Murray’s or eggs from the diner. Yes, you heard that right. I get a fried egg and toast take out. Yes, I am ashamed to know myself sometimes, too.

Recipe

chicken with forty cloves of garlic

There was a period a couple years ago when Alex was traveling a lot for work and I hated every single second of it, even–quite brattily–the parts where he got fancy rental cars and stayed in “Heavenly Beds” (which he still does not shut up about, even today) and got to eat awesome meals and expense them. What can I say? I haven’t lived by myself in a lot of years and all of those windows that flood our apartment with light during the day are scary as hell at night, especially you read stories about someone trying to break into a friend’s apartment through the skylight. I slept terribly.

Recipe

cranberry, caramel and almond tart

It’s taken some time, but I have finally come to the conclusion that I am simply not very skilled at tart doughs. Yes, me, the girl who loves making bread and pasta and pretty much anything in the world that starts with kneading and gathering. Hey, I never said I was good at it.

Recipe

sweet potato and sausage soup

Because I am, in all likelihood, about seven years old on the inside but old enough on the outside to know that this might never change, I’m just going to admit from the start that the concept of sausage soup makes me giggle. It also sounds kind of gross, don’t you think? Sausage soup.Hee hee. In fact, when it appeared a few weeks ago as Epicurious’ Recipe of the Day, I sent the link to my husband who, also being seven or maybe seven and a half on the inside, would totally get a kick out of it. But then–and I hope that this doesn’t mean that he is growing up on me, because that just will not do–he actually said that it sounded good, and that we should make it for dinner.

Recipe

pumpkin butter + pepita granola

As if Alex and I weren’t lucky enough to win a trip to Napa Valley for a two-day grilling class on the stunning COPIA campus in August, we also got to meet Elise of Simply Recipes fame. Not only is she as warm, kind and knowledgeable as she comes off on her site, she’s one of those types of people who reach into their bag two minutes after having met you and proffers up a homemade gift, in this case, apple butter made from the early apples grown in her own backyard. “What’s a backyard?” Alex and I asked her, wide-eyed and baffled. Elise smiled politely.