Boo!

Gingerbread Skeletons, epicurious.com

Red Peppers Stuffed with Feta, Orzo, Lemon & Oregano

Not much is making me happy today. I do own every Fine Cooking magazine ever published. That makes me happy. Oh! and happy Meat Free Monday.

Red Peppers Stuffed with Feta, Orzo, Lemon & Oregano, Fine Cooking #23

Apple Upside-Down Cake with Bourbon Whipped Cream

With travel to Oregon and Michigan, I've been anxious for my routines, patterns, and habits. Unfortunately, the most sorely missed ones are like the best laid plans of mice and men. However, I did bake today.


Apple Upside-Down Cake with Bourbon Whipped Cream, Rose's Heavenly Cakes, Rose Levy Beranbaum

Banana-Macadamia Nut Muffins

Shortly after the Portland Marathon, I received a perfectly worded text message from a friend who knew exactly what I was feeling. At the time, I didn't have the right words to reply with. Days later, I received another text: "Okay. Your 72 hours of anger, disappointment, weeping, mourning, post-marathon depression is over. You better respond to me or I will track you down."

We exchanged a couple of emails and he advised: "Rest up. Bake. Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Drink. Sleep. And then get back out there."

Eat? Sleep? Not so much. Bake? What a brilliant idea! He was rewarded with a stack of highly addictive Salty-Sweets and I've been baking like a madwoman ever since.

That draws to a close with today's goodies, baked to use up ripe bananas before I leave town to join my husband, whose dad passed away yesterday. We knew it was coming, and we're grateful that Gary could be there in the days leading up to it.

Banana-Macadamia Nut Muffins, Bon Appetit

Pumpkin Muffins

I know there are people who don't care for pumpkin. Can't say I like pumpkin pie myself. Detest the stuff. My husband adores it, though, and these muffins (along with two mini-loaves) are for him.

While we were in Oregon, he not only dealt with my weepy emotional self following a disappointing race, worse was learning that his father had been hospitalized. We hoped it might be a short stay, until he was stable enough to travel here, where we can take better care of him. However last night Gary's mother suggested that he and his sister hurry home.

He'll leave in the morning and I'll send pumpkin muffins along, so that he knows I'm with him in spirit.