A Pretty Little Snack: Dairy-Free Blueberry Corn Muffins

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I made these little beauties for a group of friends who came over the evening after I got back to London from Thanksgiving – in other words, I made these muffins, and the other snacks I'd promised (thank god for truffle salt and hardboiled eggs) in a haze of jetlag and exhaustion after a full day of work. 

I wasn't expecting much from them; I threw the ingredients together based loosely on a basic muffin recipe and the random ingredients we had in our cupboard, and I was more than a little worried that they'd turn out strange.  But lo and behold, they came out looking fabulous (if I do say so meself)!

The 'Other' Thanksgiving Dessert: Apple Crisp

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You guys already know I'm obsessed with pumpkin, and especially with my family's pumpkin pie.  So of course when I was home in San Francisco for Thanksgiving I ate a ton of the stuff.  But what you don't know is that there's another dessert my family serves every year, and it's not pecan pie (we do serve that sometimes, in which case it's a third option) – it simply has to be something fruity.

'scuse the iphone pics – didn't bring the big camera home.*

My mom and her sisters, the current matriarchs of our big, female-dominated clan, aren't super big on sweets.  They're salt folk, and they often skip dessert altogether on Thanksgiving, preferring to eat a slice of pumpkin pie at 6am the next day, for 'breakfast' (my mom never eats breakfast, besides these rare morning-after occurrences).  So if there's going to be another dessert on their table, they require it to be something a bit less sweet, less rich, more fruit-based, and that usually means an apple crisp.

Trust Me on This One: Blueberry Oatmeal Cookies

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Okay, first things first, I need to acknowledge the elephant in the room: these pics.  They're not so good...and there aren't very many of them.  This post is unlikely to get past the guards at Foodgawker, or be pinned on Pinterest, or be bookmarked solely for the beauty of the photos.  For that reason, I've been putting off writing this post.  But then, on a long and awkward train journey to Edinburgh, I ate the last of these cookies, and I decided I couldn't let the photos hold me back anymore – the world needs to know about these chewy gems.

I'm not even kidding.  These cookies are that good.  They can make a squished train ride bearable, a cold day feel nostalgically wintry, and a loved one forgive a stress-related slight.  They're magic, and they're so easy.

Delayed Gratification: Blueberry Boy Bait

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When I first saw this recipe forever ago on Smitten Kitchen, I immediately bookmarked it.  I mean, cake batter, fresh blueberries, cinnamon topping, and a cute name?  Sold, sold, and sold again.

But then it got lost in the flood of recipes I was bookmarking every day, and I forgot about it.  Until my friend Aine asked me on facebook if I'd ever heard of it, and the desire came rushing back.  Oh, Boy Bait, I lamented, how could I ever have forgotten you?

A First Time for Everything: 2-Hour Whole Wheat Bagels

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I've always wanted to make bagels, but every time I thought I was up for it I either balked at all the steps or had a yeasted-things-disaster just before I was planning to make them and got too intimidated.  It seems like such a process: all that kneading and rising, then more rising and resting, then the shaping, and to top it all off they have to be boiled before they're baked??  WTF.

 

But then, last weekend, I found myself with nothing interesting to do (the bf was off with his study buddy) and some extra whole wheat flour on my hands (not literally, that part comes later), and I came across this recipe for bagels in two hours.  Yes, two hours, start to finish!  It seemed too good to be true, but I was bored and I figured I'd give it a shot.

The End of an Era, Marked by Crumb Coffee Cake

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So, my MA course is officially over.  We've all handed in our dissertations, and even though some people are still working on their books (poor researchers...), most of us are starting to look for agents and publishers to take us on.  It's a whole new ballgame, and this time we're on our own.  No weekly workshops where we can glean advice from those farther along than the rest; no meetings with grown-up writers (ie tutors) who can guide us in the right direction; no grades/marks to let us know whether what we're doing is working.  Nope, each of us is on her own now, and that's both freeing and terrifying.

But it doesn't mean we can't still meet up and gossip over cake every now and again, and that's exactly what we did a couple weeks ago!  After much back and forth on scheduling and location, we settled on a date and time and met up at our classmate C's house in West London for brunch.  And yes, the tube lines were down, and yes, the journey was long, but it was so worth it for the lovely outdoor space and even lovelier hospitality.

Fall Baking, Without the Pumpkin: Dairy Free Spice Cookies

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The air is biting, the leaves are turning, and the adolescent swans down on the canal are finally starting to turn white, which means two things: 1. the swans are currently a mottled grey-white, which is adorably hilarious, and 2. it's time to bust out the fall recipes!

Now, I'm not the most creative cook, so fall recipes, for me, usually just involve pumpkin.  I love pumpkin.  Pie, bread (or bread, or bread), muffins, oatmeal – you name it and put pumpkin in it, I'll eat it.