Weekend wind-down 9.9.2012

Okay, I have to admit that I'm totally stealing this idea from my friend Kayte, who often posts a Sunday Snippets on her blog as a summary of what's been going on during her week.  I have a whole bunch of odds and ends that I can talk about, but nothing that I want to write an entire post about.  I thought about doing a Wordless Wednesday-ish sort of thing, since I have some pictures, but I realized that I do have some words to share as well.  So here we are. =)  If I like the way this works out, it might even become a weekly thing.

Above is my dessert from tonight.  I'm trying to will autumn to come to Central Texas sooner rather than later.  Summer is my least favorite season.  I dislike the heat, I don't really grill, and summer meals aren't the ones I really enjoy making.  We had a brief taste of fall weather this weekend--the highs were still around 90 (I can hear my northern friends thinking, how can she say that's fall weather?), but the low this morning was about 60, which we haven't felt in months.  We might get one more run of temperatures around 100, but maybe we'll get lucky and avoid it.

I've been craving fall flavors big time, things like apples and pumpkin and warm spices.  I had a short day on Friday, and spent part of my time at home making spice cupcakes.  I tried a recipe that I hadn't made before.  (It's from the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook.)  It was originally for a 13"x9" pan, and I made it as cupcakes.  It was a mixed success.  The flavors were great, but the batter spread too much and the cake's crumb was too delicate in cupcake form.  It did give me a chance to use my new cupcake papers from my recent KAF order, though.  I took a bunch of the cupcakes to work, where they got rave reviews.  The rest got crumbled up and layered with some homemade applesauce (I found some enormous Paula Red apples at Central Market the other night) and whipped cream.  Yum!

My other major baking activity for the week was the Nectarine Upside-Down Chiffon Cake for Tuesdays with Dorie.  I actually made it on Tuesday, but ran out of energy to post about it.  The verdict?  I like the cake, but I'd make a few changes next time.  The main thing would be to use a tarter fruit, either regular nectarines (I used white ones) or maybe plums.  The cake was also at its best the first day; it got soggy after that.  Thanks to Marlise and Susan for hosting this week.  And everyone else's results can be found on the Links page.

Getting back to fall flavors...  Gillian was quite concerned that Central Market had Halloween stuff out this week.  At least they waited this long.  Most of the candy I can take or leave, but I do have one notable weakness.  I can resist the regular candy corn--I don't buy it, because if I do, I'll eat it without really thinking about it and then wonder, "why did I do that?" when I end up with a queasy stomach.  But a few years ago I discovered caramel candy corn.  This stuff is awesome.  Tooth-achingly sweet, which isn't usually my thing, but so tasty.  

I'll leave you with some kid news.  This picture is actually from last weekend.  Gillian was pretty happy to lose the second of her top front teeth, since it had been pretty loose and annoying.  This way she still can't bite into a lot of stuff, but she doesn't have a wiggly tooth in the way, either.  Both girls were a bit under the weather this weekend.  Both were in daycare from a very early age, so we dealt with a lot of germs and built up their immune systems early.  But G is at a new school this year for kindergarten, with lots of new people and their different germs.  Plus she's been really tired from the adjustment to a new schedule.  So I'm not terribly surprised that she got a cold already (and shared it with her sister).  Here's hoping things improve as we all get into the new routine.  

Well, that's all I have for now.  My goals for the next week include figuring out some new ideas for school lunches as well as some new easy dinner ideas.  (I'm open to suggestions if you have them!)  I'm also reacquainting myself with Pinterest.  A bunch of my blogging/tweeting friends use it, and I'm starting to see why.  I've had an account for quite a while, but haven't spent any time with it.  We'll see how it goes.