Fall Baking Begins

Greetings, friends. I hope this week is moving along swimmingly for you. Don't you love that word? Swimmingly. Let's at least hope the rest of the week does its thing without too much trouble (though it is only Tuesday...).

Upon my arrival home today, I could no longer ignore these:

or this:

Naturally, I took just a few minutes to search for recipes that include bananas and pumpkins. Skinnytaste's Pumpkin Banana Bread was the winning recipe!

You know I had to add some nuts (pecans and walnuts) and chocolate chips. (Hey, we're out of brownies and ice cream, so I needed a new dessert!)

The original plan was to hit up my yoga mat for a workout while the bread baked, but about 10 minutes in I lost interest and motivation. My throat was starting to hurt, too, and I'll be furious if I get sick! I've made it a month into school without getting sick, and I would love to keep that record going!

For dinner, in an effort to keep things super simple and allow me to get to sleep early, we scratched our original plans to make pepperoni pasta and opted for delivery sushi instead. Blah.

Turns out, that bread was a great idea.

Honestly, I couldn't taste too much of the pumpkin, but the banana flavor came through just fine. And the nuts and chocolate chips? I'm pretty brilliant when it comes to adding random (albeit unhealthy) bits in breads, cookies, or muffins.

Honestly, I am very good at following a recipe and perhaps making slight changes here and there, but I very rarely attempt to create a new baking recipe from scratch. Baking is a science! Even slight alterations can result in disaster. In my case, slight alterations will result in disaster. So I stick to other people's awesome creations and focus on cooking when I want to get experimental.

Here are some fall recipes I'm excited to try this year (baking and cooking):

• Baking my very own pumpkin pie using an actual pumpkin
• Pumpkin Banana Mousse Tart (Ina Garten)
• Pumpkin Chocolate Cheesecake Bars (Better Homes & Gardens)
• Some kind of pumpkin chili, like this one (Skinnytaste)
• Pumpkin Cookies (Libby's Pumpkin)
• Pumpkin Bagels (Healthy. Delicious.) and perhaps some pumpkin cream cheese

Hmmm...lots of pumpkin in my future!

A few photos of our little guy to end the night:

Any fall recipes you recommend?