A Beet, Blue Cheese and Cherries Appetizer

Roasted beets, apple cider-soaked dried cherries, creamy blue cheese and crunchy pecans. This beet appetizer is hearty enough to stave off hunger and intriguing enough to satisfy curious appetites.

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I don't have enough beet appetizers in my life. You probably don't, either. You may think you've got plenty, but I'm going to try and change your mind.

You know about the Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks Board, right? It's my place to gather all the vegetable-centric [though not all vegetarian or vegan] starters I come across on the web. There are several beet recipes scattered amongst the hundreds of pins. [I am still figuring out this whole Pinterest thing, so it's rare that you'd find a repeat on that board--keep scrolling down for more ideas.]

I've also got 60 beet recipes from generous food bloggers in my Beet Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. This index is for folks like me eating seasonally from the farm share or farmer's market. The kind of folks who have a pile of fresh beets in the crisper 2 weeks after the last farm share delivery. The kind of folks who always have roasted beets in the freezer. The kind of folks who encourage their kids to use beets in their next school project [and then take photos of the results for a future blog post].

In my defense, the project was to prepare a dish using a vegetable, so it's not like he needed to build a molecule with toothpicks and marshmallows and I wanted him to substitute beets for the . . . . toothpicks [you thought I was going to say marshmallows].

Trail Mix with Leftover Halloween Candy for #Choctoberfest

Got leftover Halloween candy? Mix it up and stretch it out with fruit and nuts for a {Leftover} Halloween Candy Trail Mix.

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Do you buy the Halloween candy that you like, or do you buy the Halloween candy that will not tempt you? [Does anyone actually like Bit-o-Honey?]

When I moved to Ohio I realized that, unlike the 4th of July, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas or New Year's, the day that Halloween is celebrated is not set in stone. Around here, some towns have their kids trick or treat on the weekend before October 31st for reasons that have escaped me. [Let's celebrate Thanksgiving on a Sunday, hmm? That actually makes sense, so you're not working all day long and then pulling the best American meal of the year out of your ear 24 hrs later.]

Our town always celebrates on the 31st, which means that many years our flat, well-lit, sidewalked town with houses close together is overrun with 'people from off' coming to double dip on their trick or treating. I am quite curious this year, as Halloween falls on a Saturday, to see what reasons folks will invent to come trick or treat in our town. It's possible folks will keep to their own towns, and in that case I'll need to change up my game. See, I usually buy candy I DON'T want to have leftovers of, so I am not tempted into additional snackage.

Using an overgrown volunteer zucchini and other squash for our jack-o-lanterns.

As a side note, I've got kids with peanut and dairy allergies on my block, so I always have 2 bowls of candy: one that only contains nut- and dairy-free packages (i.e., pure packets of sugary goodness) and one that may have nuts and/or dairy. I've got signs on each bowl, and often kids thank me. Consider doing that yourself.

Dark Chocolate Cherry Trail Mix Muffins {Monday Muffins}

Sweet with a crunch, these little gems are a satisfying snack of dried cherries, dark chocolate, and almonds. Inspired by the samples at Costco. What, is it just me who loves to sample?

Please tell me I'm not the only one delighted to eat my way through Costco on a Saturday afternoon.

I don't try every last sample [ewww protein drinks] but I can't help but give many of them a go. When my spouse was buying new glasses we were at Costco several Saturdays in a row. [Shopping, ordering, receiving, clicking, double clicking, returning for replacement, picking up replacement . . . great customer service in the Optical department.] One two of those trips I sampled some dark chocolate cherry trail mix. Crunchy-sweet-awesome! After the second sample I decided I wanted to make it into a muffin, and this is the result.

I got my start making muffins using the recipes from Muffins: A Cookbook (Amazon Affiliate link) written by a couple of classmates of my mom, Joan Bidinosti and Marilyn Wearring. Over the years and the pans of muffins I've become comfortable with the muffin formula to branch out on my own. I like to make a not-so-sweet muffin--¼ cup of sugar in a batch of muffins is fine by me! Due to the added fruit and chocolate this is an extra sweet (by my standards) muffin, but it's still got whole oats and I'd serve it for brunch or an after school snack.

In fact, these muffins went to the Fisher House for a brunch.

For other recipes using dried cherries, please see my Cherry Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

Scandinavian Fruit Soup

This chilled soup is an excellent counterpart to a cookie tray. It provides contrasting flavors and textures without refined sugars, while still being a sweet finish to the meal. It also makes an excellent bedtime snack after candlelight services and keeps for several days in the fridge. For my third recipe of #ChristmasWeek we're heading back to Scandinavia for Fruit Soup.

Growing up, Christmas Eve was the big meal of the holiday. My folks would round up strays (folks who didn't otherwise have plans for the evening) and serve a smorgasbord of fish, Swedish meatballs (link to my folks making a batch for the blog), boiled potatoes, more fish (did I mention the pickled herring?) and lefse--that recipe is coming on Friday to round out #ChristmasWeek. 

On Christmas Eve after piling on all of the fish smorgasbord delights, we'd push back from the table and go digest somewhere. Typically us kids would play Bobby Hull hockey in the basement while the adults visited upstairs. After a period of time, we'd reconvene at the table for dessert: cookies and fruit soup. And more lefse, because you can never have too much of a good thing like lefse.

Do you get a tangerine in the toe of your stocking? I grew up with tangerines in my stocking, reading about Almanzo Wilder getting an orange in his stocking in the Little House on the Prairie series, and now we've got the Band Fruit Fundraiser citrus piled up in the basement (link to my fruit round up featuring 156 recipes using fall and winter fruits). As much as I love dark chocolate peppermint bark-coated roast beast, fruit is also an integral part of my Christmas sweets spread.

If you like to eat locally, Scandinavian Fruit Soup is your excuse to pull out the packages of beets berries you put up while they were in season. [In my case, I came across way too many packages of roasted beets in my quest to find blueberries, so beet & orange smoothies are my current breakfast drink of choice necessity]. If you don't have local fruit put up, canned or frozen fruit works great.  I'm especially partial to canned cherries--terrific flavor--and I love how the grapes in fruit cocktail look in the dark juice.

My recipes for #ChristmasWeek have been a mixture of getting my ethnic on and classic sweets that I just love to eat any time of year, but make especially for the holidays. Monday I shared Finnish Pulla {Cardamom Coffee Braid}, yesterday I shared lessons learned from making Pecan Brownie Bites for a Cookie Drive, tomorrow I'll share Toffee Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Friday I'm bringing #ChristmasWeek home with Norwegian Lefse. For more of my traditional savory & farm share centric recipes, please see my Visual Recipe Index.

Swing by all the participants to see what they've been whipping up for the holidays:

Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies by Cravings of a Lunatic

Peppermint Spritz Cookies by The Girl In The Little Red Kitchen

Eggnog Cinnamon Rolls by Dinners, Dishes, and Desserts

Scandinavian Fruit Soup by Farm Fresh Feasts

Egg Nog Pound Cake by My Catholic Kitchen

Coquito Cheesecake Flan by Mind Over Batter

Mulled Wine Fruit Gums by Food Lust People Love

Soft Vanilla Caramels by That Skinny Chick Can Bake

Chocolate Cherry Almond Magic Layer Bars

Tooth-crackingly sweet, these rich bars combine chopped almonds, dried cherries, and chocolate chips on a buttery graham cracker crumb base--perfect for you, for your Valentine . . . 

or maybe just because you got your braces off . . . 

or maybe because it's Friday?

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Sometimes, for no reason, you need to treat yourself.  Sometimes you need a reason to treat yourself. Sometimes you need to treat others.  Either way, these bars fit the bill.  They are made with shelf stable pantry ingredients [um, plus butter] so you can whip up a batch whenever the mood, or an occasion, strikes.  I had a couple of reasons to make these (primarily a band concert, but secondarily a desire to use what I've got in the pantry without venturing out into the snow and #3 [tertiarily? thirdly?] just plain having a hankering for them.

I could call these Chocolate Cherry Almond Hello Dolly Bars, because growing up our family called the traditional bar cookie made with sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, and graham cracker crumbs Hello Dolly Bars.  I think they may be better known, outside of my family, as Magic Cookie Bars or Six Layer Bars.  I'm calling my version Chocolate Cherry Almond Magic Layer Bars to cover a number of bases.

Whenever I see dented cans of sweetened condensed milk I always pick one up, because they can hang out in the pantry until I'm ready to bake. The regular, non-dented, cans work just fine as well.

Because I've become a homemade granola maker, thanks to Meghan, I have giant bags of nuts in my fridge.  I was looking for something Valentine-ish (because, you know, a Valentine's beet crust pizza needs a dessert) and chocolate and dried cherries seemed like a good combination.  And cherries go with almonds [at least in Jergens hand lotion, love that smell] so I decided to try it in these bars.

While these bars are pretty rich, the addition of the dried cherries means that I used half the amount of chocolate chips I'd usually put in a bar cookie, so there's a little fruit & fiber for ya with your chocolate.

Where's my usual Friday Pizza Post?! New rules for 2014--I'm not going to go crazy trying to ensure I've got a pizza post ready to go every Friday. When I've got pizzas to share (and believe you me, I've got some pizzas to share. Take a gander at this Chicken BBQ Peach pizza below) I'll share them on Fridays.  Like I share muffins on Monday.  But I'll be mixing it up with other recipes as well. Need a pizza fix?  Check out my Visual Pizza Recipe Index for ideas--I've broken my recipes down by pizza dough type, vegetarian pizzas, meat pizzas, and even fruit on pizzas--all savory, all good.

Chicken BBQ Peach pizza--made last year during peach season, you can find the recipe here.

Double Chocolate Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

I know, you're not used to seeing dessert recipes here.  But you're at the right blog!
Sometimes you just need a cookie, you know?

Have you ever noticed how the size of 'miniature' candies is increasing?

When I was a kid, my favorite "miniature" chocolate bar was the Special Dark bar.  Perhaps I was ahead of my time in recognizing the value of dark chocolate?  I just knew I'd trade about anything (I'm talking about you, Bit O' Honey) for Special Dark bars.

When I'm shopping at the grocery store and see Special Dark chips I cannot resist picking up a bag.  These chips find their way into muffins, cookies, and my kids' mouths.  I love chocolate and cherries,
so when I needed to bake some cookies I figured I'd combine some of my pantry stash of dried Michigan cherries in a basic oatmeal cookie recipe to make some magic.  I made this twice--once for a sled hockey tournament and once for my spouse's work event.  They were well-received each time, so I thought I'd share them here.  Here ya go:

Now I'll share the recipe, so you can enjoy them with your mouth, not your eyes.  The past few days have been painful and we could all use a cookie. I know chocolate always helps me.

Savory Sauerkraut Sausage Stuffing Skillet Supper

I've been experimenting with adding day-old bread to all sorts of dishes lately.  I used to think all day-old bread, in the wintertime, would be destined just for bread crumbs.  In the summertime, day-old bread is destined for panzanella.

Not any more!  Now that I've found the winter comfort foods of panade and this dish, I look forward to transforming day-old bread into all sorts of savory dishes.  These bread dishes aren't exactly gorgeous, it's true, but they are warm and comforting.

While browsing the internet I stumbled across this recipe and got inspired to use the day-old brat & sausage rolls in the fridge for stuffing.  My family doesn't love stuffing like they love mashed potatoes, so I knew I needed to change it up a bit to make it into a meal.  Coincidentally, I had half a package of smoked sausage in the freezer, and coupons for sauerkraut.  And thus, the magic is born!

Or, at least, there's a plan for dinner.  Always good to have a plan. Or twelve.

This dish is cooked in one skillet (ok, and a baking sheet, and a bowl to toss the bread cubes in, but it was pretty easy to clean up anyway).  It's very savory, and was right up my alley for a Sunday supper on a winter night.

Orange Cherry Oatmeal Muffins (Monday or President's Day Muffins)

I cannot tell a lie.  Yesterday morning we were walking the dog to the grocery store to pick up cream for my tea when we saw some guys cutting down a tree.  I admire their gumption--it was cold as heck out, and to be hanging from a rope way up high, with a chainsaw?  Yipes.  Then I got to the store and saw cherry pies on sale.  It wasn't until after I bought the pie that I realized it was for President's Day.  So here's a President's day muffin recipe for you, using cherries and oranges.  These muffins are perky, if a muffin can be called that.  The flavor is bright and brightens my morning.  My kids eat them for breakfast and after school snacks, so perhaps they brighten the whole day!  Sunny citrus in action.

I adapted this recipe from the most excellent Muffins: A Cookbook by Joan Bidinosti and Marilyn Wearing.  I made these before the Band Fruit Fundraiser oranges arrived.  Had I been swamped with fresh oranges, I'd substitute a blended navel orange for the juice.  The original recipe called for raisins, but I've got a lot of dried cherries so I snipped them in small pieces and used those instead.