I love Granola. I don't make it often though, because I quite simply eat too much of it when it is around. I eat it for breakfast. Usually sprinkled over yogurt. Sometimes a bowl of it with milk on top. Then, where I really go wrong is I tend to reach into that jar multiple times a day for a little snack. While it's a healthy item filled with fiber, vitamins, and minerals, because of all of the nuts it is quite high in calories.

But fall makes me think of Granola, and when I came across a recipe on David Lebovitz's blog a couple of weeks ago, I had to make it. His version was adapted from Feast, by Ngella Lawson, and I have adapted it a little more. I have my favorite granola recipe that contains oats, maple syrup, lots of different kinds of nuts and dried fruit. But I was intrigued by this recipe because it contained no dried fruit and one of the "wet" ingredients was applesauce. I thought the applesauce would not allow the granola to crisp up, but in fact, it does the opposite. This is a very crisp, crunchy granola full of good things like multi-grain flakes, almonds, sesame seeds and sunflower seeds. I gave my husband the warning about eating it in small doses, because of the high fat content of the nuts, but somehow, I haven't been heeding that warning. Well, I do eat it in small doses, one, after another, after another...

I can't believe that we are already on Week 11 of Sunday Small Bites. Life just flies by a little too fast. This week, our ingredient was chosen by Palma. She chose ginger. I love ginger, but had trouble deciding what to make this week. While a lot of recipes contain ginger, I was looking for one that really featured ginger, not just had it as an ingredient.

I chose an interesting recipe called "Roasted Garlic Dipping Sauce with Fresh Ginger and Tamari. I'm sorry I can't name the source it came from. I did lots of google searches to find it, now can't seem to located it again. The sauce is meant to be served as a dipping sauce for bread, like you might serve olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

I've been a little busy around here, and haven't been cooking a lot. When I'm busy, I tend to make a big pot of soup that we eat all week. That's what's been happening this week. But I sure wanted to participate in our Sunday Small Plates. This week's ingredient was chosen by Candi. She chose mushrooms as our ingredient. I looked through a lot of old recipes I had cut out. This one came from an old Bon Apetite magazine. I decided on it because I still have some of that puff pastry I made in the freezer. Probably only one more recipe to use it up after this. But back to the recipe. I chose Mushroom and Goat Cheese Tart. It was so good. As anyone who has read my blog knows, I love goat cheese. And I love it paired with mushrooms. Throw puff-pastry into the mix, and you can't go wrong. This is quick to make also.

FIG, APRICOT, AND WALNUT TAPENADE

This week's ingredient for our Sunday Small Plates was chosen by Jerry. I love olives, but my husband doesn't like them. This was a good week to have olives as the ingredient, because he was out of town all week and I had a party to go to Friday night where I needed to bring an appetizer. I chose to make an olive tapenade. This recipe was unusual in that it also contained figs, apricots, prunes, and walnuts. To balance out all of that sweet, there was also capers and balsamic vinegar. The tapenade is not the most beautiful to look at, as you'll see from my photos. It's kind of a mess to look at. But it tastes delicious. I served it on crostini (bread drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper, then grilled until toasted). A layer of goat cheese is spread on the crostini, then it is topped with the tapenade. I followed the recipe as listed, except that I didn't want it as chunky, so I put about 3/4 of it in the food processor to grind it a bit, then stirred the last 1/4 of it into the other 3/4 to keep some of the chunk. (That was a really bad sentence, wasn't it?)

The recipe came from the website InnCuisine.com. I had never seen that site before. It came up during a google search for Olive Fig tapenade.

It's almost the end of October, which means it's time to share our October Daring Bakers challenge. The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

I was so excited when I saw this, because I've always wanted to make French Macarons. I've read about how difficult they can be to make, so I had never attempted them. Until now. Oh yeah, for those of you who don't know what a French Macaron is, it's a cookie based on either ground almonds or almond paste, combined with sugar and egg whites. The texture can run from chewy, crunchy or a combination of the two. Frequently, two macaroons are sandwiched together with ganache, buttercream or jam, which can cause the cookies to become more chewy.

A lot of people said they were having trouble with the recipe we were to use for this challenge, so I decided to not only make the challenge recipe, but two others as well! I'll give you a brief overview of what I made, but I'll give more detailed posts later on the other recipes. Today I'll concentrate on our challenge recipe.

We were given Claudia Fleming's recipes for the macarons. We were required to use that recipe, but we were allowed to flavor them as we pleased, along with choosing any filling we wanted.

This week our Sunday Small Bites ingredient was chosen by Deborah. She chose pumpkin. I had to do a little searching to find an appetizer using pumpkin. I thought of making a soup, but wanted to try something different. I have a cookbook titled "The Foods of the Greek Islands" by Aglaia Kremezi. I chose a recipe from this book called Bourekia Me Kolokytha, or Savory Pumpkin and Fennel Pies. The book says that these pumpkin and fennel pies, with or without cheese, are made all over Chios. The cheese versions are more common in hte southern villages of the island. Traditionally, these are wrapped in homemade phyllo pastry, but the book suggest using spring-roll wrappers instead. I had some wonton wrappers in my fridge, so that's what I used. The recipe calls for frying these. Just in case you think about saving the fat and baking them instead, don't bother. I tried, and the wrapper just comes out tough and chewy, not crisp and crunchy. These are really tasty, and would be a wonderful start to any meal or as part of the selection at an appetizer party.

I was out of town last week and didn't complete the Sunday Small Bites, so I'm catching up now. This week our ingredient was Pecans, which was chosen by Sheri. I had plans to make all kinds of elaborate things, but when it actually came time to make something, I went very simple-Rosemary Pecans. I got this recipe from a friend a couple of years ago, and I don't know where the recipe came from. The original recipe calls for cashews or mixed nuts, or you can use all pecans like I did. It's a nice combination of sweet, salty, and spicy, although not too extreme on any of those qualities.

ROSEMARY NUTS
1 1/4 lb. cashews (or mixed nuts)
2 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp Kosher salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp melted butter.
Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Place on a baking pan and bake at 375 degrees F for 10 minutes.

This last weekend I went to visit a friend in Portland, OR. I was lucky in that we had nice weather most of the time. Okay, I wasn't lucky Saturday morning. I had wanted to visit a Farmer's Market while there, and we headed out mid-morning after packing up my friend, her 16 month old baby, her husband, the stroller, and myself into the car. It was nice when we left, but sometime during the 15 minute drive to get there, the clouds rolled in and it began to pour. We did our best looking around, but as the poor 16 month old began to get soaked, I knew it was time to go. But I did have time to find some lovely jams and vinegars. I purchased 2 vinegars-a Wildflower Honey and a Blueberry Basil. They both tasted wonderful. I bought 3 jars of jam-Lavender Pear-Fig, Lavender Marionberry,and Habanero Cherry. The lavender jams are so delicious. I've already had the Lavender Marionberry spread on toast, and the lavender flavor is such a nice addition.

Friday night my friend and I had dinner at a restaurant not too far from her house. It was called Paley's Place. We started off by sharing an order of Roasted Beets with Horseradish Cream and an order of Hand-cut Fries with Mustard Aioli. Both were really good, albeit not too healthy. For my entree I had Rabbit Ravioli wtih House Bacon, Mushrooms, and Summer Squash and my friend had the Grilled Pork Shoulder with Bacon & Fresh Corn Polenta, String Beans and a Spicy Apple Chutney. Again, both good, but mine was really good. I would most definately order it again. And I had a very nice glass of a French wine to accompany mine. We shared a Chocolate Mocha Cake for dessert, which was just okay (although we managed to eat most of it!). And I ordered a glass of Pear Brandy, which I had never tried and had always wanted to, and hope I remember that I never want to again. It was way too strong for me and I only had a couple of sips of it. Our bill came to $84, which is so reasonable compared to Alaska restaurants.

This week our selection for Sunday Small Bites was Pecans. You will have to forgive me. I've had a busy week, and I've gone out of town for the weekend. I did not get anything made. Please forgive me. Come back later in the week, and I will hopefully have some fun food topics to discuss from my trip to Portland, Oregon. And I will come up with a recipe for Pecans and post it soon.

This week we are able to share any photo that we choose. I decided to share 3 photos that I took in Sept 2007 in Italy. We're going back again next fall, and I'm looking forward to it. Looking at photos like these really makes me long to go back.

This first photo was taken in a church in Montepulciano.

This next photo was taken of the village above Sant'Antimo Abbey.

And this last photo was taken of Porto Santo Stefano.

It's October 14th, and time for another Daring Cooks Challenge. The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.

I was really excited about this month's challenge, as I love Pho. If you don't know what Pho is, it's a Vietnamese noodle soup. The broth is simmered for hours with either beef knuckle/leg bone or with a whole chicken. The broth is unique in that it is simmered with warm spices like coriander, star anise, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger. Accompaniments include cilantro or basil, a wedge of lime, fresh bean sprouts and sometimes fresh sliced chilies.

I have only tried the beef version of Pho. Jaden gave us two options for this challenge-use the quick version she developed, which uses store-bought chicken broth, or use the recipe on her blog for a slow-cooked version. I opted for the slow-cooked version of her Beef Pho. You can view the recipe on her blog here.

I made a double-batch of broth, which I would not do in the future. It was a HUGE pot of broth, almost unmanageable. But I now have a freezer full of spicy broth, just waiting to make me a steaming bowl of Pho in the future. And I will make this in the future. The warming spices, mixed with the tender beef, and the punch of the basil and cilantro, makes a great bowl of soup. Don't forget the bean sprouts either, as the crunch they provide is really good.

Take a look at Jaden's book for the quick recipe, or go to her blog and try the long version, or if you're not up to making a big pot of soup, then get yourself to your nearest Vietnamese restaurant and try a bowl of Pho for yoursel.

It's time for another Sunday Small Bites. The theme this week was chosen by Marcia. Marcia chose Smoked Salmon as our ingredient. She was on an Alaskan Cruise this summer, and had purchased some smoked salmon. She wanted some ideas on how she could use it.

Well, since I live in Alaska, catch a lot of salmon, and smoke it myself, this was a good choice for me. I will be anxious to see what dishes others created. The smoked salmon we make is probably different than most people buy. It's not lox, which I don't care for. Our salmon is thicker fillets, which are soaked in a sweet-salty brine, then smoked until they are lightly cooked through. So the flavor is more smoky, and the taste isn't as "fishy" tasting.

We usually just eat ours plain with some crackers. I also on occasion make a dip, a really good one that has cream cheese, sour cream, and toasted pecans. Or sometimes I crumble it into scrambled eggs or a salmon chowder. This week I decided to use up more of that home-made puff pastry and creating Smoked Salmon Puffs. Since I made up this recipe, I can't give you exact quantities, but you'll get enough of an idea that you could try it if you'd like.

I'm not a very athletic person, and I have no interest in watching sports on TV. I do go hiking some, and I do cross-country ski some in the winter, which I guess could be considered sports. I do fish, again a sport. But a decided to show a photo I just came across-the first skydive I ever did. I think I mentioned earlier that you couldn't pay me to do it again. This was the first ever (I've done it 6 times). You can see the static line hooked to me-it automatically pulls your chute open when you jump from the plane. The quality of this photo isn't good, so I'm not sure if you can see it, but I am so nervous and tense that you can see that tension in my outstretched arms.

The ingredient for this week's Sunday Small Bites is goat cheese. This ingredient was chosen by h. In case you're new to my blog, Sunday Small Bites is a group I participate in. Weekly, one of us choses an ingredient, then all of the participants make a small plate or appetizer that contains this ingredient. One rule is that you can't have made the recipe before, therefore you try new things. Each Sunday, we all post the recipe we made that week.

This week I decided to make pizza. While pizza can certainly be a main dish, it can also be an appropriate starter. Maybe make the pizza more oblong and cut it into small squares. I chose to make a Goat Cheese, Zucchini, Leek and Walnut Pizza. I made a second pizza where I also added sliced cooked peanut potatoes. I liked the one without the potatoes best, and it was a fabulous pizza. I have pizza dough left over. Guess what we're having for dinner tomorrow night?

The theme for this week's PhotoHunt is "words". Just got back this week from a short trip to Washington DC, and thought I'd show the words that are written above the Abraham Lincoln Memorial.