I've got a frother for my birthday. This morning, I made a maple latte (maple syrup in milk and coffee). I might make a London Fog latte (earl gray tea with steam milk and foam) or a chai latte real soon.

Yesterday I went through my cookbook collection and discovered, pushed to the pack, a booklet titled "Monkey Breads" put out by Taste of Home. I'd forgotten I'd bought it. It was pull of recipes for pull-apart breads, pinwheels, rolls, bubble breads, etc. A nice surprise! I'll definately make some.

I also culled a few books -- one full of recipes for Thanksgiving dinner, one full of burrito stuffings, a small one about coffees and teas that came with an espresso machine I received way back when as a "good employee" gift. The machine was used to death long ago, but I never referred to the book. As for the Thanksgiving one, I doubt I'll ever cook one of those huge family Thanksgiving dinners ever again. I don't even like turkey that much. *sigh* time to let go of that fantasy.

I thought I'd share this recipe too. I love asparagus.

Asparagus salad with sesame oil

1 lb. asparagus, thin stalks
1 tbs. sesame oil
1 tbs. sesame seeds
Kosher salt
Fresh ground black pepper
1/2 cup thinly sliced onion, red onion is best

Boil asparagus in salted water until soft enough to pierce with a fork, but still firm. Cool and cut into 2″ pieces. Put into a large bowl and mix with sesame oil, sesame seeds, and onion, grind the pepper over it to taste. Tastes best cool.

Are you enjoying your frother, @jasmine_tarkheena? I'm not a big tea fan, but the maple latte sounds delicious.  

Oh, I love monkey bread and I haven't made any in what seems like ages. 

With the weather warming up and staying warm, I haven't been baking as much as I would like to. However I did bake rolls today and Monday I made a GF peach crisp for a family celebration. The crisp recipe came from a friend at church is the best GF one I have ever had, it's almost as good as our regular recipe with wheat flour, and it's great with different fruit or berry combinations.

The wild blackberries are just starting to ripen, and I'm hoping to get enough to make at least one small batch of jam. I made some blueberry-black raspberry jam last month that is really good, they were not the best berries and kind of bland on their own, but together in jam terrific. And now I want to make blackberry jam which I've never made, we never have enough blackberries to make jam.

SnowAngel 

I roasted up two batches of Hatch chili peppers in the fire pit. It wasn't too hard. The first batch was mild, but even so, they had a bite in a taco. The second was hot, which I'd bought by mistake. Hooo-wheee, they weren't kidding! Scraping off the burned skin made me cough and my left hand, which was holding the pepper, got hot and tingly. I'm feeling some trepidation about how they'll taste. No eye-rubbing for me over the next few days!

@cobalt-jade, someone gave us a bunch of peppers last week and they got them from someone else...so we don't know how spicy the peppers are going to be.   No one has quite worked up the courage to use them yet.  

I made a gallon of peanut butter ice cream with chocolate cookie dough chunks and fudge sauce for a recent birthday party. I had only made small batches of peanut butter ice cream previously. It was pretty good, loved the cookie dough chunks, but would definitely use more peanut butter in future batches of ice cream. I didn't scale the recipe as well as I had hoped to the 1st time round, will have to remedy that next time.  

SnowAngel

I recently made some lovely "garden macaroni", with spinach and red bell pepper and shredded carrot in a parmesan and mozzarella cheese sauce.

I also tried a friend's recipe for taco-flavor stuffed bell peppers, which turned out pretty well although I think I should have drained the meat mixture better.

The past week has been filled with the smell of cooking apples as we filled part of the freezer with applesauce. We've also made and enjoyed apple cider and dehydrated a number of apples. Today's apples will either be pie or crisp, either one being a most excellent dessert for a lovely fall day.  

Last week I made meatballs in mushroom gravy, shakshuka, and charo bean soup. ^_^

Those sound delicious, @silverlily.

My sister made a delightful deep dish apple pie last week. It was her first time making a crust with tallow instead of butter and it was quite tasty. Although the other siblings and I recommend she practice using the tallow, just be sure the first crust wasn't a fluke.  

We still haven't made apple crisp. But my mom did make carrot cake and carrot bread this week. we hadn't had either for quite a while, so it was nice to have both. However I still need apple crisp, seriously is it even fall without having apple crisp? Maybe this weekend I will get to make it. Someone gave us a bucket of apples a couple days ago, so we still have enough to make a few more apple desserts.  

I need cooking help...

Meal... Lunch. Needs to be higher in protein and some carbs at minimum. Must be edible cold. No microwave or reheating options available. No nut butters, peanuts, or sunflower oil. Sandwiches are an option, but have a history of them getting soggy by lunch because they are made in advance and frozen if it's anything more than meat and cheese. Trying to find transportation options for at least mustard. Must be capable of surviving long hours in a lunch kit outdoors.

Help!

I'm a leftover junkie myself and that's usually what I eat for lunch. 

But on the subject of sandwiches Kat, keep everything prepared, but separate so the wet ingredients don't get the bread soggy. No one likes a soggy sandwich!

I haven't looked recently, but grocery stores used to sell tiny containers for condiments.

@fantasia the problem with that is the space required to transport all the individual items. I literally have to carry 12-15 hours worth of water in addition to food. In a lunch kit with 2-3 ice packs to maintain cold temps that long in summer heat. That's why I've been doing meat, cheese, bread, and freezing them so I can make five days worth in advance. Sourdough seems to handle freezing better. 

Would pasta salad be an option? My family likes to use a variety of dressings, veggies, protein sources, etc., to keep it interesting. 

@narnian-in-the-north I'm open to that. I need recipes though. I only have one that fantasia gave me years ago. 

Good suggestion, @narnian-in-the-north.

An easy pasta recipe we have is:

Tri-colour fusilli pasta
Sliced green (pizza) olives
Feta cheese and lots of sliced grape tomatoes

And toss in whatever else you want!

Sprinkle with your choice amount of Italian dressing (Zesty is best).

This is one of our favourites, and keeps very well. 🙂