Fall foods!

We decided to spend what turned into a rather rainy day as a fall feast day. As our first full weekend home in about 2 months, we had missed cooking together, and decided it was time to break out the fall foods.

First thing made? Pumpkin Nutella poke cake.

Recipe found at Something Swanky, a great blog to find tasty desserts. This morning we had decided to go ahead and make the pumpkin poke cake, but happened across her pumpkin Nutella poke cake and fell in love.

Ingredients:

*yellow boxed cake mix

*pumpkin puree

*sweetened condensed milk

*whipped topping

*Nutella spread

*heath bits (hers called for chocolate hazelnut candies, but we decided to go with the toffee bits-yum!)

*chocolate syrup

1. Mix pumpkin and cake mix (we added some cinnamon and ginger, because we never follow the instructions anyway…)

2. Bake the cake at 375 for 35 minutes.

3. After cooling, poke it a whole lot with the end of a wooden spoon.

4.  Pour the milk over the cake, letting it soak in.

5. Mix whipped topping and Nutella, and spread on top.

6. Top with chocolate syrup and heath bits.

7. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours (or, if you are like us and are in a time crunch for someone’s birthday tonight, freeze for two!)

Currently, we don’t have pictures of the cake, as it is cooling. However, we cannot wait until we share it tonight! Our first friend to join the quarter century life club- so exciting!

Dinner was also fall themed.

I have thoroughly impressed myself, as well as J, with my lack of instruction reading (say, for how much pasta this recipe was going to make- more on that in a minute), but also with my skill for making things after I see it done on TV multiple times.

Today, we give you: sweet potato-ricotta gnocchi with brown butter-sage sauce.

YUM.

If this dinner doesn’t scream fall, I am not sure what does.

*5 sweet potatoes

*container of ricotta

*salt and pepper

*sage (needed twice)

*5 tablespoons butter

*3 cups of flour

*pinch of red pepper flakes

*some ginger

*some garlic

*lemon juice

1. Boil sweet potatoes (bringing cold water to a boil) until soft.

2. Mash together with salt, ginger, sage and ricotta.

3. Mix in flour, one cup at a time.

4. Roll out on floured surface and realize how much pasta you have just made…six pounds to be exact. We ended up freezing them in pound increments to auction off to family members later.

5. Cut into bite size pieces and roll over the tines of a fork.

6. Boil in water in batches, until they float (about 4-5 minutes).

7. While J cooked the pasta, I made the brown butter sauce: In a small saucepan, melt butter with sage, lemon juice, garlic and red pepper flakes. Whisk over medium heat until golden brown.

8. Toss gnocchi in the brown butter sauce.

9. Eat.

-L and J