Thursday, September 16, 2010

sunshine on a cloudy day

It must be fall -- there's a cool, crisp bite to the air, my Jeep's covered in leaves, and pumpkin spice lattes are back in season. I baked pumpkin cream cheese muffins yesterday afternoon, and they turned out quite well!
The recipe is here.  I added some extra spices in addition to the cinnamon -- nutmeg and cardamom. Ginger would be nice, too, or substituting 1 T. pumpkin pie spice for the 2 tsp. cinnamon.  These are pretty light on the cream cheese filling, so if that's your favorite part, I recommend making a 1.5 batch of the filling. What else... I used half olive oil and half canola oil, as my olive oil was perhaps a bit more full-flavored than would be ideal.
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other sunny things

A Whippoorwill shawlette (rav link), in the scarf size.  I'm using the rest of the grey Plucky Knitter yarn from the contrast edging of my Damson, plus Yarntini in "honeytini" for a splash of accent color. 
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These are from the Renegade Craft Fair here in Chicago last Sunday.  Sofia Masri makes these lovely porcelain earrings and pendants.  I picked up two pairs of her earrings at last year's Renegade, too!
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pumpkins growing in the vegetable garden at Chenonceau, an amazingly beautiful castle spanning the Cher River in France
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Capricha, looking as gorgeous as ever

10 comments:

barefootrooster said...

i like all of these things.

Kristi aka Fiber Fool said...

Love the shawlette colors and the earrings! And you've totally lengthened my to-bake list with that gem of a recipe. Thanks for sharring your mods and the info on the cream cheese filling!

Micki said...

Those pumpkin muffins look delish! I'll have to add them to my "to bake" list.

Anonymous said...

Ooooh, grellow! Definitely my favorite color combo. Those were my wedding colors!

Mia said...

Yet another shawl to tempt me with!!! I am getting a pumpkin or two on Sunday. I may have to try making pumpkin butter with them.

There has a definite nip in the air every morning for the last several here. Time to think wool!

Katie M. said...

Oh my good gosh, I love that shawl!! I feel a bout of copy-cat-itis coming on big time. In fact, I'm going to frog something and start it this afternoon ... woo! My day just got much better. :)

Caroline said...

Mmmm, if I hadn't over indulged yesterday at baby shower, I would be baking those pumpkin muffins this morning.

Chris said...

Pumpkin muffins... Yum. Pumpkin chocolate chips muffins would really hit the spot right now...

Carrie#K said...

Capricha is adorable.

Yum, Pumpkin spice lattes. That Whippoorwill shawlette is really cute but then so are those earrings.....yes, I like all those things too. :)

Sharon said...

That shawl reminds me of garments worn my early American women - pretty timeless pattern. I do like the golden accent. Nice touch.