Sweet Potato Pie Smoothie

Hi friends!

It's Monday!

How do you feel about that today?

I had such a nice weekend. I did a whole lotta cooking and baking on Saturday, followed by hanging around a fire pit at our friends place, followed by football Sunday with my family. I love.

As my love affair with fall continues, I devised a new smoothie to get my taste buds in the spirit. I had leftover sweet potatoes one Saturday morning and thought, hey, why not put them in a smoothie?

It's a natural thought process, no?

Don't think I'm weird.

Ok, I'm it's a little weird. But look how pretty it is! Shaun shuddered at the idea. But it tastes like fall in a cup. In a cold, frosty, cinnamony, nutmeggy cup. What's so bad about that?

A word of warning. If you don't like sweet potatoes, don't touch this with a 10 foot pole. Because it tastes like sweet potatoes, so don't expect something different, like it will taste like pumpkin or something. I like this smoothie because it gets breakfast done a little bit better than a pumpkin pie smoothie (though I love those even more because I have a weird pumpkin obsession. obviously). The potato makes this a super filling breakfast or lunch. Combined with fall spices, I'd happily drink this anytime :)

Sweet Potato Pie Smoothie
1 C unsweetened almond milk (or milk of your choice)
1 small sweet potato, cooked & mashed
1/2 frozen banana
1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder (optional)
1 packet Splenda (or sweetener of your choice)
dash cinnamon
dash nutmeg

Combine all ingredients. Blend together until smooth (I used my immersion blender). Serve over ice.

Drink up!

I'm off to make one of these now...here's to a great week!!

Questions of the Day:

Do you like sweet potatoes? Do you prefer sweet potatoes or white potatoes? If it's mashed, I say yesss x 100 to white potatoes, but if it's baked, I'm all about the sweet!

What was your favorite part of the weekend?

{Un}traditional Apple & Cranberry Strudel

Has anyone else been affected by the Blackberry outage over the last day? I have had my Blackberry for about a year and a half...and I hate it! I always seem to have problems with it. It freezes (sometimes even mid-ring so I can't answer the phone!), the Internet access is horrible, emails and texts are delayed, my media card broke, my Twitter connection is horrible (which is why I hardly ever Tweet)...the list can go on and on. When my phone stopped receiving emails yesteray morning, it was the last straw. I threw it into the Hudson freaked out and decided that I need a new phone (of course, this was before I realized it as a worldwide outage, but still). Argh!   iPhone here I come!

Good thing there are yummy treats to keep me occupied. And make me happy. You know what else makes me happy? When it's one of the easiest treats ever, but only seems like you slaved over it for hours.

This past weekend, Shaun and I drove out to a local farm to pick up some fall goodies. I had been jonesing for a bit of apple cider, fresh doughnuts, many apple varieties and some crisp fall air. I got what I went for!

When we decided to make our Oktoberfest dinner, I knew that some kind of apple strudel would be the perfect finale, especially a homemade one containing freshly picked apples!

This is definitely not a traditional strudel. But it's so easy and so delicious that I'm not sure why anyone would ever not make this version. I'm fairly certain that it took all of 5 minutes to come together before leaving it in the oven to bake. In addition to crisp, sweet apples, I also added some dried cranberries for a bit of tartness and texture. I think the strudel would be great without them though too! I could also see brown sugar, pecans, or any other baking fruit as a substitute. I topped the strudels with a bit of light and fluffy vanilla ice cream.

If that's not the perfect dessert, I don't know what is.

Apple & Cranberry Strudel
*Adapted from Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry
1 egg
1 Tbsp water
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour (plus extra for rolling out dough)
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 large baking apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
2 Tbsp dried cranberries (or  craisins)
1 sheet of puff pastry (1/2 of a 17.3-ounce package), thawed
Confectioners' sugar (for dusting)
vanilla ice cream (for topping)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix the sugar, flour and cinnamon together. In a mixing bowl, toss sugar mixture with the apples (I used one Macintosh apple and 1 Gala apple) and cranberries; set aside.

Flour your work surface and roll out the pastry with a rolling pin, with the short side facing you. The pastry should be rolled out to about 16x12 inches. Spread the apple mixture on the bottom half of the pastry only, leaving a small border around the edges.

Starting with the side facing you, roll up the pastry very carefully so as to gather the apple mixture inside of it but without ripping the dough. Once rolled up, tuck in the ends and place on a greased baking sheet. In a small bowl, beat the egg and water together. Cut small slits across the top of the pastry and brush top with egg mixture.

Bake for 35 minutes. Cool for 20 minutes and sprinkle with confectioners sugar. Serve warm with a heaping scoop of vanilla ice cream! Is your mouth watering yet?

Mine is!

Questions of the Day:

Have you had cell phone issues in the past? Or affected by Blackberry right now?

Are you a fan of apples around this time of year? What's your favorite kind? I love honeycrisp, macintosh, galas, and fujis!

psst...It's Handpicked Peaches day over on The Peach & The Pit! We rounded up some awesome links from around the web for ya!

Oktoberfest Dinner Menu

If you like what you see here, be sure to 'like' us on Facebook and follow me on Twitter for more content, to share ideas or just to say hi!

Hi friends. It's Monday!

Insert happy or sad face?

I'm rocking a happy face this morning for a number of reasons. First, I have off from work today. A giant hurrah to that! Secondly, I am spending the day with my Mom. Cue the party hats! And thirdly, I had such a nice weekend. Shaun and I literally had nothing planned this past weekend and it was so fun to relax, sleep in, do some things around the house and just enjoy having no obligations. We likey.

On Friday, we made pizza and caught up on our DVR (that thing is getting full!). Saturday we took a trip to a little pumpkin farm where we purchased a whole lotta apples, gourds, cider and cider doughnuts. It was such a gorgeous day!

On Saturday evening, we had planned to make an Oktoberfest dinner for two.

 

We went all out to create this German-inspired dinner and we were thrilled with how everything turned out!

Oktoberfest Menu

Jagerschnitzel

Potato Pancakes

Red Cabbage & Apple Slaw

Warm Apple & Cranberry Strudel

Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale

Though it did take some time to prepare everything, it was soooo worth it! We stepped out of our comfort zone with this dinner in that every dish was a new one to us.

 

I took on the schnitzel, the cabbage and the strudel while Shaun worked the potato pancakes. Though traditional schnitzel would use veal or pork, but since Shaun doesn't eat pork and I typically don't eat veal (unless I'm in Eastern Europe), I decided to go with thin-sliced chicken breasts, breaded, shallow fried and topped with a mushroom and onion gravy. Perhaps chicken isn't traditionally german, but it worked for us! For the side dishes, I made a super easy cabbage and apple slaw while Shaun grated potatoes and made giant pancakes. They turned out so fantastically, especially with a bit of mushroom and onion gravy on top :)

 

For dessert, I made an extremely easy strudel. Again, not 100% traditional, but it's so warm and appley that I'm sure you won't mind. I've got that recipe coming at you this week!

 

So that's how we got down with our Oktoberfest dinner. Oh and I almost forgot to mention that we sipped on Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale to get into the flavors of the season. It wasn't quite pumpkiny enough for my tastes, but I suppose it did the job. We even broke out das boot for the occasion!

So there you have it. Our little Oktoberfest dinner. Oh and does anything really say Oktoberfest like animal print placemats? Yeah, I didn't think so :)

Questions of the Day:

How did you spend the weekend?

Have you, or are you, getting down with any Oktoberfest celebrations?

psst...I'm blogging about shopping for my upcoming trip to Albuquerque, NM next week over on The Peach & The Pit! Check it out!