Hey ya'll... It's fall one, of my favorite times of the year. Being from the Midwest I find fall to be a beautiful time with all the colors of the trees and the bounty of apples available. Add in a nice crisp autumnal breeze and I'm ready to snuggle up with a book and cup of warm cider in a hot second. I have been able to do that a few times this season already! I also love the flavors of fall... with them in mind I decided to break out the donut pan I bought months ago and put it to use. I borrowed a recipe from my favorite TV cook Rachael Ray (Ray Ray as I love to call her) and made some donuts with fresh apples! I used honey crisps because they're my favorite after granny smith.

Or alternatively you could make a glaze with powdered sugar, milk, and caramel flavoring. But the caramels were on special for $1/bag and I don't own any imitation caramel flavoring so I went the cheap and easy route.







Some of the donuts I also added a bit of chocolate to as well. I just melted some chocolate chips put them in a boughetto piping bag (i.e. a sandwich bag with the corner snipped off) and drizzled away. They were all so pretty I had to share. I boxed up four and took them through airport security to hand deliver them to a friend in D.C. She was graciously allowing my to crash on her couch and I just couldn't come empty handed.

Nobody likes to see a couple of bananas go bad. Nobody. Recently my mom bought a bunch of the perfect fruit (i.e. bananas) for my nephew to snack on. I do not like real bananas. I do love artificial banana flavor (see: Now N Laters, Slurpees, & Laffy Taffy). However, the idea of bananas has grown so appealing to me that I'm trying to learn to love them. Reasons why I should love bananas:

* totally portable
*high in potassium
*can be eaten with peanut butter
*go well in smoothies

So when I saw that pair of bananas getting brown spots I decided to put them to good use. While I don't subscribe to any magazines, (let us mourn the slow death of print media), I do frequent Barnes & Noble and read through a few while drinking the smallest drip coffee available. Why buy the magazine when you can get the coffee for almost free? And a month or so ago Food Network's magazine had a section with an infinitely adaptable quick bread recipe. I loved the idea of being able to tweak the ingredients according to my mood and pantry so I broke down and bought the magazine. Over all the recipe was simple and the results were very satisfying.