Cookies for Fall

It's October in New England.  The air is crisp, the trees are full of color, everything is pumpkin and each day here in Salem feels like Halloween. It is fantastic. Sweet Eddie and I love to take weekend strolls and fill our senses with everything our home has to offer.  Last weekend we watched an old time baseball game, strolled through a park with some beautiful changing leaves, viewed an outdoor movie, and witnessed an amazing, full, orange moon beaming over the harbor. Happy days.

 It is easy to find cookie inspiration this time of  year. 

Fall Wreaths

Pumpkins

Apples

Candy Corn

Pumpkin Potted Mums

It is a beautiful world.

Here is to a happy and vibrant fall. 

Giving Thanks

A week out from the holiday really gives you time to reflect on what it means to be thankful. I am thankful for sugar, butter, cookie cutters, vanilla bean paste, dark chocolate chips, and perfectly piped royal icing. Also, and more importantly, I am thankful to have my family and my Sweet Eddie by my side. I would truly be lost without love. :)

I enjoy Thanksgiving. We laugh, we hug, we prepare tons of food, we eat, and we say thank you for the things in our life that make us complete.

Also, it really is the only day of the year that I eat stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce and tofurkey. Yes, tofurkey! Tofurkey is a vegetarian version of turkey (pretty much a delicious tofu ball filled with stuffing.) I dig it and my sisters do too, but Sweet Eddie and my parents stuck to the real deal this year. I also like to celebrate the day with dessert. As we were a smaller group this year, I resisted the urge to go wild with my sweets, so I only made three pies and my cookies.

To honor the food, I designed some food cookies of a standard Thanksgiving spread and some items that we have at our feast.

 Green bean casserole, creamed corn, homemade cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes

Mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, rolls

And of course the almighty tofurkey on a bed of carrots and roasted garlic

Altogether on the plate, bellisimo!

(Fun fact: some members of my family saw the above photo first and thought they were each separate cookies on a plate, only to find out in person it was one cookie with tiny food details!)

And the celebration wouldn't be complete without more mini pie cookies

And some festive decor

And some real non-cookie pies:

Upside-down Cranberry Chocolate, Swedish Apple, Pumpkin

And of course, Turkeys

What a bunch of turkeys!

As the holiday season rolls on, I hope it is filled with sweet joy and peace.

Fall Cookies

 I am so excited that Thanksgiving is almost here! I love it. I love planning my menu, shopping for all the ingredients, and getting out of work early the day before the holiday and baking sweets all that night.  I have already made several shopping lists with coupons clipped for each store I need to hit up. My decorating equipment is fired up for the sweet cookies that I have planned! If only I could be this organized and excited about cleaning... or my day job.


But first, to satiate my pre-Thanksgiving excitement, I made some fall cookies and I shared them with my fellow yoga teachers-in-training. On a mocha cookie dough base, small turkeys, pies, acorns, leaves and apples blossomed.

 Turkey pyramid

 I love making mini pie cookies in pumpkin, blueberry, and cherry. 

Happy Fall!