Pumpkin Month is here!  On the Emily calendar September is for apples, October and November are for pumpkin, November and December are for eggnog and gingerbread, and December is for peppermint.  This month’s on-theme stash is especially bountiful.

Here are some highlights from the weekend…

My favorite coffee combo – espresso and chocolate milk.  I hate “mochas” because the syrup is gross but this iteration of chocolate and coffee is the best.

Brunch at Benchmark.

I had a roasted vanilla lemonade with vodka.

This unassuming omelette was actually stuffed with duck confit and goat cheese.

 

My best lunch came from the Starbuck’s refrigerator case.

We cooked two tasty dinners.  Broccoli salad based on this recipe from Cooking Light.  We roasted the broccoli and sauteed the onion and served the salad warm, which I highly recommend.  I also swapped maple for honey and rice vinegar for cider vinegar.

Served with white bean and basil dip with orange bell peppers and potato chips.

Plus a disappointing cider.

And I loosely followed Rachel Ray’s recipe for pumpkin and sausage pasta.

Served on butternut squash pasta shaped like tiny pumpkins!!

With roasted honey sriracha smoked paprika cauliflower.

And our last and favorite cider, just in time for pumpkin beers.

Non-food wins included…

I started reading One More Thing, Stories and Other Stories and now I’m completely obsessed with B.J. Novak.  The collection of stories fits together in ways that are surprising, moving, and sidesplittingly wry.

Watching the dog put himself to bed, complete with covers and his head on a pillow.

He’s the best.