Monday night Fall dinner

It was a lovely fall dinner. But, I was too involved in putting it together, eating it and enjoying the fellowship of the folks also eating it to take pictures. So, I will try to use my words to bring the same response that a couple of drool-worthy pictures might have.

Well, for starters, I had summer sausage and cheese. Yum, I know. One of the summer sausages had cranberries in it, which tasted very good. There were a few slices left, so I'll get to enjoy those, probably for dinner tomorrow. My leftovers dinner will also include the sharp cheddar cheese, which was perfectly paired with the crisp, sweet apples from the farmers' market on Saturday.

The main course was BLady's pinto beans. This was the first recipe that made it into my little handwritten cookbook, the first recipe that I had to call home for (to go with Corky's ribs for July 4th, of course). To take the stage as the main course, I 'beefed' the vegetarian dish up with an assortment of peppers that I roasted under the oven broiler. There were a couple of jalapenos, a red/green bell pepper, and then a couple of peppers that just looked kinda cool at the farmers' market. Then, several hours of (purposeful) neglect later, the beans were pretty durn good. I did forget to salt them, though, which was evident when I saw someone go back for the salt. Oops.

To accompany this star, I had regular cornbread and jalapeno cornbread, made from jalapenos pickled back in Texas. I love jalapeno cornbread, even though I don't normally like spicy hot foods. Heck, I just love cornbread. But, the reason for two types of cornbread was the ending of the "I love jalapeno cornbread" sentence. I was concerned that the heat from all those roasted peppers would be too much when added to jalapeno cornbread. So, I just made a second batch and left out the jalapenos. I used a recipe from BHG.com for both. BHG, Better Homes and Gardens, that is, is a go to place for recipes. BLady has almost always had a subscription, so many of the recipes I see online are familiar from the pages of that Des Moines publication.

Okay, back to dinner. My friend's T and J rounded out the meal flavorfully and nutritionally with a nice salad that had slivered almonds and dried cranberries.

After our health dinner and a health discussion of the Truth Project video that we watched this week, we had a not so healthy dessert. This was the piece de resistance. Okay, that is a little prideful. But, it was pretty, even if it was only pretty yummy. I made Martha's Spiced Lemon cake. Way to go Martha on a yummy cake that was the perfect size for my Life Group!

It would have probably been more yummy, in my opinion, if I had followed instructions a little better. The ingredients said the juice of two lemons, but the instructions said to use 3 tablespoons in the cake and the other 3 tablespoons in the glaze. I missed that division and poured the whole thing of lemon juice into the cake. This resulted in a moist, dense cake, which looked little like the cake at the left. My glaze wasn't quite so smooth and I decorated the top of the cake with lemon zest from the extra lemon.

This cake gave me a chance to use my beautiful cake stand that I won in a door prize drawing. I topped off the cake with autumn leaf cookies decorated with orange sugar sprinkles and dipped in Target. These came from Target, but tasted as good as they looked.

Thank you to the folks who came and shared my home and their thoughts with me tonight. I can't wait to finish this conversation.

Now, the dishwasher is full and the counter is wiped clean. Time to drink my peppermint tea and call it a night. I will try very hard to take pictures of the next yummy meal I create. If only my dining room table were bigger, I'd invite y'all all.