Almost Sweater Weather

October is the best. Crisp leaves, wool sweaters in the morning and t-shirts in the afternoon, Japanese Anemones and Chinese Lanterns, a visit to the pumpkin patch, soup and turning on the oven after months of outdoor grilling.

If you had stopped by this summer you most likely would have found Lemon-Pepper Chicken on the grill. It was the recipe of the summer for us. Vincent even made for his coworkers on a work retreat. It's that good. Now that indoor cooking is back I'm switching to my other favorite recent discovery from Bon Appetit, Lemon Chicken Thighs. I made them last night and everyone ate it. I cannot stress how amazing that is. I altered the recipe a bit, stopping after the thighs were finished in the oven. I didn't bother with the lemon vinaigrette because I'm the only person here who cares for it. Instead I drizzled a bit of honey over the plate of crispy thighs. Not enough to make them really sticky, just a little sweet. So really, these are just crispy chicken thighs, no lemon at all. Of course I don't have photos of either of these chicken meals. I used to snap photos of my dinner in the living room near the window right before sitting down to eat it. It's, of course, too dark at dinner time now for that. Even worse, one night I demonstrated to my kids why we don't bring food into the living room as I accidentally tipped my entire bowl of pasta into a large basket full of magnatiles. Such a mess.

I pre-ordered and received Let's Stay In, a fantastic new cookbook a week or so ago. The author wrote Date Night In, one of my all-time favorites. I've already made Chanterelle Corn Chowder with Bacon (and ate it for lunch all last week) and Salted Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars from the book. Both are so good. I had to freeze the second half of the bars because they were just too tempted sitting there on the counter every afternoon...

I ordered that cute sweater pin and card in an attempt to bring my knitting needles out of their slumber. It worked! I've been working on a sweater for Gianna forever. I posted about it last March and promptly set it aside. Last week I wove in all the ends. Now I need to stitch the underarms closed and block it. I had her try it on and she was so delighted, which made me even more delighted.