Maple Berry Overnight Oats

Mornings are cooler, evenings mild yet brisk and drinkable. Summer is officially over, and fall is upon us. Sunday was living proof of this with its sixty degree temperatures, cloudy skies, and rainy afternoon. Rather perfect actually. The farmers market saw fewer tomatoes, no peaches, more squash and pumpkins, apples aplenty.

While parts of me live for the cool comfort of fall, other parts want to cling to the sweet morsels of summer.

These overnight oats give me the best of both worlds (in breakfast form anyway)--cool bursts of berries with warm flavors of maple and oats. And it's ready for grabbing right out of the fridge, making it all the more appealing for my typical rushing-around-running-late-forgetting-things-every-morning ways.

Fig Jam

I have this thing where I impulsively buy food items, usually fruit, thinking, "Oh, I'll totally have time to bake something amazing with these this week." So I make a point to not eat said food items as part of my normal daily sustenance.

Days later, said food items are in a less than delicious looking state, certainly in no shape to be eaten as is.

And a few days after that, they're shriveled to the point of no return, unable of saving even by baking.

This happens more often than I'd like to admit, especially during the school months. It happened last week, this time with figs. And this time I got two containers of them, knowing I would bake something amaaaazing with them. Thus, I refrained from munching on them straight out of the fridge or on yogurt or oats or salad. Ya know, because I have plans for them.

A few days later, the figs are beginning to look sad and super soft. Damn. I was determined to not let these figs go to waste though, so, fig jam!

After sitting and thinking with sugar and lemon and sherry, the figs cook up into mounds of thick, figgy goodness. A million times more amazing than fig newton insides. (Although I do love a fig newton every now and again.)

Strawberry Thyme Lemon Bars

Just a quick, short post today. I've just been trying to get back in the swing of things with school. And to be honest, I have not been doing a very good job. At the end of every day, I sit and wonder where the day has gone. It's a vicious cycle.

It's sort of like baking with herbs, minus the viciousness. I bake one dessert with herbs and then, BAM, it seems like every dessert I make has herbs in it. Ugh, it's so hard to stop with so many flourishing fresh herbs at my disposal!

When I saw a version of these bars over on Smitten Kitchen, I immediately knew I needed them in my life. I mean, they're friggin pink y'all. And they sounded just like summer! Lucky for me, they taste just like summer too.