I full on have to admit that sometimes I am a little slow, especially as it relates to trends.  So when everyone started to post things they were grateful for on Facebook, I didn't think twice about it. It actually wasn't until last week that I caught on to the pattern and recognized the fact that people were posting 1 thing they were grateful for, every day for the month of November. And although I am grateful for aplethora of things, people, places, etc I decided to skip playing 19 days of gratefulness catch-up and just post the top 5 food/wine things I am grateful for.



Top 5 Food/Wine Gratitude List:

1. Wine (all of it)-the person who took a grape, let it rot and sit for an extended period of time and then decided to drink it...genius...love them!!

2. Cheese (all of it)-the person who took milk, let it mold and sit for an extended period of time and then eat it...brilliant! Yes, you probably see some similarities between #1 and #2.

3. The bbq-I love bbq'd food and although I love sushi and other raw food I am grateful for those cavemen and cavewomen who decided to cook, smoke and char their food...hmm do you think they also came up with the beer can chicken recipe? Just a thought.

4. Marco Polo (not the pool game) and the other adventurers who opened the spice trade. I just couldn't even imagine how boring food was before spices. Seriously salt and pepper which we take for granted today was a commodity of immense value...hell my salt habit would bankrupt me back in the day. It would be kind of like crack today...I would have like a $40 a day salt habit...not good.

5. My family-who taught me how to relish the tradition of cooking, breaking bread with those you love, exploring new foods, sharing the joys of the kitchen and celebrating life through food and wine. Thank you and love you!

I love trying recipes from other bloggers, hell if we can't support each other, seriously! So I decided to try this Pumpkin Chocolate Chip recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction. Here is the link if you want to try it: http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2013/09/04/pumpkin-chocolate-chip-cookies/


I do love the spice (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice) in the cookies and how can you go wrong with chocolate chips and pumpkin, right? So they have good flavor.  However, in my opinion they are a little cakey. I love chewy cookies and these are definitely chewy, but there is something about the texture that throws me off a little. I also would have loved for these cookies to be a little more orange, not sure how to make that happen naturally, but that was one of my first thoughts when I pulled them out of the oven.


First of all, in a mixing bowl combine the melted butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar. Add the vanilla and pumpkin.

Combine the dry ingredients-flour, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and allspice .


Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Add the chocolate chips. The dough needs to be refrigerated for 30 min-3 days. I chilled the dough for approximately 24hrs and that worked perfectly.


Next roll the dough into balls, place on a cookie sheet that is covered in parchment paper, and flatten. Bake for 8-10 minutes. The recipe recommends that you take them out of the oven at the 10 minute mark so they don't get dry, which I did.


Cool on a wire rack. Voila!