…you may have noticed that my blog has undergone some changes.

I finally got around to transferring my blog from wordpress.com to wordpress.org.

Changes can be good…and I now have the ability to completely customize my site….but I lost all my wordpress.com Followers in the process!!

So if you were following me thru wordpress you have to re-follow me by doing the following (also found at http://en.support.wordpress.com/following/):

Go to the wordpress.com homepage and log in. Click on the “Read Blogs” tab:

click Edit List:

In the text box at the top of the page, enter www.elephanteats.com and click “Follow.”

Now you’ll receive my blog posts by email again!

I don’t know if there’s any way to transfer my followers (I figured out how to transfer my email subscribers), but if there is, please let me know.

Thank you to all my loyal followers

Amy

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

I’m really bad at keeping surprises. Obviously, I’d never tell a secret if you told me not to, but when I have a surprise of my own, it’s practically impossible for me to keep my big mouth closed until the secret is properly revealed.

For 3 months I created and tested the perfect recipe to submit to the Pillsbury Bake-off. For another 6 or so months I kept the recipe to myself since the competition wasn’t over til October. I SO wanted to tell you guys what I was up to, but I knew I needed to keep it a surprise until it was finally submitted and judged. I’ve never actually created a recipe from scratch, without basing it on anything. And let me tell you it’s not easy, especially when you have a specific way in your mind that you want it to turn out.

I went through 5 batches of these babies until they came out just right. Nate, poor guy, had to sample every single batch and he probably doesn’t want to eat another one of these again for a really long time.

The recipe, which I gave you a teaser of (although that was batch #1) are for a Butterscotch Rum Banana Spiced Blondie.  I’m not exactly sure how I came up with this idea, but it may be the best one I’ve ever had. The flavors, while seemingly unrelated, go together perfectly. I wanted them to be dense and chewy, and not too cakey but not too moist. I think I finally achieved the right consistency in batch #5.

Everyone who has tasted these has said they’re delicious. But the only people whose opinion I really care about are the Pillsbury judges, being that the grand prize is a cool $1 million.

Unfortunately, I guess those stupid judges weren’t thinking straight on the day they read over my recipe, so alas I was never contacted. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy these babies at home. Go make a batch now!

**update since I wrote this post (before I actually published it)- Nate recently requested these last week and I was quite surprised. The last time he ate them was probably 3 or 4 months ago, but after having to taste so many of them I thought it would be at least a year til he wanted them again. That’s a good sign.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

I’m currently on a plane on my way to Florida where we’re going to have our usual gourmet Thanksgiving. My mom, brother and I split the cooking duties as we all love to be in the kitchen. Although, we don’t usually do well when we’re all in the kitchen together. Luckily my mom got her cooking out of the way already, and hopefully my brother and I can behave ourselves while we share the space.

This is the first year we’re having the holiday in FL instead of NJ and I can’t say I’m happy about having turkey in warm weather. But it’s all about being with those you love, right? I think it will feel like Thanksgiving regardless of the palm trees outside because the table will be set with the good dishes and all my favorite familiar foods will be filling our plates.

Next year I’ll get it together a little more, hopefully, and share some of our favorite recipes for Tday with you. I hope that you all have a wonderful time with your family and/or friends

See you all on Sunday for another Daring Bakers challenge!

This stupid fall weather can’t make up it’s mind.

First it’s so cold that I pull out my hat, scarf, gloves, even crank up the heat. I’ve been walking around the apartment in my velour sweatpants and a sweatshirt I inherited from my mom that’s probably about as old as I am…and it has a hole in the armpit (I just typed airport instead of armpit. I’m obviously ready for a vacation).

Needless to say, Nate hasn’t been too pleased with my appearance. He told me that, according to Seinfeld, when you walk outside in sweatpants (which I may or may not have done to make a quick trip to the grocery store… They were velour!), that “you’re telling the world: ‘I give up. I can’t compete in normal society. I’m miserable, so I might as well be comfortable.’” And comfortable I was!

But the thing is, I don’t complain about the cold weather. I love being chilly and bundling up. I love piling on the comforter in bed and getting all snuggly. I mean, you can always make it warmer inside.

Then the weather got all hot again. Come on, autumn, make up your freaking mind. The stupid air conditioner in our apartment building got turned off because it’s not summer anymore. I go to bed with the comforter still on which feels right at the time and then in the middle of the night I kick everything off because I’m so hot. I toss and turn and then pull the comforter back on at 4am when I’m shivering, because the next morning it’s cold outside again. I’m so tired from this lack of sleep!

I figured I’d go along with the warm weather and pretend like it’s summer. So the other night I cooked up some pulled chicken bbq sandwiches. If you can’t beat the heat, you might as well embrace it, right?

Now if I could only get them to put on the A/C.

…here’s another recipe for you involving squash!

And if this plus the last two posts is enough squash recipes for one season for you, then I have nothing more to say to you.

Nate doesn’t really cook. Ok, he doesn’t cook at all. He tells me that when he was single he used to make himself spaghetti and put jarred sauce on it, but I really can’t see him even doing that. He mostly lived on Trader Joes frozen dinners. I don’t feel that bad for him though, because those dinners are pretty tasty.

Despite the fact that Nate doesn’t really know his way around a kitchen, he likes to send me recipes that he comes across in his morning perusal of the New York Times.

He usually sends me the link in an email with a message saying something like “This looks good. Doesn’t it?”  But I believe what he really means to say is “This looks good. Can you please make it for dinner?” Luckily I’m good at reading people…and taking not-so-subtle hints.

Usually the recipes do sound pretty good. And when they don’t, I ignore his emails. So when he sent me this recipe for Quinoa With Roasted Winter Vegetables and Pesto the other day, I took note of it and wrote down all the ingredients so I could have it waiting for him when he got home. It helped that I had some homemade pesto in the freezer that I had been saving. It made putting this dish together way easier. Of course buying pesto would have been equally simple.

I also made it for me, of course, because I can always eat some more squash.

*I didn’t alter the recipe at all, so visit the above link if you’d like it