savory september!

I don't know about you, but I can't believe September is over already. I'm still stuck in August!

And after cooking 26 new recipes in August, I really slacked off in September. We ate sandwiches (including a second go-round of last month's favorite sandwich: Prosciutto and Brie Sandwiches with Rosemary-Fig Confit) and pretzels a lot. We ordered pizza and ate out - including a crab feast at The Crab Claw in St. Michaels, dinner with Sarah at Four Sisters, brunch with bloggers at Le Pain Quotidien, and some hilariously named dinner entrees at Present. (Larry had a dish called "Hard Working Piglet".)

Due to nearly a month straight of rain, we ate a lot of comfort foods this month - including our favorite vegetarian chili recipe (adapted from this fabulous recipe on Epicurious), fish tacos, more wings, and I invented my own mac & cheese recipe. I've written before how I've been searching for years for the perfect mac & cheese recipe, so I decided to just make my own - and it was really really good. Unfortunately, I didn't measure anything, just threw things into the pot, but it included cheddar, swiss, parmesan, lots and lots of Smoked Spanish Paprika, and a sesame seed topping. I also tried a recipe for Snickerdoodle Cupcakes which was unimpressive.

Backyard basil jungle.

I was sad that I didn't do a vegetable garden this year and my herb garden got annihilated by the heat this summer. However, September's rain brought my basil back to life and created a basil jungle - so I redeemed my brown thumb by whipping up a batch of pesto which I froze in an ice cube tray for individual servings to use throughout the winter.

What we were eating and cooking this month: comfort food and seafood.