Today is the first day of fall – my favorite season. And no, not because of pumpkin spiced anything (have advertisers gone nuts with that obsession or what?) I actually love maple flavor better than pumpkin. There is nothing like the crisp snap of the air here in Wisconsin, the fired-up feeling on Saturdays when the Badgers play at home and the leaves begin changing at their own free will.

More than anything, I wish I was up north. If it were up to me, I’d be up there from October 1 straight-time until December. I just can’t take the drives up there for granted. To me, they are awe-inspiring! The turkeys scavenging for who-knows-what along side the road, the crops getting ready to be harvested and the big moon highlighting it all. But we’re starting to renovate the cabin up north so we’re going to be MIA up there for a little while.

Here are two recipes I’m going to be trying this weekend and what we’ll be listening to while making them.
I think you’ll like this playlist, it’s what you want to be listening to as the temps drop, sweaters come out again and you can smell the waft of the casserole coming from the oven. Maybe play some cards too. ROF is beating me by a couple of hundred points right now which is downright depressing but I keep going back for more torture.
Why don’t you join me in making these recipes? We’ll all post our pics on FB or IG and we’ll give ourselves ratings on what we thought. OMG fun times ahead…

(#1) BROCCOLI CHEDDAR CHICKEN + RICE CASSEROLE
I love this food blogger and excited for her new cookbook to come out! Half Baked Harvest is Tieghan Gerard and her blog and IG is awesome. I’m going to try this recipe this weekend because it combines 4 things I love the most: broccoli, cheese, rice and it’s a casserole. Not that I don’t love chicken but I am just indifferent towards it (sorry, chicken.) Casseroles are the best – we just had a delicious one at my Aunt Sally’s house in Long Beach, California. After I make this I’m going on a diet.
(#2) MORNING GLORY MUFFINS
So, now that I’m on this diet, I’m going to have one of these for breakfast. But will probably slather butter all over it. There I go predicting my behavior again! I’m actually not familiar with this blogger yet but stumbled upon this recipe and thought I’d try it. Does this float your boat? I like the whole hodge-podge mess of ingredients in here. Let’s give it a roll this weekend.
