fall food

I said yesterday that I was making chili for dinner, and you know what?  I didn't lie, and I didn't leave it burning on the stove because I was reading.  Winning!  But I have very little photographic evidence, because a lot of the chili-making process is ugly and just involves either monochrome meat (ground turkey in our case) and onions, or the whole thing simmering (which doesn't really portray the deliciousness under the layer of tomatoes).  But two parts of chili-making are aesthetically pleasing, and those are the spices:

And the finished product:

In contrast, most dessert-making is pretty appealing.  Even when it's as simple as baked apples with brown sugar, pecans, and walnuts:

Yes...that last picture was taken primarily to show that one of the benefits of a wedding registry is that you end up with a Le Creuset dish for anything you could possibly need.  Did I ever think I would need one small enough to just fit two apples?  I can't say that I did.  But now that I have it, there's no going back.

[I tweaked both recipes, but if you're interested the basics are here and here.]