September: Fall Harvest

The theme for this month arose from a place of selfishness.  I was in need of some apple-y goodness, along the lines of apple pie or apple crisp, and I knew that nothing would satisfy this desire until I had one of those fall treats in my belly.

Enter the Dine-o-round.

I didn't hesitate to select fall harvest as the theme.  Nor did I hesitate to shamelessly beg my most favorite-est dine-o-round pals to make one of those dishes for our dessert for the evening.  Lindsay happily obliged, and I knew that even if everything else was terrible, the night would be a success in my eyes thanks to some good ol' apple crisp.

Luckily for us, everything else tasted great, too.  Although, I'm still on the fence about whether or not sweet potatoes qualify as a fall harvest vegetable....

Fall Harvest Menu:

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas -- It's really hard to screw up enchiladas (especially when you cheat and use store-bought enchilada sauce), and these tasted pretty good.  I personally felt as though there were a lot of competing flavors going on and think these would be better NOT served in enchilada form.  (I know!  The horror!)  Sweet potatoes and black beans are a great combination, but I would have enjoyed it more without the enchilada sauce.

Butternut Squash Tamales -- These tamales were amazing.  Period.  Sadly, Libby doesn't think they were worth the 2.5 hours it took to make them....  (Cue sad violin music.)  Libby made the following changes to the original recipe:  she only used one of the chilies and she discarded the seeds since her kids would be eating them, too.  However, the tamales didn't turn out very spicy and next time (glimmer of hope) she'd include both chilies, but still remove the seeds. Also, Libby didn't wrap the tamales with the ties, as the original recipe suggests; rather, she assembled them the standard way,  which she learned about via You Tube instructional video.

Apple Crisp -- This dish perfectly satisfied my cravings and I was more than happy to take some of the leftovers off of Lindsay's hands!  Lindsay used a mixture of Granny Smith and Golden Delicious apples and she said that next time she would omit the water in the recipe and reduce the sugar by half to let the natural sweetness of the apples shine through.

If you're looking for a little fall inspiration in the kitchen, I would recommend any of these delicious dishes!