Winter Roast Chicken

I love roasting chicken. First, it's simpler to make than you would think but looks pretty impressive to guests. Second you get a ton of leftover chicken so it's great to make it on a Sunday, and use those leftovers for meals for that week. You could even roast 2 at the same time without double the effort. It's also so versatile! You can season the chicken itself with so many different spices and herbs, you can roast it along with different vegetables and make it a seasonal meal. And c'mon... chicken is so good!
I made this chicken following the same recipe I usually follow, all I did to make it a "winter" meal is put some different herbs in the chicken, and the vegetables were mostly root veggies and I even added an apple. So I guess it's a sort of fall/winter thang. Whatever you wanna call it, just know it's delicious. Let me show you how simple it is.

Butternut Squash Risotto

This is a picture from the Eating Well website, where I got the recipe

I love cooking seasonally. Not only do you get food that's fresher and cheaper, but it also gets you in that holiday mood. It makes me feel more involved. Like I'm participating in a nationwide party. Or something....?

Anyway, the word "risotto" might make you feel like you want to skip this and go on to a different recipe because it's going to take you forever. You might think I'm culinarily gifted because I can make RISOTTO. That's what I thought whenever I heard the word risotto. But trust me, there's nothing to it. All you need is patience and a LITTLE time, and by the end of one hour you will have rich, creamy, delicious, hot risotto.

Iced Pumpkin Muffins

Fall is my favorite season ever! It's the Goldilocks of seasons, not too hot and not too cold, plus we get all those beautiful golden leaves everywhere. It's also the start of the holidays and with that comes holiday food. Pumpkin, apple, cinnamon, oh my!

I decided to make these Hungry Girl muffins because I had a can of pure pumpkin lying around and too much time on my hands. You can probably start finding canned pure pumpkin now, I bought mine last year at Walmart and they're still good. Don't confuse them with pumpkin pie filling though! They're actual pumpkin, mashed up and without anything else added to them. I also saw these adorable muffin liners at Target for $1 so they needed to be used RIGHT AWAY. Here's the recipe: