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Five Tasty Fall Recipes (for when you’re on a tight schedule!)

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at CMU chapter.

Although I still swear summer is my favorite season, fall foods are definitely the best. Nothing can beat the pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks, the apple pie frozen yogurt at Razzy Fresh, or the sea salt caramel mocha at The Bagel Factory. How can you incorporate fall’s great tastes into your own food? Here are five tasty ideas!

Snacks

1. Baked apples, similar to apple crisp, are possibly one of the greatest things about fall. First, you can pick your own fresh apples or even get them from a Farmer’s Market. Since they’re in season, the apples should be fresh and crispy.

To prepare:

  • Peel and core the apple.
  • Slice it into ¼ inch pieces and spread on a plate.
  • Sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon over the top.
  • Microwave for 4-5 minutes.

2. Craving Starbucks? Make your own pumpkin spice latte by mixing:

  • ½ cup milk
  • 1 tablespoon of canned pumpkin puree (available at Giant Eagle)
  • 1 tablespoon of brown sugar
  • A dash of cinnamon
  • A pinch of nutmeg

Then:

  • Add 1 cup of coffee, and sweeten as you desire!

Make A Meal

3. Mashed sweet potatoes are a taste of fall before Thanksgiving!

  • Microwave four sweet potatoes for 8 minutes.
  • Cut in half, and scoop out the potato.
  • Once scooped, mash the potato until smooth.
  • Stir in two tablespoons of melted butter, two tablespoons warm mill, and ¼ tablespoon salt.
  • Add pecans to taste.

Desserts

4. Pumpkin muffins are one of the easiest desserts to make!

  • Mix a box of yellow cake mix with a can of pumpkin puree.
  • Add cinnamon and nutmeg to taste.
  • Disperse batter evenly throughout a muffin tin with 12-16 holes.
  • Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

5. Zucchini bread also uses yellow cake mix, so grab an extra box!

Mix it with:

  • Four eggs
  • ½ cup vegetable oil
  • One teaspoon cinnamon
  • A tablespoon of vanilla

Then:

  • Fold in two cups of grated zucchini.
  • Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.
Soniya Shah is an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University studying technical writing and pre-med.
Laura Stiles is a Creative Writing, Professional Writing double major at Carnegie Mellon University who will be graduating in May 2014. In addition to being Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Carnegie Mellon chapter of HerCampus.com, she is Co-Prose Editor of The Oakland Review, Carnegie Mellon’s literary-arts journal, a manuscript reader for Carnegie Mellon University Press, and has copy-edited for Carnegie Mellon’s newspaper, The Tartan. She was also Communications and Arts Management Intern at The Hillman Center for Performing Arts in summer 2012, and is ecstatic to be studying abroad in Sheffield, England in spring 2013. In her free time, she enjoys singing along to music on long car rides, spontaneously kicking off her shoes to explore lakes and creeks, and curling up with a soft blanket and a captivating book. She was also recently pleasantly surprised to discover that she has a taste for sushi.