A few of you out there are still looking for ways to use up so-called “leftover” candy. I don’t really get that concept. It’s not chicken, people. It’s not gonna go bad that fast. Eat it and enjoy at your leisure.

But heck, if you really want to bake it into something, make a pookie! This lovely cookie dough is filled with all your Halloween candy favorites and baked into a pie shell. With Thanksgiving looming, we should be getting our pie thing going anyway. Let’s do a hybrid holiday treat!

To be honest, I’m relieved to be in November. October is just a terrifying month, and not just because of people banging on your door demanding candy. Grades are due in my school system on November first, and so are college recommendations. I’m just happy that these weights are lifting from my shoulders.

Now I can focus on lifting real weights, which I do faithfully. Still, there’s this area under my arm. I hesitate to use the word “flaps” because it’s not empowering. But with all the triceps work I do and all those painful push-ups with my hands shaped like a diamond, why don’t I have arms like Madonna? Probably the pie.

There have been times that I get frustrated at the parts of my body that don’t tone as easily as others. But lately, I’ve also been trying to focus on the good stuff. My abs are really responsive to training, and that means I need to stop complaining. Why are we so inclined to focus on the stuff that isn’t as great and not spend time enjoying what we love about ourselves?

That said, if I ever became rich, I would hire the following in a heartbeat: a personal trainer, a personal chef (just on retainer for those days I don’t wanna cook), and a hairdresser, not on retainer. Because I need hair help every single day. I wouldn’t even think about redoing the house or anything until these three people were part of my daily routine. And you know, it would be cool to have an assistant too, just to keep track of my appointments and all.

Anyone out there willing to make my dream come true? I will totally bake for you every day if you make me rich. I do that anyway. No matter how rich I got, I would bake. It just makes me so darn happy.

Like this pookie here. Who can turn away from this? Not me, I can tell ya. The trick is to make sure you don’t bake this guy for too long, or the whole thing goes from slightly gooey and joyously chewy to dry and hard. Watch that oven timer!

Listen, I don’t need recipes for leftover candy. In my house, it’s called eating it. But I understand if you do, and I hear where you’re coming from. So go ahead and eat your candy in a pookie! It’s almost as nice as being rich and having your own personal staff.

After Halloween, there’s a ton of spilled candy corn everywhere. In pantries, cabinets, behind the fridge…yep. I wind up finding candy corn wedged into small spaces way after it’s out of season. How to deal with this?

Use it, fast! And the best way to transition from one holiday to the next is to use candy corn in these adorable chocolate ganache cupcakes. With an Oreo turkey on top, nobody can resist! Look at their little faces.

I’m trying to mentally prepare myself for pie-baking craziness and my mind is going a million miles an hour because I have endless ideas about what to bake this year. There are so many different options for pie out there, but our Thanksgiving table can only accommodate about five pies before things start to look really excessive.

In general, Thanksgiving is an easy holiday. It’s basically a menu with some preset factors (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie) and room for lots of additions and creativity. I love to cook while watching the Macy’s parade on TV. If you get up at a decent hour and cook through the morning, that’s pretty much all the time you need for the main dishes and sides.

If you think I’m in the wrong here, that’s okay. I’m just saying that effort-wise, I find Thanksgiving to be on the lower maintenance end, though not quite so much as July 4th. And you can make dessert ahead of time, which is even more of a bonus. I have two pies already in the freezer and November just started. We’re making good time here!

Plus, once the meal starts, it’s nice just to sit back and have a glass of wine and enjoy. Or if you’re me, to take that glass of wine to the kitchen and pick at the turkey carcass. Sorry. I’m a scavenger, and it’s one of my favorite things to do on Thanksgiving.

In honor of what is definitely one of my favorite holidays, I also get crafty with the food. These cupcakes are a cute and easy addition to any Thanksgiving dessert spread. When my own kids saw these, their eyes lit up and they all wanted one right now. My daughter always tends to want things (insert demanding tone here) right now.

These are a fairly simple chocolate cupcake (but you can use a mix if you like to save time) with a quick ganache topping. The most time-consuming part of this is making the little turkeys. Those candy corn feathers really want to fall out of the top. I found myself working hard to make sure each one wound up with four feathers. If I were less anal-retentive, I would have let my kids make these with me. Mine are a little young, but older kids can definitely help out here.

Once these are atop your cupcakes, it’s open season on Thanksgiving celebrations. The best part of the holiday is coming together over food that people prepare with lots of love. Why not start the celebration a little early this year?

In my world, pie lives or dies by the crust. In other words, I don’t bother with pies that have mediocre crusts. That’s why this puppy has its own unique pecan shortbread crust. It’s so good.

Pecan pie isn’t something I discovered until my college days, but I’ve made up for plenty of lost time. And I’ve added chocolate to the mix, which is never a problem. At least, not for me. But you can leave it out if you like. Cue my sad face.

I need some tofu help, y’all. Whenever we go out, I really love eating tofu. It’s tasty with the right sauces and prepared well. But mine is not that good. See, I don’t like covering my tofu in sugary sauce, and that’s often the best way to make it. And I also don’t deep fry anything, ever. So can you guys share some of your tofu wisdom with me? I need something quick and easy.

Dinner is a challenge, not gonna lie. Every week, I come up with a dinner plan for each night based on everyone’s preferences. My son is a lost cause, since he eats pretty much two things in life. I work around Kenny’s gluten-free thing, my own aversion to beans, and the fact that we follow a kosher diet, which has a very long list of restrictions.

Truth be told, I’m tired of planning dinner, and I’m only ten years into life as someone who has to cook every night for other people. A small part of me misses the days when I was single and dinner could be a brownie, or half a bag of chips, or nothing. Sometimes I just napped through dinner and watched TV until bed.

How many of you really love planning dinner? When it comes to baking dessert, I’ll do it anytime. But dinner isn’t as much of a creative process, and therefore, it’s a chore. Plus, there are always kids needing help with homework or just jockeying for attention while dinner has to magically be made.

So, back to tofu. Any ideas? It’s gotta be vegetarian, not hard, no beans. Help me out here!

One thing I don’t need any help with is pie. One of the first pies I ever baked was a pecan pie because they’re so easy. Just mix and pour. No problem!

To spice things up a bit, this pecan shortbread crust is the base, and you will need a pastry blender or willing hands to make the texture of the crust crumbly before pressing it into the pie pan. But really, that’s the hardest part, and it’s not that bad.

I dumped a lot of chocolate chips in here, thus creating the melty goodness, and photographed this pie right out of the oven, since pecan pie is good warm. But if you want it to set up more, the chips float to the top along with the pecans while the bottom layer of pie is that sticky, gooey filling. However you like to eat the pie, do it that way. I chilled this after the photo shoot because I actually like my pie cold. Don’t mock.

Some cooking is a chore, but not all of it. Tofu and dinner planning might not be my bag, but I’ll make a pie any day. Who’s with me?

And I might also take this moment to reveal that I hate mint. Put down that pitchfork! Sorry, but it reminds me of toothpaste. I can’t associate toothpaste with dessert. I’ve tried. I’ve failed. It’s over.

So will you see any mint recipes on this blog? Maybe. I can put aside my personal feelings and bake with mint every now and then. But I won’t be jumping on that holiday peppermint bandwagon. It’s just not who I am.

These days, my thoughts are distracted with pie. What kinds of pie will grace our Thanksgiving table this year? I have some great choices coming, so stay tuned. In the meantime, I wanted to merge two of my favorite desserts: pumpkin pie and crumb bars!

I’m a sucker for crumb anything. Something about crumbs, man. I have no idea. I just cannot resist it. Similarly, pumpkin pie has a completely addictive quality. I tell myself that it’ll be one slice, and that turns into half a pie. It’s that good.

What could be better than doing a mashup? Nothing, ever. Which is why I’ve taken my favorite crumb bar base and added a classic pumpkin pie filling to serve as the center. The outcome is crazy. Crazy addictive!

While I do admit that this takes both a mixer and a separate bowl for the filling, it’s not a horribly long time investment. Besides, a lot of life’s best desserts do take a little extra time. I’m sorry that I’m still stuck on pumpkin, but we’re still in prime pie season. Take time to smell the autumn flowers before rushing into winter with its cool mint!