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Fall baking is always so much fun.  The spices, the aromas, the tastes.  It’s like the appetizer.  Thanksgiving is the salad/soup course for the main course of the Holidays, then the dessert that is New Years.  At least, that’s sort of how it’s all pictured in my head at least.

AND Fall has such yummy produce!  Squashes, apples, mushrooms, pears (hmmmm mushrooms and pears…), cauliflower, figs, shallots, Brussels sprouts!  Mmmm.  All such yummy ingredients!  The flavors and ideas are just running rampant in my mind!  I can’t wait to hit the market to see what’s in season on Friday.  This Friday I did not have that luxury.  Gotta love fiscal year close.

ANYWAY.

I participated in the SPIKED! Recipe Challenge.  Julie from This Gal Cooks and Carrie from Frugal Foodie Mama sponsor this event every other month.  It’s an excellent way to win some ad space, meet some new bloggers, challenge yourself in the kitchen, and HAVE FUN!   This time around the ingredient was fall craft beers.  I bought too much beer, or maybe didn’t cook enough.  Either way, I had beer left.

What to do what to do…

Let’s make some bread!  What kind of bread?  Well, I’ve been wanting to make some pretzel rolls.  Why not try to make some pumpkin ale pretzel rolls?  Yeah!  That sounds good!!  It IS getting to be fall and I did buy pumpkin ale.

And now that the weather is getting cooler, I can have the oven on and not have to worry about heating the place up.  I mean, how ridiculous is it that the thermostat for the air conditioner is DIRECTLY outside of the kitchen?  What genius architect designed THAT floor plan?  Seriously.  It’s within arms length of the oven.  So, baking anything in the summer really isn’t a wise choice as it will make the A/C work over time.

I have the sneaking suspicion that any baking that I do will be taken to work.  S seems to think the root of all our evils (and our extended waist lines) is dessert.  My response is, nope.  It’s because we just eat too much food.  He still blames dessert.  *shrugs*  I need to wage war, like serious guerrilla warfare on my mouth.  I have this battle that goes on.

Head:  Nope.  That’s enough.  We don’t need all this food.
Mouth: But it tastes soooooooooooooooo good!  Just one more bite won’t hurt….that much…will it?
Head:  Well…it is good.  Maybe just one more.  BUT NO MORE THAN ONE.
Mouth.  See?  I told you it was good.  Let’s have another.
Head:  NOPE!  Not gonna…*gives in*

My head knows.  My mouth wins.  I WILL be getting the measuring cups and scale out and using them again.  It will require more menu planning on my part.  Hopefully, my foot will participate and I’ll be able to do some walking, too.

BUT these rolls are tasty with little to no fat.  I’m not afraid of carbs.  If I can find the book the MIL gave me on her nutrition program, I’ll be doing that again.  It’s just a matter of finding the thing.  It’s in a box…somewhere.  There’s still lots of stuff in boxes…somewhere.  *snort*

I love the richness of these rolls.  The pumpkin ale flavor, well mostly the ale flavor comes out in these buns.  They would be perfect with sharp cheese spread and some ham or turkey for sliders.  They would make yummy nibbles for some game day festivities, or just the two of you on the couch watching Ohio State kick butt.  But that’s just us.  😉

I hope you head to the kitchen and whip up a batch of these yummy rolls for your nifty nibbles.