Fall-Summer Fusion...

You know it's going to be a good morning in our house when I wake up to find this sitting on our back porch...:)

...because that means it's a Bagel Breakfast Morning:) hahahhahahahahaha....Scott & I got our usual from Tina's down the street from our house and split an Everything bagel with scallion cream cheese and a French Toast bagel with maple syrup "breakfast butter" :)  That's what I call the best of both words;)

And speaking of 'both worlds', when I thought of picking a menu for our last "official picnic of the summer", I immediately thought of adding a bit of Fall to some traditional summer dishes;)

Along with our standard hamburgers & hot dogs we had a little Maple Mustard grilled chicken to bring in some sweet fall flavors:)...

Next we had some Baked Beans cooked in the slow cooker with some brown sugar & molasses.  (OK, and as much as I want to say this was solely about FALL...HONESTLY, there really is no better way to make baked beans anyways;)

And finally, some Sweet Potato Salad:) 

I just brought 6 diced sweet potatoes to a boil and cooked until tender.  Let them cool and mixed it up with some mayo, salt, pepper & scallions.  I've made this twice and both times it came out a bit on the "mashed potato" end of the spectrum, but it still had a great taste!

And now onto the gooooood stuff:  THE DESSERTS, which were a GREAT combo of BOTH seasons;)  First up we had Pina Colada pie... 

I made a vanilla cookie crust, crushing up 2 cups of vanilla wafers and mixing it with 5 tablespoons of melted butter.  Once the crumbs formed around the plate, I let it bake in a 350 degree oven for about 7 minutes (or until the crust turned slightly brown.)

Next, I mixed up a pint of heavy whipping cream.  Once the cream formed peaks, I added in a dash of coconut extra and this...

Then I let it freeze for a few hours....or maybe a bit too much since that baby was hard to cut! ;)  It was good, but let's not kid ourselves...we really wanted some FALL desserts!!!

Which leads me to THIS....the insanely delicious GRILLED APPLE PIE! :)

How "rustic" does THAT look????  Loves it! :)

You melted a stick of butter (I know, I know...no one said this one was healthy;)  in a cast iron skillet.  Once the butter was melted, you added in a 1/3 cup of brown sugar and a couple teaspoons of cinnamon and let that get all nice & bubbly...

Next, I added in a 21 ounce can of apple pie filing and 2 cups of fresh apple slices (hence, Sandra Lee's hallmark..."SEMI-homemade";)

Next, I capped off the apples with a pre-made pie crust, a brush of apple juice concentrate and a sprinkle of sugar.  (Make sure to cut slices in the crust to allow the steam to escape...)

I popped it on the grill for about a half hour and it came out looking crispy, flaky and bubbly...YUM!!!!

You we're SUPPOSE to let it cool for an hour...but that was ENTIRELY too long, as the pie tasted OH-SO-AMAZING WARM and topped with Vanilla ice cream:)  So good in fact, that I forgot to take a picture of my dish;)  It was such an easy dish because you just "scooped and served"...it wasn't fancy or pretty, but it tasted like a million bucks!

And after all that fabulousness, we wound down the evening on the sunporch enjoying the crisp breeze!  A PERFECT way to cap off an EXCELLENT weekend as far as I'm concerned...

So how bad am I gonna cry when the temperature reaches over 90 the next 2 days:( 

Answer = A LOT!  BLEH! 

Hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as we did!  HAPPY TUESDAY!!!  (TUESDAY!)