Fall, Mmmmm.

Despite the fact that autumn is kicking off with two straight days of temperatures creeping to the 90's, fall is officially here.

And in our household, the season is unofficially welcomed each year with a cooking frenzy.  An empassioned frenzy, that is, whereby the impending change of season suddenly and strongly inspires me to search out and experiment with a bunch of new recipes ALL. RIGHT. NOW. 

Last year it was homemade soups.  This year?  Crock-pot recipes involving chicken.  As in four new recipes, all in the crock pot this week, and requiring an emergency trip to Costco for MORE CHICKEN!

Why? Because when culinary inspiration strikes me, it does so with the force of a sledgehammer, and I thought it best to run right out to the store immediately to buy ingredients for all four new recipes at once. So not only did I fill the work refrigerator with a bag of groceries that must have confused any late-day snack seekers for its collection of completely incongruous produce, but I also pressured myself into way more cooking in a week than I'm used to, so as not to waste the fresh stuff.

So any guesses as to what happens when fresh flat-leaf parsley, lemons, limes, cilantro, peppers, green onions, rosemary, yams, ginger and shallots combine with peanuts, coconut, artichokes, mango chutney, capers, chunky salsa, Jamaican jerk spice, parmesan cheese, Marsala wine, soy sauce, calamata olives, coffee and dark rum?

You end up with four new dishes: one mediterannean, one asian, one caribbean and one Indian. 
 
And a hubby who appreciates the effort (after all, he's getting a respite from his evening dinner prep routine), but goes a little crazy all day smelling slow-cooked chicken a bazillion different ways.
 
And a wife/mama who may become so exhausted of chopping, grating, mixing and blending that she may not cook again for another month.  But then again, I anticipated that this year, and for just that reason I'm making big batches so I have portions to freeze for easy, go-to dinner defrosts in coming weeks.
 
So far, I'm still having fun with my annual impulse cook-a-thon.  Maybe not so much, come Sunday, when we'll round out the week of record cooking with a pork-n-kraut feast for eight.  But for now, yay for new recipes!