Can't Believe MONTHS have passed!

It's not that there has been nothing food-wise to blog about, it's just that we've been so darned busy.
Thankfully my husband has also picked up some of the bigger cooking duties and has made several roasts etc.

One thing that hasn't changed is our weekly pots of soup.
I've been doing more with bean soups this year - cooking up a pound of dry beans at a time and then splitting the batch - freezing half and using half immediately.
We had a smokey ham stock/white bean w/greens soup a couple weeks ago that my oldest son LOVED.
The week after that I cooked up a Yule present from a friend who always gives us a soup mix from The Women's Bean Project which my younger son LOVED.
There have also been the usual turkey&rice, chicken&veggetable etc. Because we still belong to our CSG and have our root veggies to use; and because I routinely make meat stock whenever we have a poultry dinner!

One thing that HAS changed is that I've also been making veggie stock this winter too!
It all started because we're working with a musician who is a vegetarian. We've been working on learning songs she has written to be able to perform with her and we will be recording her songs come spring. Our habit is to be able to share a meal with the musicians we work with; to add time where we can get to know each other and to discuss the business aspects of the relationship.
Although I like vegetarian foods and have certainly made no-meat meals, I was facing the prospect of feeding someone who is especially experienced at this!
I have been making my stock by using the trimmings from veggies I put into my other soups and stews. I put all of the "scraps" into a small sauce pot with just enough water to come to the top of the veggie material. After it has boiled for a while, I let it cool and then strain it through a coffee filter.
It is delicious, fragrant and beautiful! I can't believe I have never done this before and that I 've let all of those nutrient rich veggie scraps go directly to the compost without stealing back some of the flavors and vitimins first!

My arguments about not adding veggies to my meat stocks have always been that I don't approve of the waste of putting whole veggies in and then throwing them away with the bones.
Now I'm upset with myself for the waste of the veggie scraps LOL!

Thanksgiving is Coming!!!

Wow! Thanksgiving is almost here and for the first time in MANY years I will not be cooking.
I'm not hosting, and I'm not going to a relative's home with a side dish...I'm going to be on vacation and will probably be eating my turkey in a restaurant.

Now, I usually LOVE hosting Thanksgiving because it means making the turkey - which we always brine Alton Brown style.
The sides are typically the traditional.....mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, bread and sausage dressing (never stuffed into the turkey!), cranberry sauce and applesause.

But I was thinking, what if you're tired of those typical sides? What would you make?
So I dug into my archives for some inspiration:

For some simple pre-turkey munchies you could put out some pickles! They're crispy, zesty, nutritious, you can make them WAY ahead of time, and you can plan in variety!

For a twist on the use of pumpkin/squash/sweetpotatoes you could do a soup! If you don't want the Thai influence simply leave out the curry powder and the coconut milk and add some allspice and nutmeg and you've got a nice standard butternut squash soup starter to your meal.

Instead of the usual greenbean casserole you could try a greenbean saute! And it's one less item for the oven!

If you have the time, fresh applesauce is a real treat!

And to finish the day Thanksgiving Cookies can't be beat....of course they are good ANY time!
Please share your traditions or breaks from tradition with me!

Whatever your traditions and whatever you make, I hope your Thanksgiving is delicious and good for your soul!

Cube Steak Casserole

A couple nights ago my husband asked what he should make for dinner....
and this recipe was born.

Cube Steak Casserole
Season 4 cube steaks with salt and pepper
And brown them in a small amout of olive oil
Using a casserole dish big enough for the cube steaks to not overlap:
Spray the pan with spray EVOO
Cut up some potatoes in rounds and cover the bottom of the pan
Cut up an onion and sprinkle the pieces over the potatoes
layer some frozen spinach over the onion
mix a can of cream of mushroom soup with half a cup of milk.
Pour half the mixture over the potato/onion/spinach layers
Bake at 350 for 15 minutes
Then
Layer the steaks on top of that
Pour the rest of the soup mix on top.
Cover and bake for about 45 minutes - or until potatoes and meat are done.

Harvest Time Broccoli & Cauliflower Soup

Harvest Time Broccoli & Cauliflower Soup

This was a really SIMPLE soup. It's a good one for the "first soup of the season" because of its speed and simplicity if it's a beautiful autumn day you can go and enjoy it without spending a chunk of your afternoon chopping soup veggies!

I just used what I had on hand...left over from a veggie tray from Evan's birthday.
So, a whole head of broccoli or cauliflower would be too much.

Heat a little EVOO in the bottom of a soup pot
Slice a leek or chop an onion
Sprinkle a little salt & pepper
Add a bay leaf and any other herbs you like
Cut up cauliflower and broccoli into small pieces
toss with the other veggies and herbs
Cube 1 white potatoe and toss it in.
Add chicken (or veggie) stock to cover
Let cook until potato is tender
Add 1/2 red bell pepper diced (for color).

Yup, that's it. Really.

Pickles Revisited

Most of my family LOVES pickles...and I must admit that I'm willing to take that to extremes sometimes. As my husband commented to the FB universe this summer..."My wife will pickle anything".
He's pretty close to the truth.

When it came harvest time this year - as characterized by having so much produce in the house that it causes fear and induces dreams of never eating anything but again - it is time to pickle.
To save some time for myself this year I used only the 2 brines that I used last year and posted here. What I changed was the veggies I used.

Into the Sweet'nSalty Brine I tossed:
Cauliflower florets
Zucchini
Kohlrabi
Daikon Radish
Beans
Pepper Slices

The Garlic Dill Brine got:
Cauliflower
Cucumber
and Beans

The beans were blanched after last year's beans shrivled after a few months. They were still tasty but didn't look very pretty. And, since I'd never pickled cauliflower before I did 50/50 blanched vs raw.

I have also made a late addition to the Garlic Dills....after picking the green tomatoes off of the vines at the end of the season, I put all of the green cherry tomatoes into the brine. I cut x's on the bottom of the tomatoes so that there would be a means for the brine to penetrate the tough tomato skin easier, and early taste-tests have proven to be pretty yummy!

Evan's Yummy Veggie Pancakes!

I've been a bit remiss over the past couple months...I've been creating some new recipes and not posting them here....I have been posting them on FB.
So, now I'm going to play catchup!

Evan's Yummy Veggie Pancakes
2 medium zucchini grated with some of the water pressed out
2 tsp fresh parsley
½ cup shredded cheese
¾ cup flour
½ cup corn meal
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
Salt and pepper

Use an ice cream dipper to scoop batter onto griddle drizzled with olive oil (or bacon fat if you are feeling decadent!) and press down to flatten slightly.
Cook to golden brown.
Serve with plain yogurt, salsa, apple sauce and/or sour cream.

All 3 of my boys think this is one of the BEST uses for all of the zucchini coming from our garden and the CSA!

Blueberry-Rhubarb Amish Surprise!

Head on over to my garden blog to see why I'm baking with rhubarb this week!


3 Large Stalks Rhubarb sliced into 1" pieces
1-2 Cups Blueberries (frozen)
1 large apple peeled, cored and chopped
1/2 cup sugar
Toss fruit with sugar and place in 9X9 glass baking dish
drizzle in 1 cup Amish Friendship Bread starter mix
(You can substitute 1 package of vanila pudding prepared)
Bake for 60 -70 minutes at 350.
Serve warm with or without vanilla ice cream

What a wonderful indulgence that is not so bad!

Home-made Applesauce/Fruitsauce

When I first joined our local CSG (community supported garden), about 10 years ago, we received a little fruit, but certainly not an abundance.

There was a pint or so of stawberries and one of raspberries in the spring, and hearty kiwi if you were lucky, in the autumn.

This has been changing gradually.

The past year or 2 we've been seeing some peaches, some asian apples, and some paw-paw.

This year we also received pears and apples.

There is not an abundance of fruit per distribution for sure, and the autumn fruit is like what I was used to seeing from the "orchard" in my home yard as a child...smallish and quite blemished.

Certainly not apples/pears my kids would want to find in their lunchboxes.

So, being that we're a family that eats a largish amount of bottled applesauce with dinner all year long...thanks to my hubby's passing his love of it on to the kids....I decided to take my distribution and do something the whole family would enjoy.

A few weeks ago (I know..should have posted it then) I made my first batch of applesauce.

I cut the fruit and left all the skin/seeds intact and cooked it all. I added a small amount of sugar and spices (cinnamon, allspice, ginger) and then put it through a food mill at the end.

I got 3 pints out of that batch. 2 are gone, one is frozen.

So, when we received some more fruit, I decided to do it again. Now, this distribution had pears and paw-paws as well as apples and Asian apples, and I decided to make the sauce with it all.

In the picture above, the asian apples and pears are hard to distinguish from each other, and the paw-paws are in the lower portion of the picture.

Since things were busy over the weekend and I didn't get to do it then, I decided to make the applesauce via the crockpot method...overnight in the crockpot...and since I'd be dealing with the finished product in the morning as I was trying to get ready for work, I didn't want to have to put it through the food mill. So I peeled/cored/and seeded this time.

I added a tiny bit of water to the crockpot, but probably didn't have to.

Again I added a small amout of sugar (1/4 cup) and some spices to the pot. And in the morning we woke to a delicious apple aroma. I mashed it up with a fork, so it's chunky instead of smooth, and put it in a container. This batch made 2 pints and is even more delicious than the first.

So there you have it...two methods and two very delicious apple sauces ( I suppose you could also call the second one a chutney).

It's Soup Season Again!

I may be considered to be a bit weird, but when there's a chill in the air and sweaters become every day garb, I get excited, because it is SOUP SEASON.

At my house we've already gone through 4 pots of steamy goodness this season.

1st up was:
Gingered Carrot Soup
I had a bag of mini-carrots that was going to go bad on me and used them all up in this soup.
It also contained leeks harvested from MY GARDEN this year!!! and a large nob of ginger.
Herb-wise I added a bay leaf, and garlic powder.
When it had cooked long enough I pureed it and served it up.

It was a fairly simple soup - good for the first pot of the year.

Then I got the flu - or something very much like it - and made:
Quick for the Sick Chicken Soup
My husband bought me a pack of all-natural chicken thighs which I seasoned with salt and pepper and browned in some olive oil.
I added two large onions - and half a tsp of salt, onions are GREAT for coughs and fevers
My friend Wendy over at Wisdom of the Moon suggested tumeric for headcolds...so
I also added about a 1/2 tsp of tumeric at this point..which is also great for congestion and inflamation.
Some carrots & celery
Green beans from the garden
Some droopy cooking greens from our CSG and
LOTS and LOTS of fresh herbs from the window boxes:
Thyme, Oregano, Dill, and Parsley
That was some GOOD chicken soup!

My flop for the season was next:
Leftover Ham Bone Split Pea
Now, if you are a split pea soup lover you might have been ok with this soup.
Split pea is not a favorite at my house, and although I cooked this soup several hours...the peas were still crunchy. NOT Good Eats. Of course I made this when the Quick for the Sick Chicken Soup ran out and I was still sick, so that might have had something to do with it......

We've also been upping the amount of oven cooking we're doing - to try to keep the house warm and avoid turning on the heat...so we've made a couple of roast chickens and stock from the leftovers.

So...I have also made my usual Chicken Soup again.
And, up this weekend a return of Mario Batali's Cauliflower Soup!

Buy Hand for the Holidays Challenge

When I was a child, I was so excited by Christmas and gift giving. I loved finding what I thought was the 'perfect', gift within my limited means, to give people I loved. As consumerism has become rampant and it has gotten more and more difficult to find and give a meaningful gift I have been more and more unhappy with holiday shopping and gifting.



About 10 years ago I went through a financiallly rough year and gave hand-made toilettries for the holidays. Some people liked them more than others, but the desire to give and receive "consumables" not dust-catching gifts from the $20 and under or $10 and under tables so pervasive in the malls, has spread throughout my group of friends.



For many years now, this group of friends has exchanged gifts that you can't buy at the mall; and some years I've extended that and given hand-made gifts to family as well.

Sometime things that have been given are: concert/event tickets, home prepared meals, jar mixes, toilettries, jams and jellies, home canned salsa, pickles, hand made clothing, quilts, and much more.


Well, this year Deanna over at Crunchy Chicken has posted the Buy Hand for the Hollidays Challenge. The goal of the challenge is to have you do one or more of the following:
* hand-make your gifts
* buy your gifts that are handmade by someone else (like from Etsy or a local craftsperson)
* buy it used either at a thrift store, yard sale, Craigslist or Freecycle, etc.
* barter for your gifts

I'm going to attempt it as much as possible, and I invite you to do the same. Just click the picture in my side bar.



I personally LOVE home made gifts, and I know my friends do as well....


Let me know if you sign up for the challenge, or if this is something you already do.

How do your friends/family receive these gifts? Happily or not?