Last month Dear Husband and I purchased a half bushel of apples at the Farmer’s Market. I’ve used them in a variety of ways: chunky applesauce, apple pie, apple crisp, pork and apples. I have some left, and I still hope to get to the apple butter.
Category Archives: From the Kitchen
Dinner
What to fix, what to fix? I’m caught in a no-man’s land between the heat of summer and the cold of winter, and my meals reflect our confusion.
Last night I made stuffed green peppers. Tonight I made pasta e fagiole soup. Tomorrow we’re grilling salmon.
I made the green peppers because it was chilly, and we have an abundance of green peppers available now. I cut the core out of the peppers and then cut them in half lengthwise. After blanching them for five minutes, I laid them on their sides and mounded the filling over them. It seems easier to do it this way, and you get a little more of the stuffing with each bite of pepper, always a good thing.
Today was warm and clear. I should have been out weeding, but I wanted to be available to the repairman, so I worked in the kitchen, making soup. Our evening has been chilly, so the warm soup wasn’t so inappropriate.
Apples are coming into the Farmer’s Market. I want to do apple butter, and apple crisp and apple pie. And then there’s zucchini bread, carrot cake, and pumpkin bread. I found a jar of pumpkin butter in my cabinet, today. I think I’ll have it with toast in the morning.
I Love Fall!
For Cop Car
Hey, Cop Car! I think I may have found the perfect blog for you!
I was surfing this morning and found “Cooking for Engineers“!
Follow Up
We’ve finished canning the plum jam. It’s amazing how you can take a dark blue fruit with green pulp and end up with a beautiful plum colored jam!
The chopped plums, sugar and lemon juice sat for two hours while the juice flowed from the pulp. We put it on the stove top and brought it to a rolling boil. Elegante Mother skimmed the foam from the top, and I worked on getting the jars ready for the canning.
I’ve Learned a New Definition
I spent the morning cutting up 2.2 pounds of tiny Italian plums. We’re making jam today. The fruit is so tiny that it took me easily two hours to complete the job. Part of that time was devoted to occasional diversions to give my hands a chance to relax.
I happened to find Orangette’s blog entry on preserving, and decided to follow her instructions for making jam. To the chopped up plums, I’ve added a pound of sugar and the juice from half a lemon. The mixture is to sit for two hours at room temperature to “macerate.”
Day is Done
And so is the chili sauce!
I’ve been making chili sauce with Elegante Mother for the last 15 years, and it usually took us all day to cook it down to the point where it could be canned. Today we were done at 2:20!
Cooking With Gas
Hm….well, maybe not gas…..but with a lot of fun in the kitchen.
My niece will be here to join us for dinner tonight. It’s just the ladies, as Dear Husband is off boating tonight. I’ve found several recipies that I’d like to try on her, so this is what I’m planning:
Italian pork tenderloin
Roasted veggies
Farmer’s tomato pie (May 16, 2003 in the archives)
Corn Cakes with Fresh Corn and Chives
Peach Blueberry Cake
Wow……now that I have it down on paper I can see that I’m going to have to cut something out. Maybe I can talk her into the Farmer’s Tomato Pie for lunch tomorrow. I can slip in a small side salad that would be much lighter.
To Market, To Market
Peaches
Blueberries
20 pounds of tomatoes
6 plum tomatoes
miniature patty pan squash
green onions
tiny red new potatoes
6 pickle cucumbers
4 green bell peppers
3 red peppers
1 pound crimini mushrooms (baby portabello)
1 portabello mushroom
6 ears bi-color corn
green beans
yellow wax beans
An Apprentice
This weekend I am gaining an apprentice!
We have an old family recipe for something called “Chili Sauce.” I’ve posted the recipe on the June 30, 2003 blog entry. Hopefully, the link will take you there.
Except for last year, Elegante Mother and I have been making this sauce once a year for the past sixteen years we have lived together. I’m not sure why we didn’t get to it, but I must have decided that we could coast on all the reserves we had stored up.
An Italian style Spread
One of my mother’s friends sent a recipe to me for an Italian style spread that’s really yummy.
It’s a layered spread that starts with a layer of cream cheese mixed with goat cheese, spread and pressed into a bowl lined with plastic wrap.
The next layer is a blend of spinach, fresh basil, Parmesan and olive oil and garlic. It makes a dry pesto. This would work best in a food processor, but I was able to chop it finely in a blender.
On top of that you spread roasted pine nuts and finely diced sun-dried tomatoes.
Those layers are repeated and then the final layer is the last of the cream cheese/goat cheese mix.
The spread is chilled to blend the flavors, and then served with crackers. I’ve made this twice for my family, and I plan to make it for the two brunches coming up. It may become a staple at family gatherings. The pesto layer blended with the cheese is wonderful!