Thought I'd share how I used some of my pumpkin butter, and kept my kids happy when we ran out of snacks mid-week.

I've been making a variation of this recipe for a long time, but this was the first time I've tried it with premade pumpkin butter... and the verdict is:  Super-quick, easy, and yummy.  This particular variation of the recipe rivals the simplicity of putting together a cake or quickbread out of a box... and my youngest LOVED helping every single step of the way.

In the past I've talked about apple butter, and roasted pumpkin, and pumpkin pie, and pumpkin puree, and pumpkin soup... but how about pumpkin butter?   Ok Guys... THIS is the answer to how you can put pumpkin pie spice in everything this season.  From scratch.  With real pumpkin.   Use this butter on crackers or toast for a yummy snack (my 2-year-old agrees) or in place of canned pumpkin or pumpkin puree in any baked good recipe.    It's that easy.  Oh, and it makes your house smell amazing while it's cooking.    Give it a whirl!  I know you have pumpkins sitting on your porch right now getting ready to be carved anyway... right?

YUM! nothing better than crunchy Omega 6's and seasalt!

I took the plunge and made a batch of Sauerkraut.  This was an intimidating project for me to take on because of some of the preconceived notions I had about traditionally fermented kraut.  1)  that it would need a special crock that I didn't own and didn't have any practice using 2) that it would inevitably get moldy and gross like so many people complain about and 3) that I'd be too grossed out to eat it after the 6 week process was complete with all that skimming and the different "phases" of fermentation which can sometimes be more than a little off-putting.

I had read about how people make these huge 20 lb batches of kraut and *mostly* seal them and put them in a hole in the ground to ferment for weeks and about how Michael Pollan had a really hard time with mold infestation in his first (and only) 10lb batch.

Then cabbage came into season.  And it was staring at me at the store. It was only $.69 a lb... and a  relatively small one somehow made it into my cart and then into my refrigerator.  And there it stood... staring at me... taking up a TON of room right there on the top shelf.

And so I gathered my tools, and my ingredients.

First, core and chop up the cabbage, leaving the outer leaves intact.

This was about 1.5 lbs of cabbage once it was chopped/cored

Then combine all of the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and get out a wooden rolling pin to crush the cabbage/start the process of brine creation.  The salt pulls the water out of the cabbage, so if you have a really fresh cabbage there's no need for added brine!

Stuff the shredded cabbage mixture into a quart jar, using the end of the rolling pin to really crush it down in there between handfuls.  Then use the intact outer leaves to seal off any small pieces from the top of the brine. The key is that you DO NOT want any of the cabbage poking up above the brine or it WILL MOLD.


Allow the jar to sit at room temperature for 24 hours.  By the end of that time, enough brine should have formed to completely cover the top cabbage leaf.

In my case, I had let the cabbage sit in the refrigerator for the couple days  before starting my project. After 24 hours, my brine was about 3/4 of the way up the cabbage in the jar.  I created some extra brine at a ratio of 1 tbsp seasalt to 1 quart of water and I topped the jar off.

See?  Nothing above the water line.  I then decided to be extra careful and fit some wooden skewers across the top of the cabbage leaf (also completely submerged) to make sure that the bubbles coming up during fermentation don't push anything up above the waterline.  This added precaution should completely eliminate the need to skim or otherwise mess with the ferment altogether.

Today is day 3 of my sauerkraut ferment and it is starting to actively bubble.  I've had to "burp" the jar 3 times to decrease the pressure build up under the lid. I'm expecting another 2-3 days of this rapid bubbling variety of fermentation, and the rest of the process will take about 5 additional weeks (tasting at 3 and 4 weeks to check for desired flavor/consistency. I'm really excited to see how it turns out and have a good feeling about this batch. I'm really happy that I decided to employ my tried-and-true fermentation method of using small batches of vegetables in mason jars. This was a very fun and satisfying project.

Enjoy!

I hope everyone's been locating and trying out as many winter squash as we have this season.  Remember that crazy hubbard squash I brought home and roasted?
I ended up getting about 6 extra cups of puree out of it which I put in the freezer in the garage.

Then I saw the apples on the table that my kids helped me pick out and made the connection that it was time for some creamy, delicious squash apple soup.  This one is perfect for a rainy fall day.

I've been looking for a good basic Hot and Sour soup recipe for years. A couple months ago, I found one and decided to try it out and tweak it once the weather turned cold.  Well, here we are. I was expecting this to be too sour and spicy for my kids, but lo and behold they ate it!  They especially liked the mushrooms and chose to eat them first.


Hot and Sour soup is one of the 3 elements that I judge every chinese restaurant I go into by (the 2nd is their eggrolls, and the 3rd is how well they handle their seafood dishes). I'm picky and I've had A LOT of different variations.  The recipe that I'm sharing here is very mild.  Only slightly hot and sour... I'd call it more of a "warming" soup.   You can always add more rice vinegar and chili oil at the table (which Mark and I did and it created a gorgeous, fresh, bracing experience).  The Chinese traditionally use this soup medicinally as a starter course to help get the immune system moving and, with enough chili oil, to get the sinuses cleared. 

It's perfect for cold season and, in my opinion, for every other season as well.

The squash at the roadside stand last weekend were absolutely beautiful.  Except maybe for the Hubbards.  Hubbard Squash were my own challenge of the season.  Most people just use them as decoration outside to contrast  the bright orange of pumpkins... and of course, I took this as an ultimate kitchen challenge.

Hubbards are ugly, and bumpy, and HUGE! But they're also delicious.
I picked up a modestly-sized one along with a bunch of other gorgeous varieties and have been cooking up a storm.


My daughter helped me create this tablescape!

And here is how we're dealing with all of these gorgeous ingredients (I needed one of EACH squash from the farmstand that day!).



Delicata and Carnival Squash as pictured here in front of the Hubbard can be eaten in a number of ways.  The easiest and quickest is to chop them up into slices, leaving the skin intact, and roast them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and an herb combo of choice (I like rosemary and thyme this time of year).  Roast in a large casserole pan in a 400f oven until the skin becomes soft enough to penetrate with a fork.

Another method that would work with these gorgeous squashes is to split them in half and use them as bowls to stuff with YUMMY Chestnut stuffing.  I discussed how to do this recipe using Acorn Squash last fall right here.  This recipe is one for a nice weekend dinner, or even for Thanksgiving. It's filling and could be a meal unto itself!

Another cute little squash I couldn't pass up was this Kabocha.

Kabocha squash sitting next to a couple gourds that volunteered to grow in our garden.

If you're thinking, "Boy, that looks just like a pumpkin", you'd be right! It can be treated exactly like a pumpkin and that's what I intend to do.  I'm going to Roast and Puree it (here's how to roast and puree a pumpkin) and I'll be making our first pumpkin pie of the year out of the puree.  Pumpkin Pie Recipe and some awesome photos from last year, plus what to do with the seeds!

And that brings us to THE MOTHER of all Winter squash:  Mother Hubbard!
These squash are huge, and meaty, and mild, and REALLY difficult to cut up. There are two recipes that I love for "dealing" with this gorgeous monster.  The 1st,  cut the top 1/4 off of the squash,  scoop out all the seeds, roast it at 400f on the bottom rack of the oven until hot*, and then pull it out and use it as an edible soup tureen at a party.  This Autumnal Warming Soup would be lovely in such a tureen!

*I had to google this, but for some reason I thought that winter squash HAD to be cooked because it was inedible otherwise, or perhaps because it carried some sort of bacteria.  WRONG!  It's perfectly fine to eat raw winter squash!  So the roasting of the hubbard here is really only to get it warm so it doesn't make your soup cold when you pour it in there. You could, in fact,  leave it raw *

We have nut trees in our yard. It appears that a couple generations back the farmer who owned this place really liked black walnuts and chestnuts. All summer long  I've been watching, and waiting, and contemplating how to know exactly when the nuts would be ripe and ready to try.  And  also how I'd get to them before the squirrels did!

Well, last week a front came through with high winds howling in off of the lake.  Of course, the kids wanted to go outside in the wind storm... so out we went. When we got out there we realized that it was practically raining nuts! HEY!  They're ready!



The girls helped me by picking up ALL of the walnuts under this tree!

And I picked up the chestnuts (or, as my girls call them "prickle-nuts) that fell to the ground.

Here's what we ended up with!

We ran inside just as the rain was starting.

The next day, I hulled the chestnuts ( WITH GLOVES! as indicated in the photo above).

Here are the hulled chestnuts.  I have them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator right now, but I'm planning on roasting some of them to eat either tonight or tomorrow, and also to use some as part of the stuffing to make stuffed winter squash for a get-together we're having in a couple of weeks. 

A lot of people plant Calendula or Pot Marigold (Calendula officinalis) in their veggie gardens to keep the pests away.  It definitely has a potent, but not unpleasant scent to it and has both astringent and antibacterial properties. These healing properties make it a perfect candidate for drying and using as a healing "gardener's salve" to put on hands that have been digging in the garden without gloves, or have perhaps been a little overzealous in a blackberry patch.

Guess what I learned how to make?  Proper pie crust.  And it's easy.  Ridiculously easy. All it really took was having a friend come over, give me the "really, it's easy... you're making too big of a deal out of it" tutorial.  A couple of test runs later my youngest daughter and I made an amazing 100% from scratch apple pie that my grandma would've been proud of!

What's so great about this is it's completely versatile and customizable.  I learned with crusts made from good 'ol Crisco vegetable shortening, flour, and water.  I then tried using Earth Balance 100% non-hydrogenated shortening (for those of you who twitch at the word "Crisco" or are Vegan), and my next experiment will be to substitute in lard (because, why not?? And I actually sometimes have some left over from making Lefse... a recipe/process I haven't posted on here yet). 

So here we go!

Pie crust "ball" with apples to fill.

Quinn helped!