Grinding

This morning I awoke knowing that I absolutely HAD to make some space in the freezer.  I t was getting ready to overflow and there is talk of some up-and-coming hunts which, if successful, will require a bit of freezer space.  So, I pulled out a huge bag of cushaw squash chunks, not quite knowing what I'd use it for.  While it thawed, I decided to turn it into an unreasonable quantity of quick bread.  So I started grinding.

Going Through the Fall on a Soup With No Name

I love autumn.  I love the smell of the leaves and the look of the landscape when the sun is shining in below a thick layer of dark gray clouds.  I love the crispness in the air and the lighting of the first fires in the wood cookstove.  And I love soup.  I'm making soup almost every day right now.  Sometimes, I like to follow a recipe.  I'll make a special curried soup or what-have-you, but right now, with so much work going on around here, I'm just making it up as I go along.

First was a soup with rye berries and freshly shelled beans from the garden.  I threw in turnips and carrots from the garden as well. And some sauteed garlic and onions for good measure.  The next night it was tomato noodle soup with a lot of the final pickings from the waning tomato patch.  Tonight potato soup with curled dock (very nutritious greens that grow with no help from me at all).

Life just doesn't get much better.

Basil Cubes

Fall is coming and it's time to close down the herb garden.  Most of this year there was nothing happening there, so I got into the habit of not paying it any mind.  Eventually, though, the many plantings of basil seeds apparently took hold and now the space is packed with basils of every ilk!

Most years I am caught by frost before I remember that basil can't take even a mediocre frosting and in the morning I am greeted by dreary droopy black plants.  There have been years when I managed to get some sweet basil into the house and hanging from the rafters, but if I do this before we are ready to start up the woodstove, the fragrant bundles end up molding from within.  This year I am determined to not let this sumptuous bounty go to waste!

I believe that basil cubes may be the answer!

Sweet Jesus!

Tonight the strangest thing happened to me.  I had just chopped up fresh onions and peppers from the garden and had them sizzling in the pan for a nice batch of refried beans.  I was beginning to cut up tomatoes for the finishing touches of the meal.  I turned around and what did I see?  The face of Jesus in my frying onions!

Look for yourself!

Fish on a Stick (squash too!)

Even by the creek it was hot yesterday.  We languished, swam, and even napped for a couple of hours at a time.  The big treat of the day was fish on a stick.  This delectable delight is only available creekside (do not try this in your home kitchen)

Beating the Heat

Temperatures are rising and the prospect of heating up the house by cooking meals is dim.  So this morning, while it was still cool enough, I made enough hot weather food to last a few days.

Mango Fruit Sauce

Have some fruit hanging around that you don't know what to do with?  Boy do I have a plan for you!

A good fairy left two Atualfo mangoes and a huge fruit cup from Whole Foods when I was at work last week.

It didn't take me long to figure out what to do with them.  I started by seeding the mangoes and scraping the flesh off the peels into the blender.