Yesterday was an absolutely picture-perfect autumn day here in Seattle!  Sunny, warm if you were in the sun, with the leaves in full color.  I took the opportunity to do the end of the year pots-on-the-deck cleanup including the pots of herbs and peppers I'd been growing all summer.  At this time of year being able to do that work when it's not raining is a real bonus!

 

Being tender annuals most of the herbs were ready to go, although for a moment I entertained thoughts of trying to get the basil to hold on just a little longer!  I quickly reminded myself of other years' experiments and how the results were more trouble than they were worth.  I decided it really was time to let go. 

 

One plant I had a really hard time with, though, was my Corno di Toro pepper.  Corno di Toro is a sweet, mild Italian pepper.  Although technically it's in the bell pepper family it's not as strongly flavored as the bell peppers you find in the grocery store and it can be used in lots of ways.  It's really great for stuffing, in salads, or added to braises or rice dishes where it enhances, not overpowers.  My plant this year was extremely prolific.  This was especially surprising to me as I planted very late in the year.  But once this plant started flowering the bees were all over it.  I've been eating peppers all summer and yesterday I harvested the basket you see above.  And there were still some blooms and lots of tiny, little one-inch peppers still on the plant.  Pretty amazing, especially since it was grown in a pot. 

 

I've been planting this pepper variety for several years and will continue to grow it in the years to come.  When you are planning your garden next spring, see if you can't find a place in your garden (or in a pot on your deck) for this wonderful pepper. 

 

 

 

 

 

As the weather turns cold it is sometimes hard to remember that the Farmers' Markets are still going strong.  In fact, fall is one of the best times to visit.  Not only are vegetables and fruits in abundance but the summertime crowds have dropped off so you can easily make your way from one vendor to the next.  And, much of the fall produce will hold longer and better than summer produce.  So at this time of year there are many items you can purchase now that will still be good over the coming days and weeks.  Saturday I snapped a few photos at the Seattle University District Market.  This represents just a portion of what was available.  I think it's time you visited your local market!

 

Mobile Market Directory:  I just came across the application and haven't tried it out but it looks promising!  I like to visit markets when I travel and this might be just the ticket!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, that was an unintended break!  The job-that-pays has been crazy the last six weeks or so.  A big project I've been working on was completed early this week.  I've been recovering the last few days and am finally starting to settle back into a more normal life.  It feels good! 

 

During the project summer turned to fall and I've emerged into sunny days rimmed with crispness, summer fruits giving way to fall produce and shorter days which pull me back into the kitchen.  Last weekend I made a gorgeous braised roast that lasted me most of the week.  Today I roasted my first pumpkin of the year. 

 

In the photo above it's just been pulled from the oven and the skin removed.   If you look closely you might see the steam still rising.  I roasted the pumpkin cut-side down which actually steams it while roasting.  As the steam rises it forces itself between the meat of the pumpkin and the skin.  Once cooked the skin separates from the meat with no work at all.  I was able to remove each half in one whole piece. 

 

After the pumpkin cooled I tossed half at a time into a food processor and processed it until pretty smooth.  There was still a little texture but I wanted to make sure any strings were completely broken down.  You don't need a food processor: you can use a blender or even just mash it by hand.  If you mash by hand just make sure you pull out any pieces that are stringy, if you see them. 

 

There are so many ways this pumpkin can now be used!  Pie, of course, bread, muffins, cookies..... but I have something different in mind for a good portion of this one.  One year while looking for a vegetarian lasagne recipe I came across a butternut squash lasagne recipe by Giada DeLaurentis.  It is absolutely delicious!  I've made the recipe using both butternut and pumpkin and like both versions.  This time of year is perfect for it, since the recipe also calls for basil.  So, while I still have basil in the garden (it's days are numbered with the cool nights we're having) and pumpkins and squash are newly available I'm going to take advantage of both. 

 

Tomorrow I'll whip up some fresh pasta and tomorrow night or Sunday all the pieces will come together in the perfect summer to fall transitional dish. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I've mentioned before that my heritage is half Italian.  My mother's father was born in Italy, although his family migrated when he was two.  My maternal grandmother was born in New York but she and her younger sister were the only siblings of the nine in the family that were born in the US.  My grandparents (and all the kids) moved to the west coast during World War II, first to Vancouver, Washington to work in the shipyards, eventually making their way to Salem, Oregon where they lived out the remainder of the 94 years that they both achieved. 

 

Some of my earliest memories are of the Italian Plum trees in the backyard of the house where they lived.  At the very back of the yard two large trees flanked a pathway that led from the house to a gate that led out to the alley.  There were so many plums on those trees that there were plenty for my grandparents, our family and my mom's sister's and two brothers' families. 

 

We generally met about this time of year for a massive picking party.  The yard would be littered with those that had ripened early and dropped from the trees.  Ladders and buckets and bushel boxes would be evident everywhere you looked.  The uncles and older cousins would be up on ladders picking the highest fruit, while the younger ones would be assigned whatever they could reach from the ground or they'd be running full buckets from those on the ladders to the bushel boxes.  Often the aunts would be inside making jam with the first bucketfuls to come from the tree.  

 

And at some point during the day there'd be lots of food - maybe big pots of spaghetti or a picnic lunch to which everyone had contributed.  There was always food. 

 

By the time we were done each family would have several bushels to take home to can or make into jelly and my grandparents would have stacks of filled jam jars ready to be stored and used over the winter. 

 

Italian plums always bring back memories of those fun family occasions.  So today while I was at a friend's house to help her pick her Italian plums my mind kept wandering back to those warm summer days filled with family and food. 

 

My friend most generously gifted me with as many plums as I wanted and I ended up with about twenty five pounds of fruit!  The first several pounds have simply been washed, allowed to dry a bit and then split and the pits removed.  I placed the plum halves on silicone lined baking sheets and they are now in the freezer being individually frozen.  Once frozen I'll package them in Ziplocs.  Freezing them on the sheets will keep them as individual pieces so I'll be able to pull out as many halves as I need in the future.  Many of those will go into tagines or other braised meat dishes. 

 

I also plan on making a few batches of jam and am still pondering what I'll do with the balance.  However, I'm pretty sure there's a clafouti somewhere in my future and perhaps some sort of plum ice-cream or sorbet... so many options.  But for now, it's time to remove the plums from the freezer and package them up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am generally blessed with gigantic tomato plants that grow amazingly tall and produce like crazy.  Although I take very good care of my tomatoes and have a great spot to plant them, I know some of it is luck because of one very specific thing.  Tomatoes deplete the soil pretty extensively and, especially in our damp northwestern climate, they are subject to all kinds of maladies and diseases.  So they should never be planted in the same place two years in a row. 

 

Well, I have a small yard and don't really have room for crop rotation.  In fact, other than herbs that are planted throughout the yard, strawberries that have managed to spread everywhere, and a few things grown in pots on my deck, tomatoes are the only crop I grow.  So there's nothing to rotate them with.  This means that I've been planting them in the same exact place for over ten years.  And yet each year they grow so tall and produce so emphatically that I find myself searching for new ways to support the vines and hand out tomatoes like crazy to anyone who expresses even a passing interest in them. 

 

But this year the spell was broken.  Last fall I didn't amend the soil as well as I normally do.  And I planted very late this summer.  There were a few other things that slipped this year, too.  Although I don't have the bumper crop that I'm used to I still have lots of tomatoes.  I've been eating them like crazy and even with that they are gaining on me.   I planned to can a few jars this past weekend but had a little stove incident late last week and so have to hold off until I can get the stove serviced.  Keeping my fingers crossed that it's back to normal tomorrow... And I'll continue to have tomatoes ripening well into October.  Some years it's been into November!

 

In the meantime, I love looking at all the beautiful colors and shapes and sizes.  I plant several different varieties since each has their own special use. Some are better for slicing, some for sauce. Plus, I love to create colorful recipes that use several varieties.  It's nice to have some that ripen earlier in the season, and yet I love the heirlooms that take a little longer to achieve their full flavor and color.  In my garden this year I had two red varieties, Early Girl and San Marzano; a prolific yellow Roma style called Golden Rave; the giant Yellow Brandywine, which is actually orange colored; the striped Green Zebra; and a purplish-red variety that was marked as Vintage Wine but appears to be something entirely different.  Each has their own flavor and texture but all have that wonderful fresh from the garden tomato taste. 

 

If you have not planted vegetables in your yard before I encourage you to make a plan now for next year.  You don't need much room to grow.  The area I use for the tomatoes is about 2'x12'.   Select an area that gets a lot of sun.  For many people the planting strip between the sidewalk and the street works well.  If you want to grow tomatoes they will benefit from a location protected from wind and that holds the heat.  For instance, I plant mine next to the south-facing side of my house.  The area stays warmer overnight as the heat accumulated in the wall of the house releases once the sun has left the area. 

 

Once you've chosen your location you can take steps this fall to give your plants a head-start in the spring.  Weed the area so that nothing is pulling nutrients from the soil over the winter.  Amend the soil with 2" to 3" of good compost so that it has a chance to become part of the growing medium.  Cover the area with something to protect the soil from our winter rains.  I generally use leaves that I've picked up with my lawn mower, so that they are cut up into smaller pieces thereby breaking down easier than whole leaves.  But whole leaves will be fine, as is straw.  In the spring you'll remove this cover and add it to your yard waste or compost pile. 

 

In the spring you'll be rewarded with nice, rich soil ready to support whatever seeds or plants you select.  A little work now pays off later.  So start your planning so that you are ready to go in the spring!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is there anything that speaks of summer quite so eloquently as Caprese Salad?  I love this time of year when the tomatoes are in full ripe flavor and infused with color.  Soon, I'll be picking them from the yard but in the meantime farmers' market produce from east of the mountains will do.  The basil is mine though. 

 

Not only does the salad speak of summer with it's flavors and colors the preparation is the epitome of easy.  Just slice a tomato or two, add some sliced fresh mozzarella, top with basil, sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper, and then drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and a little balsamic.  I used a chiffonade of basil here but sometimes prefer the full leaf for this salad. 

 

 

 

 

 

Isn't it odd how our eyes have decided that certain colors mean certain things?  For instance purple/blue generally indicates something sweet like blueberries or perhaps plums.  But take a closer look at the photo; that's nothing sweet, those are mashed potatoes.  Purple mashed potatoes. 

 

 

 

 

 

You might remember that a few weeks ago I made a batch of pink mashed potatoes from red potatoes that are red fleshed as well as red skinned.  This week I bought purple potatoes.  Again, they have purple flesh as well as purple skin.  When they are first cooked they are still deep colored but as I mixed in butter, milk and sour cream they turned a lighter shade of violet. 

 

Top them with a spoonful of sour cream and some bacon crumbles and what appears to be blueberry ice cream with whip cream and nuts turns out to be a savory treat. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had a hankering for pancakes this morning.  Blueberry pancakes with maple syrup to be precise.  Served along with a couple of crispy pieces of bacon and you have a great start to a perfect day!

 

 

 

 

 

At last week's trip to the Farmers' Market potatoes were in great abundance.  All colors but mostly smaller types.  Some of them claimed colored flesh as well as colored skins.  I brought home some red potatoes that were in this category.  When I cut them open they were pale pink with deeper red "veins".  I figured that when cooked they would lose their color and revert back to creamy white.  But they didn't!  Instead I had pale pink mashed potatoes for dinner last night.  And, if I remember correctly, they also had a purple variety with colored flesh - those might be on my list for next week. 

 

So, if you are looking for something fun to do for Valentine's day or maybe just to brighten up a dinner, take a look for these new varieties.  I forgot the specific name of the variety I purchased but your potato farmer will be able to help you and I would bet they'd be clearly marked if you can find them in the grocery store. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also in abundance at the Seattle area Farmers' Markets are carrots!  Beautiful, sweet, baby carrots.  Just a quick rinse to remove the last of the soil they were grown in and they are ready to eat.  No need to peel them - the skins are so tender.  Better than candy!

 

 

 

 

 

It's a gorgeous day here in Seattle. Crisp and sunny, although darkish clouds temper a completely blue sky. I made my way to the U-District Farmers' Market this morning. I'm very bad about winter vegetables. When fall first comes I'm excited for them and then around December I start longing for the brightly colored fruits of summer. So with renewed enthusiasm I checked out the offerings today and decided it was nice to see some things that are sometimes hidden by the brighter, sexier summer offerings.

 

And I think I'm ready to get back to cooking again, too. December and January seemed to have been filled with cooking for large groups and then I'd have leftovers or spare ingredients to use up for some period of time.

 

I brought home a box of these oyster mushrooms - I'm thinking an Mushroom-Chicken-Noodle soup of some kind might be in order. Maybe with a little ginger and some of the super-sweet baby carrots I brought home, too.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the tomatoes have responded and finally I have lots of little Sweet 100s and Golden Plums while the 4th of July tomatoes to slowly but surely ripen a little at time.  The Green Zebras are also starting to come on.  My big disappointment are the Brandywines.  They seem to be rotting on the vine, as are many of my peppers.  But I'm not going to think about those right now.  Instead I'm going to enjoy this lovely bowl of gorgeous summer bounty and look forward to picking more of it over the next few days.