A Fall Weekend

This weekend was a crazy busy weekend in the kitchen and out.  I felt it really marked this first weekend of fall here.  Friday started off a little cool so I was able to wear jeans and a sweatshirt to work.  For dessert Friday night I turned to apples.  We bought 20 pounds of seconds the previous weekend from a local orchard.  Dessert was French Apple Cake from Dorrie Greenspan's Book Around My French Table was delightful.  It also keeps for a few days, if there is any left.

Marie-Hélène's apple cake waiting to cool. 

Saturday started with a run on a very cool morning, 37 degrees.   My son's favorite pancakes for breakfast and a walk around our farmer's market.  There are still an amazing amount of veggies for sale. So I'm trying to stock pile some that will keep for a while, my winter squashes.    Afterwards I still had some corn on the cob that I needed to freeze from the last weekend.  That was tackled in about 1/2 hour.  There is something so nice about taking anything out of your fridge or freezer knowing it is yours and where it is from.  That is one of the many reasons why I'm so into local food. The afternoon was spend canning applesauce -still using up the 20 pounds.

The corn I parboiled for 1 minute before I cut it off the ears and froze.

Zinnias and dahlias from the garden. Yes I still have some.

On Sunday morning I went to yoga.  I really love my hot yoga and one of our local studios has a 7:30 class which is perfect. I get to sleep in a bit and still can get to church at 10:30.  Breakfast?  Well waffles.  My girls love my waffles plus my middle child likes them as leftovers during the week.  The afternoon included making pear-ginger sauce.  I received a bunch of little pears so this was the best use for them. The slow cooker works really well for this.

Here's the recipe for pear-ginger sauce.

Enough peeled, cored and sliced pears to fill a slow cooker 3/4 full.
2 peeled and cut apples
1/4 c sugar
1 T ground ginger.

Cook on high for about 4 hours and blend with an immersion blender if you want a smooth sauce.  I like to let my sauce cook for about 1 hour more with the lid a-jar for a thicker sauce.  

Please get into your kitchen and enjoy what nature has to offer at this time of year.   

As always with love from the Midwest,

Beth