Fall

Years ago I made an oatmeal cake that was moist, dense and delicious with a thick layer of cream cheese frosting slathered over the top. When we had out-of-town friends staying with us last week, I thought of that cake that I haven’t made in years when I served baked oatmeal for breakfast one morning.

I flipped through my recipe file and found the cake recipe that I’d clipped from a newspaper many years ago. I added a seasonal touch to the cake with the addition of chopped, locally grown apples. Since I had a ripe banana in the freezer, I stirred that into the batter, too. A bit of cinnamon added to the cream cheese frosting turned the cake into an autumn treat.

Oatmeal, tart apples, cinnamon and banana paired with cream cheese — can’t get much better — unless you add some toasted chopped pecans. I shared the cake with others and discovered that a short length of cinnamon stick poked into each piece of cake worked well as a support for plastic wrap, preventing the plastic from sticking to the frosting and ruining its attractiveness. Once you taste this cake, you may choose not to share.

I love rustic or “free-form” tarts. This recipe makes two perfect tarts and can be filled with just about any type of firm fruit – apples, pears, peaches, nectarines or plums – whatever is in season. I used Arrowhead Mills Organic Whole Grain Pastry flour and it gives the crust a perfectly tender, flaky, buttery crust.

Crust:

3/4 cup whole grain pastry flour (or unbleached all purpose flour)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/4” pieces, chilled
2-3 tablespoons ice water

Beets are like paint bombs. Deliciously sweet, red, flavored paint bombs, so intensely colored they stain your fingers, bleed into the sink, tint the cutting board, you name it. When cooked, they aren't so much red as deep magenta. When mixed with sour cream they turn paler shades of magenta to pink. The color, like the flavor is either something you love or you hate.

Beets get a bad rap from the low carb police, but they are actually quite healthy, filled with antioxidants, low in calories, they have significant amounts of fiber, folate, manganese and potassium. I know some people find beets too "earthy" tasting, but both Lee and I love 'em. Especially in beet soup.

There are an unbelievable number of recipes for beet soup. It's commonly served all over Eastern Europe. There are versions that are cold, hot, vegetarian, with meat, chunky, smooth, with tons of vegetables, with no other vegetables.

Lately I've been experimenting with "less is more". I've tried stripping down various recipes to the barest of basics to see if I could coax the ingredients to shine through. This is one of those recipes. In my experiment to get to the essence of the beet, I developed a recipe that has little more than beets in it at all. A pinch or two of sugar perks up the flavor and the broth and sour cream add body and richness.

Soup weather has hit hard today, very rainy and gloomy all around.  A good day for a fire and just hanging out. 

With Fall in full swing, some type of pumpkin soup seemed in order.  This particular recipe is spicy (from the andouiile sausage) and a little bit sweet from the addition of maple syrup.

Served with fresh baked bread it was the perfect afternoon meal. 

This soup is so easy to make, no other pictures were necessary.  So enjoy the Fall season and hopefully you have soup weather too.