Stock

Well, I do love to have stock on hand. My freezer is usually well-stocked (ha!) with various varieties. Right now, I'm mostly meatless so naturally, I'm all about veggie stock. I'll save all my veg trimmings for four or five days, then on my day off make a big pot of stock. I save my empty quart-size yogurt containers for storage. They're the perfect size!

New house, new garden

Enough said.

Gee, I guess it's been awhile........

Well, I guess I've neglected my blog long enough now. I posted a few more food pictures. The squashes were stuffed with a rice/veggie mixture and topped with parmesan. Really quite simple but very yummy! The variety of squash is Sweet Dumpling. Their flesh is very dry and rich tasting. I will stuff them again, but make the filling a little more moist. Very tasty! This brings me to quite possibly my favorite time of year for cooking....fall! (Or, where I live, something sort of resembling fall, only about 20 degrees hotter.) I do love winter squash, my favorite being butternut. I love to peel, cube and roast it with various seasonings, usually of the spicy and always of the savory variety. I'm not a fan of sweetening squash. For years, I would not eat winter squash or sweet potatoes because of the horrible treatment they received at the hands of my (well-meaning) mom. You know what I'm talking about: squash swimming in brown sugar and cinnamon, or (the worst!) mashed, sweetened sweet potatoes covered with melted marshmallows. Disgusting. I was an adult before I discovered the delights of these vegetables given the savory treatment. I like to make oven roasted sweet potato fries tossed with olive oil, salt and cayenne pepper. Tasty!
I also enjoy this time of year as it brings with it the urge to bake more. I have been experimenting more and more with yeast breads. So far, just very simple ones like the Ricotta Dill bread in the picture. So simple to make, yet so satisfying! And what a great grilled cheese sandwich. I do like to bake quick breads as well, and pumpkin bread being my favorite right now. I did, however, substitute some mashed roasted butternut squash for pumpkin in a quick bread recipe with really great results. I liked it even better than the pumpkin.
Well, I think that's it for now. The garden is basically fall ready and I will post a picture soon.

Garden updated

Wow, I can't believe it's been a month since I posted. Well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll let some snaps do the talking.

So, I've got bean and cucumber sproutlings now! Very exciting. Green beans (I can't remember the variety) and lemon cucumbers. I've tried to grow lemon cukes once before unsuccessfully, but not this year! I feel it, they will be awesome.

Aww....aren't they cute?