This was the very last harvest of the rather effortless fall salad greens and I ate them plain, stuffing one whole crunchy leaf into my mouth at a time – knowing it would be months before I would get to enjoy them again. The cold gave the lettuce an extra rigid crispness that felt as though it was flexing it’s muscles to withstand the elements. I’m not sure what variety these were. I remember sprinkling a little of each seed to give them all a chance, knowing only the toughest would make it. Just one distinct variety survived in two colors. I’ll have to research my seed mixes to identify it as the epitome of hardy.

Not every leaf survived the weather so well. I had to separate the good from the bad and the ugly.

 When we heard the snow was coming, we harvested what was left of the late tomatillos and a few leaves of kale. The tomatillos are still in the fridge, keeping well. Some are meager but still treasures to us.

We’ll enjoy some green salsa soon but the kale was needed to add some life to a hot can of soup for lunch that day.

The Red Boar Kale is as beautiful as it is delicious. It seems to turn deeper shades of purple as the temperature drops but it remains crisp, firm, and loaded with fresh green flavor. 

It’s said that asparagus should be kept weed free to avoid crowding or stunting it’s growth, but when I was a kid I lived in a place where asparagus grew wild in a big open field. It produced just fine among the weeds and grasses with a bounty that feds all of the lucky locals who harvested it. It’s this asparagus memory that makes me believe sowing lettuce and radishes among it won’t stunt my asparagus at all. I guess we’ll find out.

We made it back to the house with several hours of sun still to enjoy so he sat me down on a picnic blanket by the garden where I could watch as he planted our new treasures.

We had several types of garlic that we picked up weeks ago from City People’s -  both hard-neck and soft, because I don’t know which I prefer yet. I didn’t grow garlic last season and I really missed it so I’m very excited to have it back in our garden again.

As the sun began to set, it lit up our lovely maple tree whose falling leaves will soon be gathered and spread over our new beds of leeks and garlic, like a blanket protecting them from the approaching frost.

It was a wonderful day. I felt so in love with the season, the weather, the garden and most of all, my wonderful, doting boyfriend.

On days like these I’m grateful that I’m snuggled up in a warm blanket, with a cup of green tea and a laptop to reminisce of warmer harvest days and kitchen experiments.

Not long ago I tried my hand at scratch ravioli. It began with an exciting new $4 kitchen toy – a ravioli stamp (yes these are the things that excite me). I know this tool is nothing new, but I’ve never owned one and when it caught my eye in the Mrs. Cooks store, I thought to myself “oh the possibilities”.

My first and only attempt so far was caramelized onion and carrot stuffed ravioli with garlic and thyme in a creamy chèvre sauce.

In olive oil I caramelized equal parts of home grown onions and carrots until soft and golden. I added lots of diced garlic near the end, and then pureed the mixture in a blender to create a thick and smooth pasta filling. I returned the filling to the pot and stirred in the fresh thyme leaves, then let it sit while I prepared the pasta.

The dough recipe is from my favorite cook book – How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.

3 eggs, 2 cups flour and a teaspoon of salt mixed and kneaded on a floured counter top until smoth (amout 2 minutes).  

 The next step is the reason I haven’t tried making it since. If you’re like me and you don’t have a pasta roller, use a rolling pin to flatten the dough out as thin as you possibly can. Perhaps my dough was too cold or hard and dry, but this part seemed like trying to roll a piece of shoe leather flat – probably why no one does this by hand any more.  When you finally reach desired thinness, cut the sheet of dough in half. On one half, drop spoonfuls of the filling in piles on the dough about an inch apart. Place the second half of the pasta sheet like a blanket over the top and press down around the edges of each little pile. Then comes the fun part when you get to cut out each piece with a ravioli stamp or just cut squares out with a knife. 

Boil the pasta until tender – about five minutes or maybe more if your pasta is too thick like mine was. While the pasta is cooking, mix 3/4 cup chèvre with 1/2 cup chicken stock and 1 teaspoon cornstarch in a sauce pot and bring to a gentle boil until thick. Serve the ravioli with a drizzle of cheese sauce and enjoy your hard work.

                                                                                                                                                                       The filling was delicious as was the sauce but I need some practice to perfect the pasta dough. I’d like it to be thinner which I might accomplish by working with a wetter dough, adding another egg or a little water. Perhaps I’ll ask my boyfriend to lend me some elbow grease next time.

Today I actually made it into the kitchen where my sweetie helped me put together a lovely dinner in the dutch oven, and after days of losing track of my thoughts, it really brought me back to Earth. By “helped”, I mean he did everything while I sat and watched and gave my two cents worth (maybe more).

I hurriedly spent the days leading up to surgery getting all the garden chores done while I still could. I still have garlic to plant, and hopefully I can talk ‘the Mr.’ into “helping” me with that too, but otherwise the garden is pretty much ready for winter. I filled the yard waste bin with the old dying tomato vines. I didn’t save any of the green tomatoes as I have in the past - green tomatoes will ripen beautifully in a paper bag in the kitchen. I thinned and weeded the fall crops of collards and chard, then pondered whether these tiny onions I’m attempting to over-winter will ever make it through the cold.

What’s left to harvest is the last of the tomatillos and the kale (which will live on into winter)

as well as some fall lettuce, green onions, and as always, herbs.

This is the time of year when I really enjoy the herbs and I’m often sharing them with friends as everybody seems to be cooking fall feasts right now. The herbs I get the most use out of are the ones you only have to plant once and get to enjoy year after year: thyme, sage, rosemary, sweet bay, and chives. Here’s a shot of a podgy little herb bouquet I took as a hostess gift to a dinner party not long ago.

Without much thought, I knew right away that I would schedule my surgery in the fall particularly to avoid letting my recovery time interfere with the garden work. I don’t think I realized until then just how important the garden is to me.

This is my dad harvesting young King Boletes – stalky dense mushrooms with a toadstool shape and a solid surface under the cap instead of gills, often found partially hidden under pine needles. Look closely and you will see many mushrooms in this picture hidden under the pine needles. King Boletes have a wonderfully rich mushroom flavor.  I enjoyed just a sample sautéed in butter and dried the rest to use later.

These are chanterelles my brother gave me from his mushroom hunt in a different forest. Chanterelles have a mild flavor and great texture.

Chanterelles in Wine and Butter

Sauté your cleaned and quartered chanterelles in butter with bacon and shallots until golden brown. Add a good splash of white wine, diced garlic, fresh thyme and salt then cook for a few minutes more to evaporate the alcohol. Toss with pasta and enjoy.

Important note – do not consume wild mushrooms with alcohol. Even safe mushrooms can cause a bad reaction when mixed with alcohol and in the unfortunate event that you fail to correctly identify the mushrooms and they turn out to be poisonous, you will get very sick but alcohol will accelerate and complicate your bad condition, making it even more dangerous.

How’s that for a scary recipe! In all honesty, if you learn how to safely pick wild mushrooms, you will find great rewards!

 Please study a guide book before you explore mushrooming and familiarize yourself with state mushroom regulations http://www.seanet.com/~ssstolt/MushroomRules.htm.

I steam juiced the berries and made them into jelly.

In an effort to waste nothing, I combined the remaining elderberry pulp with some pears from my neighbor’s tree and some johnathan apples and crab apples from my dad’s farm. The elderberries aren’t much to look at at this point but they’re still far too valuable to end up in the compost.

I pureed everything in the blender with a little stevia for sweetness as the elderberries are TART, then I spread the mixture about 1/3 inch thick on an oiled cookie sheet.

I left it in a 200 degree oven over night and in the morning we had a beautiful batch of elderberry leather.

It’s a very rustic fruit leather but the seeds are delicate like those of raspberries. Pears are great in most fruit leather recipes as they always create a great leathery texture.

I came across an interesting article yesterday that not only makes a great argument against wasting food but also ilustrates another reason to grow your own.

 A crab apple to me tastes like the flavor of 10 apples packed into one, so any recipe you are lucky enough to make with them is guaranteed to have intense flavor. These aren’t the first crab apples I’ve gotten my hands on this season but they are the best. Dolgo is the variety and I highly recommend it for our zone – excellent for cooking as well as eating fresh.

My first use for these was a batch of Apples in Vodka.

Pack whole washed apples into jars then fill the jars with 1/4 sugar and 3/4 vodka. I added a cinnamon stick to each one. Close the lids tightly and keep in a cool dark place for 3 months, occasionally turning the jars upside down to stir things up. The vodka preserves the apples so efficiently that there is no risk of spoilage or botulism and no need for heating or processing.  I’ve never made this before, but after 3 months I should expect to have a rich apple cinnamon liqueur and sweet vodka-soaked cinnamon apples – just in time for the holidays. Hmmm, Christmas gifts perhaps?

My only reservation is that this method is generally used for soft skinned fruits like cherries and plums so I wasn’t sure how easily vodka would permeate the tough skins of the apples but after one week, it looks like its working just fine.

My next use for the harvest is a repeat, but one of the prettier batches of apple jelly I’ve ever made. In fact, I might save some jars of this to enter in the fair next year.

 The clarity of this jelly comes from the juicing method. I ran the apples through a fresh juicer.

I kept the juice in a pitcher in the fridge over night to make jelly the next day when I had more time. Over night the pulp in the juice settled to the bottom leaving a perfectly clear juice for the jelly.

I only needed 5 cups of juice for the recipe on the pectin package so the left over juice was made into my 3rd use - hot spiced cider to warm up a cold gray day.

Hot Crab Apple Cider

Add equal portions of apple juice and water to a pot on the stove and simmer for at least 20 minutes with a cinnamon stick, whole cloves and sugar to taste. The juice is too rich without the water and some will evaporate while cooking. This was the pulpy portion of the juice which doesn’t make the prettiest cider, but I was able to skim most of the pulp off the top as it cooked. You can keep this warm on the stove to enjoy all day and it makes your whole house smell wonderful.

I enjoyed mine paired with crab apple jelly on toast.

 Fall is the best time to plant a new crab apple tree. Anytime from September to December is fine, with the ideal time (in Seattle) being the first half of November. Dolgo trees are available on dwarf root stalk growing to 10 feet and are resistant to scab and mildew so they’re great for a Seattle back yard.

Slow Baked Tomatoes

• • 1 1/2 lb. cherry tomatoes
• • 1/2 cup olive oil
• • 8 cloves of garlic
• • 1 hand full of fresh basil leaves
• • 1 teaspoon kosher salt

Combine all ingredients in a casserole dish and bake at 325 for 45-60 minutes until tomatoes become quite soft but retain some of their shape.

 Serve hot, warm or cold on toast with a schmear of Chèvre.

Better Homes and Gardens’ recipe actually calls for mint but I prefer basil and they suggest whole cloves of garlic but I prefer a rough chop. Do those small tweaks make the recipe original and mine to claim? I wish. Tomatoes, with garlic, basil and olive oil is one of the greatest classic food combinations that dates back to the beginning of time and if you haven’t tried it…well….I’m sorry to say, you haven’t lived. I don’t know what’s better about this dish, the way it tastes or the way it smells. I popped it into the oven and then threw my canvas grocery bag over my shoulder and marched down the street to the market for a fresh loaf of bread. I had to hustle on my way home as it began to get dark and a bit chilly with a fall breeze and I overestimated my speed in the race against the kitchen timer. When I came running up my steps, I said to myself “oh please, please, please let that smell be from my kitchen” (as my neighbors can sometimes give me a run for my money) and mine it was.

The fresh bread was fabulous and it would be a shame to pair such a wonderful dish with a bread that’s anything less than bakery fresh and great quality. That being said, I’m still in disbelief that it cost me $4.52! What’s this I’ve been hearing about deflation?

With that, I admittedly break rule number two in blogging etiquette: “stay on topic”.

This ridiculous price for bread motivates me to read a book my friend Lana recently suggested called Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, from a series that began with Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, which shows you how to create a loaf of bakery quality artisan bread that costs less than 5 minutes and 40 cents. I’m not much of a baker but this is my next endeavor.

Here’s a teaser.