View Full Version : what are y'all COOKING?!! it's fall, after all.....
Blackdog Lin
9-28-14, 9:33pm
My area of interest - and sometimes it seems I'm the only one interested in it. :)
But I know y'all are cooking different (and maybe interesting?) menus with the cooler weather coming on. Share.
Our cooloff was 2 weeks ago, and I told DH that I required SOUP. It's been so long.....all summer. And so I turned some leftover grilled pork pieces and some corn and zucchini and cumin and whatall into a Southwestern Pork Stew. He liked it.
It's warmed back up, but I'm still in the mood for fall cooking. So this week has been Mexican Chicken Cassserole, with relishes; and homemade eggrolls w/rice; and breakfast pizza using leftover bacon and sausage.....I seem to be in a mood to use the oven - thinking about fall I guess.
Share some menus people. :)
ApatheticNoMore
9-28-14, 10:29pm
I made a good potato soup recently (better than the average potato soup IMO): this was the half recipe which I made: 1/2 TB olive oil, 1/2 TB butter, 1 cup onions, 1 leek white and light green part only (first saute alums in olive oil and butter), 3 cups water (I used more - it gets thick), 2 potatoes cut in cubes, 1 TB minced parsley, 1 & 1/2 carrots whole, 1 & 1/2 celery stalks whole, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp black pepper, 2 cups chard (was supposed to be kale and cooked ahead of time and added at the end, but I only had chard which cooks faster). The carrots and celery are cooked with the soup but then discarded (or removed from the soup at any rate), the bay leaf is also discarded. After these are removed, HALF the soup is blended, the rest is left chunky. Then add optional 1/2 cup cooked white beans (I just used canned great northern beans). Grate cheese on top if you like.
Hmm well potato soup, not exotic. Other than that I attempted broccoli beef with red bell peppers but ended up finishing cooking it with my mom (hmpf as if I'm expected to have a steamer for the broccoli? :~)). Nothing much else, I prepare daily salad things for lunch (green or other salads). Often have had dinners like soup. I still have much broccoli left (not as fresh but not bad yet), I'm thinking maybe cream of broccoli soup, not sure
Today I have been turning 20 pounds of beef bones into stock.
Tomorrow it becomes demi-glace, and frozen.
iris lilies
9-29-14, 1:22am
Today I made bean soup as recommended here with our home grown lima beans and hamhocks.
DH sepent several hours making apple cider from our apples, pressing it and pasteurizing it.
We also canned 25 quarts of pears tonight, the destruction of the kitchen is nearly complete.
Last night was cedar plank salmon on the grill (a friend went to AK fishing earlier this summer and dropped off a care package). We had onions, garlic, eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash from the garden so ratatouille was a natural side dish, also on the grill. Last was fresh broccoli with a little garlic and just a few drops of teriyaki that got cooked on the cedar with the fish. When our kids were young they would eat pounds of broccoli every time we cooked it this way!
Fortunately canning season is winding down. Will probably do a good batch of spaghetti sauce since tomatoes are still coming in and we have just enough basil, oregano and garlic left to pull it off. Other than that its just odds and ends. Bae's post reminded me that I need to go pick some pears to make a batch of Peggy's shrub!
awakenedsoul
9-29-14, 12:07pm
A few days ago I made some turkey meatballs. The recipe had a cup of ketchup, parmesan cheese, and some herbs. I've been eating the leftovers for lunch over the past few days. I made a tomato sauce with some of the fresh tomatoes from our co op. I also cooked up a big pot of chicken vegetable soup. I didn't have any potatoes, so I used zucchini and squash instead. Just emptied the vegetable bins and filled the pot. I saved the chicken bones to use again. I heard you can do that with chicken stock...
I baked an apple bread the other night. The apples are grated, and you let them sit in the sugar for 15 mins. They get really watery. It's a very nice, moist quick bread. I've been having that for dessert. I got the apples on sale at Sprouts and made an apple crisp last week. It's a recipe that my neighbor used to make for me when I was little girl.
I've got a loaf of No Knead bread on it's second rise right now. Will use up the tuna salad for sandwiches this afternoon.
IshbelRobertson
9-29-14, 2:03pm
Last night it got a little chilly, so I made toad in the hole, with onion gravy, glazed carrots and French beans.
Last night we had goat kebabs with tzatziki, lettuce and cherry tomatoes, quinoa. Still eating outdoors on the veranda.
frugal-one
9-29-14, 6:01pm
Made Cajun beans and rice from a recipe that was in Sunday's paper. It was wonderful!! My DH said "I could make that anytime".
1 chopped green pepper (I used red... what I had on hand)
1 medium onion, chopped
3 ribs chopped celery
3 chopped cloves of garlic
1# smoked sausage (used smoked kielbasa)
2 cans, rinsed red beans (used a can of pinto and a can of black beans)
3T creole seasoning (used 2T Penzey's cajun seasoning)
Rice
Heat first 4 ingredients in canola oil for about 8 minutes or until softened. Add sliced sausage and cook 5 minutes. Add beans and seasonings and cook another 5 minutes. Serve over rice.
Very simple and good.
Also, bought a large package of pork country ribs and divided in half. One half cooked as a roast with mashed potatoes/gravy and carrots. The second half cooked in a separate pan and then barbequed. Easy again and great!
Happy to hear I am not the only one who feels like cooking this time of year!
Today for lunch I took all the meat that had fallen off the stock bones from yesterday's project, and turned them into carnitas. Yum!
Tonight we had steaks on our new grill. I bought a kamado grill and gave it a try. It wasn't bad, but I'm still not a very good cook. I'm going to try ribs next. I'm also thinking of giving one of the water bath things a try, sous vide, maybe that would be better.
Today is the first day here in which it seems "fall" will stick. I have been busy with other things so I haven't cooked much of anything lately, though I did a fair amount of pickling. Even "Guys Weekend" over Labor Day, at which I cook for a bunch of friends for three days, seemed to be less of a cooking event. But the cold weather makes me want to cook more (sure, right as the local produce starts disappearing, right?).
On the menu this week is a "pork pot roast" -- pork roasts rubbed with (to my mind an insufficient amount of) herbs and then slow-cooked over cut-up squash and sweet potatoes. DW loves it, I give it a "meh". I have some fish filets in the freezer destined to become honey and ginger fish; that will be served with rice and whatever vegetable I can scare up from the refrigerator. Maybe tomorrow depending on schedules.
There certainly will be more coming up in the next few weeks.
ApatheticNoMore
10-1-14, 3:53am
Made broccoli cheese soup, not the healthiest use of broccoli but it was past it's prime (I could easily see getting addicted to broccoli cheese soup, trying every variation and types of cheese, but too rich to be all the time). Roasted a red pepper because it needed to be cooked, may make a red pepper vinaigrette (a bit low fat so I like it on cooked zucchini etc. more than green salads) if I don't just throw the roasted red pepper chunks in a salad. I wonder why I don't roast red peppers more often, I think I would use them in salads all the time if I did.
But the cold weather makes me want to cook more (sure, right as the local produce starts disappearing, right?
yes. Summer is when all the produce is fresh and local and readily available, but it was intolerable, so hot, I think surviving the heat occupied the part of my brain that would have thought of cooking, so it didn't really get taken advantage of.
frugal-one
10-1-14, 2:04pm
Made cinnamon french toast for lunch and bean soup with ham for dinner. Used up a ham bone from the freezer. Love soups!!
rodeosweetheart
10-1-14, 6:15pm
Breakfast was baked squash. Lunch we ate watermelon . Dinner will be a baked quinoa pasta/spaghetti squash/marinara sauce/2 cheese bake. Not sure how that is going to turn out. We grew the squash and the watermelon.
Tomorrow clam chowder with our very scant potato crop.
awakenedsoul
10-1-14, 7:15pm
Just made a batch of baby back ribs. I seasoned them with molasses, paprika, salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic powder, and chili powder. They've been cooking slowly for a couple of hours. The oven is at a very low temperature; I just spread homemade bbq sauce on them. I plan to make a salad with homemade Italian dressing, too. There is still leftover No Knead bread, which goes with everything.
It was a cool and rainy day today, so spicy beef/bean chili made with our homegrown tomatoes, onions, and peppers was wonderful along with cornbread muffins.
I've had a decent harvest of delicata winter squash this fall. It's on my list to try squash pie which I've never had before. I'm imagining it as being more flavorful than the the standard pumpkin pie? Also been doing some homemade pizza with fresh garden vegetables now that the weather has cooled enough to use the oven, although the garden is getting a little thin. I'm still getting eggplant, kale, basil, sweet peppers, and a few tomatos.
Blackdog Lin
10-3-14, 8:07pm
I was right: we are all getting a little more in the mood for colder-weather cooking, aren't we? :) I enjoy all the delicious-sounding menus.
Today was turkey noodle soup with homemade noodles. DH had smoked a turkey breast and a ham a couple of weeks ago, so I had turkey chunks and I made broth from the carcass back then too - got it all used up. Tomorrow is one of his packs of smoked ham along with Brussels sprouts-and-corn. And planning and hoping for enough ham left for ham and cheese omelets Sunday, with English muffins; then ham and lentil soup Monday. If the ham doesn't stretch that far then it'll be smoked sausage and lentil soup. 'Cause I already bought the necessary veggies for it.
Cliche? Ok, yea, but we had chili and cornbread for a football party tonight after it only got up to 52* today and cooled off quick. As healthy as our raw food summer was for us, it feels great to cook again!
I haven't been inspired lately, but I made bone broth and then a vaguely Asian chicken soup with garlic, ginger, onions, leeks, peppers, sesame oil and GF tamari, lots of chicken, and angel hair shirataki noodles. It should be even better after resting overnight.
Homemade chicken and noodle soup. My favorite.
Blackdog Lin
10-11-14, 10:23pm
Homemade chicken and noodle soup. My favorite.
Yeah.
DH didn't appreciate my chipotle slaw with pork carnitas today - oh well, can't knock them all out of the ballpark, eh? :) Luckily, I did him a blackberry cobbler w/ice cream (friends gave us blackberries), which made up for it. It was his birthday.
Tomorrow will be a Western-style potato breakfast skillet, fried eggs on the top. And melon on the side. Then oriental beef-and-broccoli with rice Monday.
ApatheticNoMore
10-20-14, 2:07am
Well Sunday night so I had time:
- chilean sea bass, zucchinis with garlic olive oil and homemade roasted red pepper dressing (from the freezer)
For the rest of the week
- this weeks soup (doing soup for dinner weekdays) is the potato soup whose recipe I posted, I have kale this time so don't have to sub chard, so we'll see how that works, probably add cheese. If I'm hungrier than that I'll warm up some chicken sausages to go with or even add into my portion (in freezer now).
- This weeks lunch salads, well I have pears and goat cheese so if ambitious pear, goat cheese, dried cranberry and lettuce salad with lemon vinaigrette (though I lost the recipe maybe it's here :)). And maybe a green salad or two wtih avocado, canned tuna, cheese, whatever is left of marinated beans my mom gave me, and vinaigrette.
- one day of the week I am just going to make a recipe I saw with fresh figs, sauteed in olive oil, with cheese and salt. Yes I really am going to eat that for dinner maybe :) It's getting late in the year to even get figs I think, they aren't mission, but probably going to try recipe (I do like that cheese at WF). http://www.atlfoodsnob.com/2012/01/black-mission-figs-w-amadeus-cheese/
- I have some mushrooms to marinate, they'll last awhile, not necessarily eating them now or anything.
Vegan Lentil and Sweet Potato Soup, piping hot, right now! Yum! It was a recipe I got off the Wholefoods website and I had all the ingredients on hand :)
Tonight its red beans and rice, jalapeno cornbread and broccoli slaw with a wasabi dressing. That'll wake the taste buds right up. :)
Blackdog Lin
10-21-14, 9:03pm
Tonight its red beans and rice, jalapeno cornbread and broccoli slaw with a wasabi dressing. That'll wake the taste buds right up.
I should think so! :) Sounds wondermous.
Yesterday was tacos; today pork lo mein (used the last of the garden snow peas in the freezer) with apple cake on the side; and tomorrow is gonna be pan-fried garlic-butter tilapia and creamed/braised cabbage (to use up the rest of the head of cabbage from today's lo mein) and relishes (have green onions in the garden still).
Sure do enjoy hearing about everyone's menus. I keep thinking chili and other winter foods for our menus - but it's turned off perfectly beautiful and warmish around here for the last 10 days - so not quite ready yet.
No menu here. I only cook for myself, but I did make some chili. Not a great chili maker, but yeah, in the mood for warm food. Today, crockpot spaghetti sauce, but my crockpot...even on low, by the time I come home 10 hours later is over cooked. The old ones with lower temps work better for me. This one tastes overcooked.
SteveinMN
10-22-14, 7:49pm
Eating leftovers last week spawned the challenge of eating out of the pantry and freezer this week.
Monday's dinner was blue-box mac & cheese (so sue me :)) with some ham cut up and tossed in and with string beans on the side. Last night's dinner was over-frozen walleye fillets with squash and basil-garlic noodles. The walleye was a too old; the rest of it will hit the bin. I don't tend to lose much in the freezer anymore, but I suppose fish is too delicate for that treatment. Tonight's dinner was a green-tomato tart with bacon and a kind of herbed-cheese "binder" in a pastry crust (I did have to buy an unbaked pie shell). There's enough tart for tomorrow's dinner and then Friday is pizza.
Lunches for me have been a panoply of whatever needs to come out of the refrigerator first -- frittata using up older veggies, leftovers of the previous-night's dinner, etc. At this rate it's looking like I won't have to go shopping for anything major next week either.....
I'm seriously craving fall comfort food, but we're stuck in a rut of very warm, sunny days. Life's a drag, huh? Anyway, the garden isn't letting go without a fight so we've had a few versions of ratatouille and one big veggie lasagna because the late season eggplant is SO good. Tonight I'm taking a shot at goat cheese chili rellenos with fresh pico de gallo. Friday night, to celebrate the Royals taking game 3, we're having hot dogs! Not those hot dogs, these are made by a local guy and contain meat. Nothing else. Its probably been 6 months or more since I've had a hot dog so I'm looking forward to that. The only question is whether or not to drag some chili out of the freezer to kick them up a notch.
DH is out of town, so last night I decided to try a "Chopped" style experiment with some of the oddball ingredients lying around that no one's eating. I made a crust from hazelnut flour, an asiago cheese paste and some butter, then filled my "quiche lorraine" with egg, milk, some chopped turkey breakfast sausages that have been lurking in the freezer for months, half a tired onion, the remainder of my cheese sticks plus the last of the cheddar, a bit of tarragon, and a cup of leftover quinoa. It was astonishingly good!
I love the show Chopped, so I was really pleased to take my "mystery basket" and create something I would have served others.
ApatheticNoMore
10-30-14, 3:51pm
I really wanted to make the lamb stifado recipe with some ground lamb (and tomatoes and cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg etc.) but it needs to cook on the stovetop for 2 hours AFTER you've chopped and sauteed the ingredients (the prep itself is not that hard). I found it hard to make the 2 1/2 hour minimum time stretch materialize, and lamb was going to go bad if I didn't use it asap. Becker lamb patties it was, that's kind of the reality I guess. Yea I've made the lamb stifado before, it's good, but things fall victim to time pressures.
SteveinMN
10-31-14, 4:21pm
ANM, I wonder if a pressure cooker would speed that along (if you even have one)?
ApatheticNoMore
10-31-14, 4:43pm
maybe, I don't have one. Slow food indeed .... :~)
Blackdog Lin
10-31-14, 8:03pm
Thanks again to all for posting menus and musings. Still enjoying them. Did/does anyone do any special Halloween "scary" foods?
Our cold weather arrived, so to celebrate we had the season's first pot of chili today. Homey and warming. Tomorrow will be a meatless egg foo yung, and hoping for chilaquiles w/bacon Sunday (if I get the homemade enchilada sauce made - I just can't bring myself to pay for the cans of it). And Monday the plan is for cornbread waffles under the leftover chili. We'll see how it goes.....
awakenedsoul
10-31-14, 8:52pm
You all are much more creative and elaborate with your meals than I have been. Your dinners sound delicious! I just made one of my favorites from childhood, tuna and noodles. Earlier in the week I cooked hamburger (grass fed) and milk gravy over boiled potatoes. The greens in my garden have been providing a nice salad each night. I don't seem to have nearly as much variety in my diet as the people on this forum, but I guess that's because I live alone. I tend to eat thing for several nights in a row. I'm defrosting half of the package of stew meat that was in the freezer. Will make a batch of grass fed beef stew in a couple of days. Have still been baking the NY Times no knead bread. I need to freeze the leftovers for homemade bread crumbs...I'm still eating up all of the persimmons and pomegranates from my orchard. Some neighbors have come back for seconds...
Did/does anyone do any special Halloween "scary" foods?
Do Cheetos count? :)
This week's menu includes Chinese-style short ribs (if we're having our neighbor over for dinner; haven't confirmed with him); a West African peanut soup with chicken; and spaghetti carbonara (noodles cut with shredded zucchini since no one here wants that many carbs). And I just found out that DW will be at a rescheduled Girls' Night Out with work friends, so I'm solo for dinner, which probably will mean defrosting a mystery package from the freezer and eating that. 's OK.
Gardenarian
11-1-14, 4:32pm
I popped my jack o'lantern in the oven last night (it had only been cut about 4 hours earlier) and am thinking of what to do with all that pumpkin when I get home...I'm thinking a custard would taste very good today.
Packratona!
11-2-14, 3:36pm
Applesauce.
Tacobellos. One trick of low carb diet is to make a pizza using a big portobello mushroom cap instead of a crust - flip it upside down and put the sauce and cheese and whatever else you want on your "pizza" in there, then bake. I like that but it's always too wet. This time I tried using leftover taco meat instead of tomato sauce and it was awesome!
frugal-one
11-16-14, 5:18pm
Tomorrow is our anniversary so I made a special dinner today of steak and shrimp, mushrooms with onions, onion rings and peas. It was lovely. We plan on a day trip tomorrow with lunch out.
IshbelRobertson
11-16-14, 5:53pm
We had chicken Marengo, served with broccoli and saute potatoes. The casserolled chicken, with smoky salted bacon, dry sherry and tomato puree and peppers and shallots was great. Comfort food for a wet, cold November day!
Blackdog Lin
11-16-14, 10:02pm
Wonderful sounding menus all.
I've been involved in cleaning out the freezer this week (to get ready for Thanksgiving leftovers), so our menus have been.....slapstick. Good, but not topnotch, you know?
Made enchiladas out of leftover shredded pork from one meal and shredded beef from another and a little hamburger mixture 'cause it was in the freezer too. They turned out good, but not excellent. Then cabbage soup to use up half a head of cabbage and a jar of homemade chicken broth and a hunk of pork roast from the freezer leftovers. Again, good but not great. And pigs-in-a-blanket with scrambled eggs, using a pack of DH-grilled hot dogs from the freezer. OK, but unimaginative.
But the freezer leftovers are all gone and I'm glad to be able to plan regularly again. Tomorrow is fried rice and jello-w-pineapple; and I've got a hambone in the freezer (okay, I guess there are still leftovers in the freezer :)) and we haven't had a pot of beans in a long time. So pot o'beans and cornbread Tuesday.
SteveinMN
11-16-14, 11:54pm
It has turned out to be butternut-squash week here. Got a big squash from DW's sister's garden. I baked it with some sauteed onions, Italian sausage, Italian seasoning, bread crumbs, and Parmesan cheese. Big hit and it will feed us a couple of times. The other meal is some prepared butternut-squash soup I got in the disco rack at the co-op which is expiring while we're on vacation, so I had to use it. Served it unadorned as a side with some frozen leftover chicken thighs and some green beans. Gotta cook up this food; we're going on vacation for a week and a half this week and I want to leave the 'fridge as empty of perishables as possible. So some meals are going to be interesting...
4 pound ribeye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL8dGHbPWko&index=1&list=UU_sSOu7IhMmntEw9iYfU84w
iris lilies
11-17-14, 2:45am
We keep getting presents of apple butter from our neighbors use have used our apples this year.
But I'm not cooking anything inspiring or very good.
lessisbest
11-17-14, 11:43am
Friends gave us 4 dozen eggs a month ago and I went ahead and prepared them for the freezer in 1-egg amounts. Today I decided to try a new recipe that uses 8 eggs (:0!), so I used the thawed free eggs to justify such an extravagant use of eggs. It's a low-carb, gluten-free recipe for Gingerbread using coconut flour. I hope it turns out!!!
I will also be making apple butter today, so iris lilies is not the only one enjoying it. ;) The cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg smells are the best air freshener I know of.....
awakenedsoul
11-17-14, 11:57am
I made lamb shoulder chops with baked potatoes and salad the other night. I seasoned the lamb with garlic, salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary. The drippings made a nice country gravy. Used the bones for a broth and added winter squash, barley, and tomatoes. Today I plan to make broccoli with cheese sauce. I'll eat up the leftover no knead bread and make a salad, too. Dessert has been homemade toll house cookies. I keep the dough in a glass container in the fridge. I just bought some molasses, so I plan to make molasses crinkles once the chocolate chip cookies are gone.
Last night we had an elk roast --elk killed by brother-in-law--- (enough leftover for sandwiches, wraps) and local veggies roasted. The elk was accompanied by some apricot chutney I'd made this summer.
ApatheticNoMore
11-18-14, 12:19am
Potatoes and zucchini cooked down with homemade pesto (made previously)- was going to saute zucchini in olive oil but they were burning, added water, chopped up a previously baked potato, added some homemade pesto. Will serve with a piece of salmon (ungarnished beyond some salt and sprigs of fresh dill).
ETA: And cooked for the coming days.
- Lamb stifado (for real this time though it is 1/4 recipe - the whole recipe is 2 pounds of lamb!) - tomatoes, onions, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, cumin, red wine ("2 buck chuck"), vinegar (a wonderful not so cheap vinegar with an intense wine taste). Maybe serve with rice.
- made homemade green goddess dressing which also used the fresh dill. For lettuce based salad of course, or to drizzle on baked potatoes (instead of butter/sour cream). This recipe doesn't contain anchovies of any sort (vegetarian I guess) Recipe made A LOT of dressing. Well I can't just dump tons on everything, so maybe it freezes :~)
Tired, this was my cooking day, not much more this week, tired! (though I do tend to make a daily green salad for lunch) and may thaw another piece of salmon toward the end of the week.
Ahh, Green Goddess. Anchovies really do add a little umami or something, but all versions of it are wonderful. I'm planning to make beef stew before the day is over.
I think I've mentioned this dish somewhere here before, but I'm making it tonight. It's a cassoulet. I'm sure it's different from it's original in France, but we really like it.
It has bacon, onions, chicken thighs, tomatoes, northern beans, kielbasa and spinach in it. It's a perfect dish for cold weather..........and it's 14F out now.
Blackdog Lin
11-18-14, 10:22pm
Oh Cathy your description of your cassoulet warmed me to my toes just now. My kind of cooking. It's way too cold here too.
I'm all tingly thinking about making black bean soup full of celery carrots onions and garlic tomorrow, to go with the half-pot of leftover rice in the fridge. It just sounds perfect to me - like your cassoulet.....
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2025 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.