stacey . smoore . the staceyfish . 
Life in a Northern Town: the exploits of an ecstatic Alaskan
Lens: the adventures of a girl and her camera
You may be sad because summer has come to an end, taking with it delightful foods like nectarines, plums, berries, and locally grown vegetables like greens, cauliflower, chard, beets, and carrots.
But don't fret! Fall has its place in a foodie's heart because it brings delights like root vegetables, butternut squash, pumpkins, an untold number of apple varieties, bartlett pears, and pomegranates.
I recently celebrated fall by having a harvest dinner (suggested by my most wise and venerable husband). On the menu was a roasted pear salad with candied walnuts, blue cheese, and homemade balsamic vinaigrette, cabernet-glazed shallots, butternut squash risotto with wilted spinach and toasted pine nuts, sauteed pork tenderloin with an apple-sage sauce, and stuffed baked Jonagold apples with vanilla bean ice cream for dessert. I love this menu -- it's so autumn-y with its warm, subtle flavors and unifying themes. Sage and apple are present in many of the dishes but are different and subtle enough to not get old or tiring.
Unfortunately, as with most dinner parties I host, I was pressed for time and eager to feed my guests (and myself!) so I didn't get photos. I'm normally loath to post recipes without pictures, but my desire to share this menu with others beat up my lack-of-photos hesitation and stole its lunch money. Hope you enjoy this as much as we did!
Maybe I'm just a huge food snob, but when I see people getting excited about going to chain restaurants like Applebees, Chili's, or Friday's, I just have to shake my head in wonder. Come on, really, the food their sucks. It all tastes like it has been stuffed with preservatives and microwaved and the menu is enough to put me into spasms of yawns. Plus, it's expensive. I will gladly pay good money for good food, but not much pisses me off more than having to pay for a crappy meal. This happened to me a couple of times last week when I had to go out with co-workers for working lunches and all I could think about was how much yummier my sandwich of homemade roasted chicken on homemade oatmeal bread with locally-grown tomatoes and red leaf lettuce would have been. Luckily one of the lunches was free, but at the other place, 90% (literally) of the things on the menu were deep fried. Anger. Much Anger.
Here's where the snobbery (and maybe a bit of being too proud of my own abilities) comes in -- I don't go out to eat much because I can cook better than 90% of the places out there. I'm not saying that I can hold a candle to a Mom-and-Pop-owned hole in the wall Italian place, a fabulous local pizza joint, or a to-die-for breakfast cafe, but let's face it -- most of the food being hawked at Americans is rubbish. You owe it to yourself to do better than that.
Judging from my experiences in restaurants throughout the country, there are two things that the generic American diner seems to want:
1. Salt
2. Fat
Most restaurants are thrilled by this because it's a cheap formula for success. It doesn't take much money -- either through hiring well-skilled cooks or by buying quality ingredients -- to make dishes that have both of those key ingredients. It's like these people have never heard of oregano, sage, or rosemary, much less nutmeg, ginger, cumin, or coriander. The food is incredibly bland yet is guaranteed to be three times what you need, nutritionally devoid, clog your arteries, and raise your blood pressure! (By the way, if you serve me a salad and the greens are comprised of iceberg lettuce -- which has all the nutritional value of water and is a shame to the word 'vegetable' -- you will automatically be relegated to the list of "gross place to eat.")
In contrast to many restaurants, when I'm cooking for myself or for friends I know what will make my tastebuds happy and will keep my friends eagerly accepting my dinner invitations:
1. Fresh quality ingredients
2. An interesting menu that finds delicious ways to incorporate things like veggies
3. A heavy hand with herbs and spices
And that's where the big difference lies: restaurants care -- above all -- about turning a profit. If they turn a profit because their food is good, then great. But the corollary is that if stuffing your food so full of sodium and saturated or trans fats in huge portions to put you into a caloric stupor means they make money, they will do that too. In contrast, my sole aim is to make good food. End of story.
Like so many other things worth eating, once you've had homemade salad dressing you can't go back.
I learned this lesson when I made my first batch of balsamic vinaigarette. When you buy this stuff off the shelf, it's overly sweet, oily, bland, and one-dimensional tasting. But when you make it yourself, it's wonderfully assertive, bold but not overpowering, subtle, and complex.
Plus it's super-easy to make.
Are you sold yet? Seeing the stuff in action ought to do the trick....
This recipe is one that's been near and dear to me for nearly my whole life. My Mom originally clipped it out of a newspaper and it's grown up with me, going through different changes as I changed too.
Originally we made these cookies huge and round with little pumpkin stems and lavished icing and sprinkles upon them like festive, sweet, sticky jack-o-lanterns. Needless to say they never lasted long.
Years later as my brother and I grew out of the whole Halloween thing, these cookies stuck around (of course!) Now that having a good smooth icing canvas was no longer necessary, chocolate chips made their way into the cookies. They marred the formerly glasslike (well, for a cookie) surface but dude, it was chocolate. Yum! My parents would send these cookies to me in my care packages at college, and they brought back memories of childhood the way that only really good comfort foods can do.
Now that I'm all old, non-pumpkin-decorating, and out of college, it's up to me to keep this yummy tradition alive. I've made them every year over the last couple autumns, but this year I discovered my favorite addition: The Squash Quad of Power. As in the Turkey Trifecta, this blend of flavors complements the flavors it's enhancing so perfectly that I wouldn't ever consider excluding them. Unsurprisingly, when you add cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, and cloves to the cookies, they're, well, uhm, wow.
They just might be the best cookie ever.
There are so many reasons to love this recipe. Allow me to extol its virtues and enumerate a bit:
1. It's easy to prepare and it cooks quickly.
2. Substitutions and additions are definitely encouraged.
3. It's delicious and nutritious.
4. It smells fantastic as it cooks.
5. It's a great way to use seasonal produce.
6. The medley looks exactly like fall foliage.
Seriously, this is one of the best things I've made all autumn (I don't care that it was 19 degrees this morning, it's still autumn to me!). If you're looking at the list and you think that you don't like some of the ingredients (I'm reminded of a friend who would without fail exclaim "Beets are HIDEOUS!" when offered them), try them in this recipe. Some of them (like beets) have a totally different flavor and texture when roasted than they do when, say, boiled. Or when mashed with marshmallows (and that's why I thought sweet potatoes were gross for twenty-two years!). Other ingredients, like shallots, will never cease to surprise you with their delicious, delicate, and sophisticated flavor and the way they seem to melt when they hit your tongue. And still others that weren't included this time around, like butternut squash, would be truly divine.
Click here for the recipe for "Roasted fall vegetable medley" »