Ingredients:

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 300º F.
2. Rinse meat and pat dry. Heat a little bit of vegetable oil in a dutch oven (or oven-safe saucepan) over medium heat.
3. Brown the meat on both sides, then add onion, apple, garlic, salt, pepper, thyme, and vinegar. Add chicken stock to cover.
4. Cover the pot and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and place in the oven.
5. Cook until meat is very, very tender, about 1½ hours.
6. To serve, spoon delicious apple-and-onion sauce over pork chops, possibly alongside buttered egg noodles and steamed green beans.

There were no jack-o-lanterns at my house this year, but making pumpkin puree and winning the carving contest are not mutually exclusive activities. Bear in mind, however, that the jack-o-lantern-type squashes make less-delicious puree than do the eating-type pumpkins. This year, I grew New England Sugar Pies for this very purpose.

If you do carve your pumpkins before you bake them, just wait to open them up until Halloween Day, thus depriving them the opportunity to mold while hanging out and looking ghoulish (or goofy) on your stoop. To prepare your pumpkin for baking, split it in half and remove the guts and seeds. Place halves cut-side down in a rimmed baking dish and pour about ½ inch of water into the pan. Cover the lot with aluminum foil and place it into a 325º-oven. Bake pumpkins until the flesh is tender; this will take more or less time depending on the size of your squashes. Check after twenty minutes. When the pumpkins are “fork tender,” remove the pan from the oven and the pumpkins from the pan. Allow them to cool until you can handle them comfortably.

Scrape flesh from rind and retire the rind to your compost bin, stock pot, or chicken feeder (along with the guts). Run the flesh through a food mill or puree in an electric food processor. Finally — and quite importantly — drain excess water out of the puree. This can be accomplished in a number of ways depending on the equipment available to you: cheesecloth, chinois, a pan over medium heat. I put my puree in a very fine mesh jelly bag, placed the bag in a large colander set over a larger bowl, and returned throughout the afternoon to give it a good squeeze. I was surprised — nay, downright amazed — by how much water came out of the puree.

I’m sorry to report that I failed both in taking pictures of my Sugar Pies and and weighing them before I turned them into usable puree. All I can tell you is that two medium-sized homegrown pie pumpkins yielded three cups of puree and two days’ worth of snackable roasted seeds. The seeds, if you don’t already know, should be rinsed of any clingy pumpkin innards, patted dry, sprinkled with salt, and toasted in the oven until they are lightly browned. I hear that some people use oils and spices also, but I think plain and simple is fine.

If you haven’t settled on how you will use your fresh pumpkin puree, you may hold it in the refrigerator for about a week, or stash it in the freezer for longer-term storage.

Stay tuned for more pumpkin-centric recipes. Meanwhile, check out my pumpkin cranberry muffins — they’ll rock your world.

NEW! Pumpkin Scones!!

These muffins require no sales pitch. I will tell you anyway that they are fluffy, flavorful, and easy to make with or without an electric mixer.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 350º standard / 325º convection.
2. Prepare standard-sized muffin tin with grease or papers.
3. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and spices. Whisk to evenly mix. Set aside.
4. Cream butter and sugar until well incorporated. You do not need to mix until fluffy and light. With muffins, it’s OK (maybe even preferable) to leave the mixture a bit uneven.
5. Beat in eggs and milk. Again, don’t mix as much as you would if you were making cookies.
6. Add flour mixture and, using a rubber spatula, fold gently into wet mixture. Leave some dry spots in the batter.
7. Add pumpkin and continue to fold until the batter is mostly even.
8. Add cranberries and give the batter one or two more folds.
9. Using a measuring cup, large spoon, or portion scoop, fill muffin cups about ¾ full.
10. Bake until set: a toothpick or skewer inserted in the center of the muffin will emerge clean. This morning, my batch took 35 minutes to bake.
11. Remove pan from oven and allow to cool a few moments before removing muffins.

This morning I used a towel that had been hung out to dry on my laundry line some weeks ago. It smelled a bit like dirt, but in a good way, and a bit like the ancient and monstrous walnut tree that dominates our yard. Later today the laundry line is scheduled to come down as cooler, wetter weather settles down on us here in Portland. I’ll miss the earthy towels.

From here, the walnut tree will drop leaves and nuts until sometime in December, and then it will drop branches until springtime. I love that tree, though, as much as I fear being squashed in my bed in the middle of the night by an old, dead part of it. I like the way it makes the laundry smell when it’s warm enough to dry our clothes outdoors.

The season — heck, the whole year — has been so packed that it should hardly surprise me that fall was swung back around; but it does. As usual. This year the chicks turned into pullets and then into egg-laying hens — one egg from each every day, in fact. Having the hens around isn’t as quiet and idyllic as I imagined it would be, but I am glad they are here. I like those gals, even if they are chickens.

Though we were away from home quite a bit this summer, the garden still managed to produce some food for us — which is impressive since there was no pest control to speak of, very little fertilizer, and both flood and drought conditions. I’ve got onions hung up in braids in the basement (I was inspired after reading a forty-nine-cent Goodwill copy of Little House on the Prairie) and quite a stockpile of homemade pizza sauce made with our tomatoes and our garlic. There is jam too, of course, and three new batches of berry wine going through a secondary ferment. I’ll bottle them early in the new year.

I think somedays that these practices are baby steps toward self-sufficiency, but mostly I brew and sew and put up preserves because I enjoy these activities and because I am very picky. Making my own jam, for example, means that I can control exactly what is in it. Plus, I like having what I need here in the pantry. A cache of indispensable, basic items like chicken stock and yellow onions and black thread makes me feel somehow safe. Call me old fashioned if you must.

I am looking forward to the natural slowing that begins in the fall, and to the rich squash soups and baked fruit desserts that just don’t taste as good in the summertime. I swear, I write about squash soup every year, don’t I? I like it loaded with ginger and garlic, served next to a big salad and toasted slices of fresh baguette from the bakery down the street. I’m looking forward to spiced cider as well, and to wild-fermenting my own apple juice again. Last year the Squeeze said it tasted like model airplane glue, but I thought it was delicious. But maybe I shouldn’t admit that, or you won’t stick around for the ’09 version of this post.

Sweet and Nutty Granola

Today I cooked and baked in honor of the chill and the clouds and the drying leaves. I made some of my cool weather favorites, imagining with happy expectation the winter rains that are coming and the cozy curling up I’ll do once the weather demands that I tuck in my garden, take out extra blankets for the bed, and re-light the basement furnace. Summer may not be over – indeed, I am counting on a few more warm days for both my seedlings and my sanity – but there’s an unmistakable twinge in the air. You can smell Fall here, and right now it smells like warm wine, soup, and crunchy, stick-to-your-ribs cereal.

Wine-Poached Figs

Potato Leek Soup(revised recipe)

Mulling Spices for Apple Cider or Wine