I love fall — just the smells hanging in the air fills me with a sense of adventure. Woody smoke, apples, root vegetables, leaves burning…it is all there beckoning us to pay attention. The other day, the Sisters were given a very generous donation of pumpkins from a local nursery. It was a beautiful sight seeing them lining our walk in all different shapes and sizes. Being the thrifty sort and hating to see anything go to waste, I knew we must use these not just to beautify our property, but to eat before they went bad. When I got the call that a lunch was needed to feed our community of 200 people, I knew just the thing – homemade pumpkin soup – Delightful! We set about cutting the pumpkins into large chunks, roasting them in the oven, and then transferring them to our skillet where we turned it all into a yummy creamy pumpkin soup. When we were all done, we still had pumpkins left over! (It felt a bit like the feeding of the 5000!). I remembered that a friend, returning from Italy, had brought me a wonderful recipe of a whole, roasted pumpkin layered with ham, sautéed vegetables and cheese. It’s a perfect recipe to try at this time of year, especially with Thanksgiving just around the corner.
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Pumpkin stuffed with Vegetables and Cheese
SERVINGS
6-8people
CHANGE SERVING SIZE
people
COOK TIME
1 hr30 min
PREP TIME
30min
READY IN
2hr
Ingredients
5 1/2lbpumpkin(or whatever would be a good size for your family)
Cut the head of the pumpkin, making an incision horizontally about 2 inches down from the stem
Place the top back on the pumpkin, wrap it in tin foil and place in a preheated oven for about one hour or until the pumpkin is almost fork tender.
Remove from oven, let it cool slightly and remove the seeds. With the spoon, gently remove some of the flesh from inside the pumpkin and reserve.
Generously salt and pepper the interior of the pumpkin.
In a cast iron skillet, heat the olive oil and add the butternut squash and parsnips. Sprinkle with kosher or onion salt and pepper.
When they are partially cooked, remove from the skillet
Add onions and peppers to the same skillet, again sprinkling with salt and pepper.
Once they have cooked a few minutes, add the mushrooms, followed by the zucchini, a few minutes later. Sautéing slightly.
While the vegetables are cooking, grate your cheese and set aside and slice your ham into thin strips.
Once the vegetables are prepared, in the cavity of your pumpkin, start layering in this order: ham, baby spinach, assorted vegetables, the reserved pumpkin, swiss cheese, parmesan cheese and repeat – two or three times, ending with cheese.
Place the top on the pumpkin, place the pumpkin in a casserole dish or cast iron skillet, and return to the oven for about 45 min. or until heated through and cheese is bubbly. Let rest a few minutes and slice when ready to serve.
Andiamo Mangiare! For a meal, serve this with homemade bread or rolls and a salad.
Autumn is apple time, and our trees are laden with gorgeous fruit — apples that are being turned into applesauce, apple crisp, apple fritters and all things apple! This is the time to have fun with them when they are so plentiful and at their best.
Last week we decided to give our chicken meal of the week an autumn touch by incorporating some apples into it and we were quite pleased with what resulted…..our Savory Roasted Apple Bourbon Bird. All we did was rub our chicken all over inside and out with a great mixture of tasty spices and herbs, stuffed it with some apple and yam quarters and a few shallots and roasted it as usual but basted it with our unusual cider bourbon glaze giving it a beautiful rich finish that was breathtaking to behold and luscious to taste. It is really worth trying and equally as good with a pork roast.
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Savory Roasted Apple Bourbon Bird
SERVINGS
4people
CHANGE SERVING SIZE
people
COOK TIME
105minutes
PREP TIME
30minutes
READY IN
135minutes
Ingredients
1chickenwhole (4 to 5 pound), neck and giblets removed from the cavity
Quarter a large apple, 6 shallots and stuff into cavity along with a handful of fresh thyme and a stalk of celery.
Heat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
Roast the chicken in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Reduce the temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and continue roasting until the juices run clear and a thermometer inserted into the inner thigh (but not touching the bone) registers 165 degrees Fahrenheit, about 30 minutes to 45 minutes more.
Baste chicken with glaze about every 5 minutes for final 15 minutes of cooking.
Bourbon Glaze
Reduce the apple juice down to about ¾ cup then add the rest of the ingredients.
Heat the mixture until dissolved then add 1 cup bourbon and let boil for about 5 minutes or until mixture reduces to about 1 cup of liquid.
Baste chicken with glaze about every 5 or 10 minutes for final 30 minutes of cooking.
**Add 3 quartered apples, 2 yams cut to size of apples, and a dozen shallots to roasting pan stirring from time to time until all are tender.
For years I thought of making a soufflé as something too difficult to tackle except by the experts, so I put off making them. After finally trying one, I was amazed to discover how simple and straightforward it really is…and how very satisfying! The sight of your creation as it begins to rise before your eyes in the oven and then finally puffs up into all its glory… is reward enough to say nothing of the delight in tasting it.
In case you have been intimidated as I was, this may be the perfect time for you to overcome that fear and tackle one, because these light fluffy wonders are perfect for hot weather meals when you want to serve something other than cold food, and you don’t want anything cooked that’s too heavy. Guests in our retreat house are always thrilled when served a soufflé. They say it makes them feel so special!
For years I have been making what I called crispy chicken strips, the result of an idea that came to me out of the blue and one that was very successful after simply trying it out on my own without any recipe. I used them a lot as appetizers along with chutney or sweet and sour sauce. Sometimes I top a salad with them for a nice lunch, and often I add Italian spices and grated Parmesan cheese to the crumbs and serve them with a favorite pasta and sauce for a main meal. I liked my original idea and have been quite pleased with myself for having come up with something that tasted so good and was exclusively mine or so I thought . . . until a while ago when flipping through a friend’s recipe book and look what I found: “Baked Chicken Nuggets” – almost identical to what I’d been making, only using bread crumbs instead.
“Please, could we have Salisbury steak for dinner sometime? My mother made it all the time and I love it.” I found this note on the convent kitchen counter a few days ago.
Now how does one ignore a request like this? Immediately, we set out to find a good recipe for this old favorite, and served it a few nights later. I’m not sure it was exactly like “Mom made it,” but it certainly made the sister who requested it, as well as many others, very happy. We served it with mashed potatoes (as they always do down South), roasted carrots and zucchini.
How long has it been since you served Salisbury steak?
In a mixing bowl, combine the beef, black pepper, onion salt, Worcestershire Sauce, bread crumbs and egg.
Mix well. Shape into 4 equal patties.
Heat a skillet over medium heat for about one minute, and then add butter.
Place meat patties in skillet and brown on both sides for about 4-5 minutes each. Remove from skillet and set aside.
Add the sliced onion to the skillet, right on top of the browned bits.
Reduce the heat and cook the onions on medium-low heat until the onions turn translucent and brown. Don’t rush this step: Cook the onions low and slow for about 20-25 minutes
Sprinkle 2 Tablespoons of flour over the onions. Stir.
Let cook and brown for about 2 minutes. Add 2 cups beef broth. Stir well.
Raise the heat back up to about medium. Stir well.
Place the meat patties back in the pan. Cover.
Reduce heat just a little and let simmer for about 15 more minutes.
Risotto is now considered a specialty dish often featured on menus in upscale eating places. It has, however, been a common everyday food in Italian homes for many years. Cooked in different ways to satisfy various tastes, it is almost as popular as pasta in the Mediterranean diet.
It can be prepared as a simple, meatless, light lunch or as an accompaniment to meat or fish for a fuller multi-course meal.
This time of year, spring asparagus especially lends itself to this creamy, cheesy dish to make it an exceptionally flavorful culinary experience. Asparagus Risotto
1/4cupwhite wine(or 1 tbsp. lemon juice and 3 tbsp. water)
4cupschicken broth(or vegetable stock for vegetarian option)
1/2lb.asparagustrimmed, tips cut off, tough skins of the spears peeled (if working with apparatus spears), and the spears cut into 1″ pieces on diagonal
