October

The leaves are officially falling and the colours are magnifique! It's getting chilly outside now. We put on our storm windows this past weekend and I think we are going to clean out the garage from all of our backlane shopping this weekend in preparation for the snow to fly! Oh, these are the days that I dream of living in a warmer place....

On a tasty note, I made a delicious Sweet Potato and Red Lentil Curry for dinner last night....will get that recipe up soon. It's from one of my fave (right now) veggie cookbooks, Fresh Food Fast by Peter Berley.

Tomates de Jardin

Tomato season is late this year, which was annoying, until now! We get the pleasure of enjoying them a bit longer this year, and pretending that fall is not quite here yet. 

Some of these tomatoes came as seeds from J.S.'s Dad in the South of France. The big ones are called Coeur de Boeuf, the pointy bottomed ones he just called Ovales, and the little ones are Mini-Ovales. So far the Coeur de Boeuf have been my hands down favourite. Besides looking so incredible, they have very few seeds, a lot of flesh and taste like the sunny Mediteranee!

Blueberry Picking at the lake

My Dad and I went in search of some tiny wild blueberries at the lake. This is not something we normally do, although I absolutely love blueberries. So I thought this year we should start. I have been with friends before who knew a great spot....but we couldn't find that spot, so we searched and found a small patch. We didn't end up with too many, but the ones we did get were delicious!

Chanterelles!

I bought these lovely chanterelles from the market last week and decided to cook them simply....lots of good butter (I use unsalted cultured butter), shallots, garlic and some dry thyme from last summer's garden. I like to use dried thyme instead of fresh, I find it has a more intense flavour. Then I grated some Pecorino Romano cheese over top and popped them in the oven for a few minutes until bubbly. Mmmmmmm!

Golden Beet gaspacho

This soup is really easy and tasty on a hot summer day.

Here's what I did....

Roast a bunch of golden beets in a 400 degree oven with salt, pepper and olive oil until tender. Cool a bit and then peel the beets (the skin should come satisfyingly off in thin pieces).

Put the beets in the blender along with some water (just enough so that the blender is happy), a few generous spoonfuls of sour cream, some chives and a god amount of freshly ground black pepper. Give it a whizz and then taste for salt. Chill in the fridge for a while.

To serve, dollop with more sour cream and a few sprigs of chives.

Here is a photo of the Rose Petal Jelly. I made it without strawberries, found a great recipe on a really good french food blog toquetoques.com

To make it, I used Rose Bud Tea that Dave brought me from China last year. It turned out beautiful as you can see, but I haven't tasted it yet....

Using the tea got me to thinking that a Jasmine Jelly may be a lovely idea.

Strawberry Season

We went strawberry picking the other day, my Mom and I, as has become our summertime tradition. So for the last few days I have been making all things strawberry! Strawberry jam, strawberry wine spritzers, strawberry sorbet, and today I'm going to try a strawberry rose petal jam. I'll post it as soon as I'm done....if it's any good.