Favorite autumn recipes?

[SouthToTheLeft]

Hey there,

I am trying to teach myself how to cook a lot more fun, seasonal autumnal dishes. What are your favorites? What says leaves falling to you? I want to know!

Thanks!

[eight_inch_pestle]

Cheese-potato-beer soup with ham. Snipped chives and rye bread croutons pair really well.

[ZenSojourner]

Ultimate potato soup. Bacon, butter, cream, potatoes, tarragon. Celery, onions. Cilantro. Best potato soup ever. Honestly I eat this year round. I really don't understand the idea that soup is a cold-weather thing only. We eat hamburgers hot year round, don't we? LOL!

[twilight goddess]

Fun with squash and pumpkin! Yes! Soups, stuffed squash, casseroles, risottos. I want to try Dorie Greenspan's Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good. Looks divine! Recipe here:

http://www.wgntv.com/news/middaynews/...

Braising! Trying a new recipe this fall, I made an AMAZING cider-braised chicken with parsnips (recipe from All About Braising by Molly Stevens) and guests were practically swooning and it just tasted so so so fall.

[brooklynkoshereater]

can you give us the cider braised chicken reicpe/

[SouthToTheLeft]

Yes! Please share the cider-braised recipe!

[smilingal]

TWILIGHT** ---- on another thread you had posted two variations for squash casseroles - one of which I made and it was delicious - the second variation was made with orzo and spinach - but I am wondering - do you still use the Provolone cheese and rosemary in this one as well? You mentioned this one tops with romano as opposed to the parmesian on the other - but the provolone is my real question. Hope you see this!

[luniz]

Ratatouille

[foreverhungry]

Oh, how could I have forgotten ratatouille. I actually made several quarts of ratatouille when eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes were in season, and vacuum sealed and froze it all in batches. I love to make it in the summer when the vegetables are fresh and cheap, but eat it in the fall and winter because it's pretty hearty.

[twilight goddess]

yes! thank you for the reminder. A fall favorite!

[jmcarthur8]

Ham and potato soup with cheddar cheese. It's so rich and heavy, you have to have cold weather to eat it.
Yum.

[foreverhungry]

The fall means the hunt and the bringing of fattened animals to market, so to me, nothing says the fall like roasts. I just made a 8 lb pork roast (picnic ham) that I rubbed with adobo seasoning, browned in a heavy skillet, then cooked in a crock pot for 8 hours, and finished under a broiler for 8 minutes. One of the best pieces of pork I've ever made.

I'm planning on doing a roasted chicken this weekend, and I'm hoping to try a duck recipe I recently saw on a Steven Raichlen grilling site. Roasts are also a great way of adding some heat to your house when the furnace isn't quite necessary yet. Speaking of, there's also a very intriguing roast chicken recipe that calls for burying the whole chicken (with some aromatics in its cavity) in a slurry of 3 pounds of salt and water - chicken in an inch thick salt crust! Original recipe calls for doing it on the grill, but I'll use the oven! I've done whole fish (striped bass) in a salt crust, and it was spectacular!

But wait - there's more! Don't put that grill away yet! Even here in Minnesota (scraped frost off the car this morning), the grill's going to get fired back up soon. This is ideal weather for cold smoking on a BBQ - get the fire going in the box, close it off, let it cool down a little, and slap a cured hunk of salmon on the other side. Next thing you know, you have cold-smoked fish.

Lastly, in a couple weeks I'm firing up the sausage making gear. Fall is nice because you can open the windows of the kitchen to to keep the temperature down, so the sausage doesn't "break". Also going to make a pork and chicken liver pate in the coming weeks. That with a salad makes a great dinner that is at once light yet satisfying.

And yes - squash, squash, and more squash, washed down with apple pie, or better yet, a tarte tatin. And cider. Cook with apple cider! Pork, chicken, whatever!

For me, the fall is my favorite cooking season. I would cook every day if I had the time, metabolism, and money to do it.

(PS...don't forget to save the chicken carcasses after roasting them, and then making a couple gallons of stock. It'll come in handy when making soups, or better yet, all those great fall and winter risottos!)

[SouthToTheLeft]

God, that sounds lovely. It's not cold enough here yet to turn on the oven for eight hours.

[Krislady]

(PS...don't forget to save the chicken carcasses after roasting them, and then making a couple gallons of stock. It'll come in handy when making soups, or better yet, all those great fall and winter risottos!)
-------------------------------
It's getting to be the best time for making stock here - I let it simmer most of the day, strain it in the evening, then cover and stick it out on the deck to cool overnight before defatting and canning.

All winter, we have these holes in the snow out there from hot stock - like our special little ice-boxes.

[rabaja]

Thanks for a great visual.
Makes my double compartment sink filled with ice much less sexy!

[boyzoma]

Do you have a "vermin" proof spot? With the raccoons, opossums, squirrels, etc. I would be a little afraid of the snow holes.

[SouthToTheLeft]

So, this is embarrassing, but I've never made stock. How do you do it?

[Krislady]

We haven't really had a problem - we use the 6-litre Rubbermaid containers, and once they've cooled a bit on the counter, we snap the lids on and stick them just outside the glass door. We seldom have much of anything get that close to the house - just the occasional squirrel leaving a peanut shell on top of the grill is all.

[BamiaWruz]

So that's who it is, squirrels. I keep seeing a peanut shell on the steps near my front door and wonder who is doing this. Mystery solved!!

If you have a balcony you can store food out there too in the winter. Roasted carcass stock is my favourite, southtotheleft, you're going to love how easy it is to do.

Throw the bones in the big stock pot with some garlic (just throw it in, no peeling required), onion, celery, carrots and any herbs you like, and water, just let it go for 4 hours or so. Some salt, and pepper corns, bay leaf, and anything else you want for flavouring.
Leave it on low from start to finish, or you'll get a cloudy stock, strain it all and store in the fridge once cooled, then remove the layer of fat from the top and you can keep it for frying or to cook rice.. etc.

[just_M]

I do my stocks in the slow cooker now. I save ends of carrots, onion, celery, mushrooms, herbs etc. in a bag in the freezer. Just dump whatever you've got in the the crock add water, cook on low all day or night, strain and chill. I give the cooked bits to my pets, chicken bones will crumble when cooked through.

[decolady]

Roasted winter squash, cranberries in anything, cornbread dressing, vegetarian chili, potato soup, split-pea soup, pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, collards, home-baked bread, roasted sweet potatoes.

[mamachef]

Soup of any kind, especially Chowdahs and squash. I love playing with garnishes and toppings to accentuate whatever's in the bowl. Soup, beautiful soup!!
Breads. A great many quick breads (one is my mom's recipe, made with pureed cottage cheese, dill, caraway, and several other herbs. Best thing Herself baked, ever, and it makes the house smell wonderful.)
Braised dishes: Meats, vegetables, greens.
And rices and carbs of any sort just say "comfort" to me.

[toomuchfat]

Agree with the comment about garnishes for soups!

For squash I use bacon, sour cream, croutons, and sometimes something crunch like pepitas.

Any other ideas?

[mamachef]

I like popcorn as a soup garnish; and really small croutons baked with whatever herbs and spices will complement. I love to add a spoonful of hot salsa atop a spoonful of sour cream for bean or tortilla soups, and in the same vein have made quick chutneys or relishes that I've poured the soup around. Chopped toasted nuts with herbs are great, and fast too, and are especially delicious with squash soups. I make an apple/spice dice and saute it and use it as an anchor for curried cauliflower soup. Pepitas, definitely - if there are any left in the bag once I get them out of the grocery store. Oh, and I love those little Asian chili bar-mix crackers atop any miso or chicken soup.
I hope you weren't asking specifically for squash soup garnishes. How I do go on. :-)

[toomuchfat]

Nice suggestions!

[Lotti]

mamachef, your mothers bread sounds wonderful. Would you be willing to share the recipe?

[biondanonima]

Yes, please share!!!

[just_M]

+3 I've got some cottage cheese just hanging out waiting for something to do :-)

[twilight goddess]

+4 please....

[Perilagu Khan]

Chicken and dumplings. The ultimate soul food on a chilly autumn evening.

[HillJ]

two words: baked apples!
Get the best Rome apples you can find, clean, slice the top, core and fill with cinnamon, butter, honey or maple syrup, a vanilla bean and bake until fork tender. The house fills with Autumn and the rewards are amazing. I bake off 10 to a tray and enjoy them breakfast, lunch or dinner.

[BamiaWruz]

Or wrap them in a dough and bake them, I was going to do this soon. Yum!

Gnocchi is another autumny food for me. I like to sautee them in a bit of brown butter and some sage.

[SouthToTheLeft]

Do you have a good gnocci recipe?

[Krislady]

I just made Mark Bittman's ricotta gnocchi last weekend, and they were not bad at all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/din...

[cheesecake17]

I love a good baked apple and bake several at time. A great breakfast is a warmed baked apple with some cool vanilla yogurt on top. Easy to transport to work in a tupperware.

[HillJ]

my kind of breakfast, cheesecake17-absolutely!

[cheesecake17]

I like it because it's healthy but it doesn't taste it!! Tastes like eating apple pie for breakfast...

Have you ever tried baked pears? Someone mentioned a baked pear recipe similar to baked apples, but I can't remember it for the life of me.

[HillJ]

Funny you should mention pears...they are actually my fav. baked fruit. I follow a vanilla bean infused version from a blogger. In a roasting pan (glass) I lightly brush extra virgin olive oil. I core & quarter as many pears as I can fit in a 9x13 (usually 5 large) and Bosc are my preferred choice for this. Over the pears I drizzle a bit more oil, a generous sprinkled of cinnamon, ground nutmeg, honey, fresh lemon juice and about 3 vanilla beans sliced from whole sticks (not seeded). I bake them at 375 until fork tender. Also fantastic with Greek yogurt or over hot oatmeal.

Apples & pears together this style also heaven on a plate.

[SouthToTheLeft]

That sounds amazing! I'm going to try this tomorrow.

[cheesecake17]

This looks great! About how long does it take to bake?

[HillJ]

45 min typically-fork tender

[cheesecake17]

Thanks! May make them for dessert tomorrow night. Having parents over for dinner.. wanted something sweet to end the meal. This will work.. easy and I can eat the leftovers for breakfast!

[HillJ]

Perfect! Can I come too :)
Glad to assist!

[toomuchfat]

Like others have said, squashes, particularly as soups.

I also like to get braising in the fall...I make boeuf bourginion very often.

I "winterized" the grill this weekend. :(

[BamiaWruz]

I like to cook with seasonal ingredients but to be honest I'm a soup in the summer type of person so I'll eat anything year round, depends on my mood and what I feel like.

This autumn I've been cooking a lot of squashes, soups, (split pea, lentil) not heavy soups .. those are for winter but just nice light fresh vegetable soups. A lot of caramelized onion, moroccan food with warmer spices (sweet/savoury also since I made a batch of preserved lemons)
Traditional home cooked comfort food is what I crave in the colder months.

Lots of baking in Autumn of course.
I like to browse through foodgawker.com , tastespotting.com and such sites because can see a variety of foods people are cooking and blogging about on a daily basis and often it is very seasonal related, so you can get ideas. Some of my material is on there too.

[SouthToTheLeft]

That sounds very exciting. I have slowly been teaching myself how to bake, but am always looking for ideas for what to do next!

[BamiaWruz]

If you're enjoying baking then you'll find TONS of recipes there, it's a very resourceful place.

Roasted veggies in season are a great way to enjoy whatever you have on hand. It's simply to whip up and you can switch it up with different herbs or warm spices. I love to roast squash, cauliflower, yams, parsnips.. and a little dash of paprika, cumin, cinnamon really elevates it.

In the coming days I'm thinking of a thyme mushroom soup and maybe a white bean stew with sage.

[SouthToTheLeft]

That sounds really good. I made chocolate, pistachio, almond, and dried apricot biscotti tonight. They came out great, and so easy!

[BamiaWruz]

Oh my gosh!! That sounds fab! I love pistachios.
Only made biscotti once, care to share the recipe ? I'd love to try that, and my sister made a cranberry orange shortbread but I think the flavours would be great in a biscotti so I may try that too.

[Barbara76137]

My mainstay in the fall and winter is a big pan of roasted veggies that I find on sale and then my fresh herbs as i try to keep them alive through the winter. I do a pan every week and eat it every day, either as a side or as part of something like a frittata or even pizza. It is cheap and really flavorful.

[just_M]

Roasted misc veg is my favorite also. I especially like them in burritos with black and refried beans or empanadas. But just having them on hand to add to soups and stir-fries or just crostini is the best. Love them all.

[ZenSojourner]

Got any Moroccan recipes you'd care to share?