At the end of the last bear story there was this teaser photo of a mini loaf of bread:

With the not quite 1 cup of pumpkin from my last pumpkin roasting, I decided to try Oatmeal pumpkin bread from page 100 of Artisan Bread in 5 minutes per day…my high moisture dough “Bible”. I highly recommend this book if you want to try the high moisture thing….aside from good recipes there are lots of instructions, troubleshooting and info that helps understand the why and how of working with high moisture dough. And understanding some of the why and how helps if you want to experiment. And if you experiment some things work and some don’t and the book info helps you tweak things so they DO work…I speak from experience :)!

But for this dough, I followed the recipe exactly.

For the bread, I followed the adaptation on page 102 for Oatmeal Pumpkin Seed bread – almost…I used sunflower seeds instead of pumpkin seeds because I wasn’t thinking or reading carefully. In this case a “mistake” that worked fine!

This little bread was as good as it looks. And the dough – it rises wonderfully. This is not a sweet cake like pumpkin bread ala banana or zucchini bread. It is very slightly sweet as there is a little honey as well as pumpkin in the dough. It is a whole grain bread: half white flour, but the remaining is a mix of oatmeal, whole wheat and rye flour.

The cranberry seed variation made a wonderful roast turkey sandwich. And black forest ham was good on it also.

It made excellent toast.

I made an apple hand pie with the same dough on Saturday morning. It smelled so good and was sitting there with a bit of carmelized apple and cinnamon so I ate it!

No photo.

But, on Sunday, I decided to add some sausage to the apple so I could call it breakfast. I drizzled a little maple syrup over all before sealing them up.

A bit of egg wash and they are ready for the oven.

The hardest thing about making this kind of thing is waiting for it to bake and cool enough to eat.

My kitchen floor is nearly always sticky or crunchy or both. So I cleaned the floor. 10 minutes down, 20 to go.

Tick-tock.

Worth. The. Wait.

I made a mini loaf without cranberries and seeds.

And then I was out of dough.

The big green squash are “winter squash”…I think. I looked at a number of photos, conferred with my mother…we think they are winter squash. They are wonderfully flavored. I like them better than pumpkin – the texture is smoother and they are just a bit sweeter. Most of the flavor we associate with pumpkin stuff is the spice combo. If you’ve ever tried plain pumpkin, you know it is nothing like the flavor of a pumpkin pie.

Second round for the dough, I thought I’d try some of the winter squash in place of the pumpkin. Not a risky experiment and the only difference I detected was that the goods are a tiny bit sweeter. I am not talking sweet like a cake or or cookies…just a bit sweeter than a plain dough.

Since bagels are a plain dough with a bit of sugar…

This dough makes wonderful bagels – crunchy outside, chewy inside.

On to “English” muffins and pizza. The muffins are cooked in a cast iron skillet. I did as I always do…a little cornmeal on them, a bit of olive oil and butter in the pan and a lid on top: 2-3 minutes per side.

Keeping with the pumpkin/squash, sausage and apple theme, for the pizza I spread a thin layer of squash for the sauce, thin slices of mozzarella, then sausage and apple slices. Fifteen minutes on a stone on the grill, a drizzle of balsamic syrup (reduced balsamic vinegar) and it was pizza for supper!

Nice crispy crust with just a bit of chew – perfect!

Wonderful, delicious, beautiful dough with a taste of Fall.

Last Thursday, I picked up the final distribution from my CSA.

Beautiful!

And most of it is long lasting.

Except for that head of red leaf lettuce which was part of a BLT with Mozz breakfast sandwich.

And today’s (Sunday) salad.

The week prior included the last of the kale and chard, a nice amount of potatoes and carrots, beautiful leeks and some onions.

Green eggs and goat cheese! I would have added ham if I’d had any :) !!

As disclosed previously, I have been making Bear’s food. Usually it is brown rice, yogurt and hamburger (from Costco’s organic ground beef), but on occasion, for our breakfast, I whiz some kale and eggs in the Vita-mix and then scramble them, ie. green eggs.

This morning, I added red pepper to mine.

To Bear’s, I added his usual brown rice, yogurt and a bit of burger.

I continue to use the fresh chard in place of bread for sammies and taco/tortilla wraps. This morning a nice leaf of chard held salmon, goat cheese and capers…with a side of cherry tomatoes.

Not very much from the CSA, but these tamale pies…oh, so good – had to share!

There are some onions from the CSA in the pulled pork mix that sat under the corn bread topping. And the fresh corn in the topping is local sweet corn!

I’ve not yet made homemade tamales, but this pie was so good and so easy…maybe I won’t! I topped a pulled pork tamale “filling” with my standard Mexican Cornbread (muffins). That’s it.

Another leaf of chard for a tomato-mozzerella burger and a side of late summer potato salad. The potato salad is CSA potatoes and organic celery dressed with homemade mayo, pickle juice, greek yogurt, sugar and mustard dressing.

Leeks… The leeks were the basis for soup two weeks in a row. I made a leek-sweet potato soup and a leek-cauliflower soup.

I’m getting a bit smarter…although I ended up with a LARGE pot of soup each time, I froze 1/2-2/3 each time…YEA for me. I have two containers of leek soup in the freezer awaiting some dark Fall-Winter day when soup MUST be had!

My freezer this year…it is stocked! More than any year in my entire 57 years on this earth…I have things to eat that only need defrosting. Again…YEA for me.

Because I live 30-45 minutes from town/supplies and because I live in a place where the roads become treacherous (actually, it is the other drivers…) – I have always made sure my pantry is stocked by October 1. But this year, courtesy of my CSA subscription and just thinking and LOVING fresh fruits and veg…my freezer has become part of the Fall-Winter food stocking.

So, when the snow flies and the roads freeze, I will thaw a bit of the soup as you see above and be thankful for my freezer, for my forethought and for Swallow Crest Farm CSA!

I think it is week 17 and 18 from my CSA bounty. But I have also been buying some seasonal Western produce: peaches and peppers from Washington State and hopefully soon, some blueberries from Oregon. Washington, Oregon and California are close enough that I am including their seasonal stuff that comes direct to Montana as local :)!

Here we go!

More cucumbers and I dressed them in a creamy dressing of a wee bit of homemade mayo, greek yogurt, buttermilk, dill, salt and a good dose of fresh ground pepper.

In addition to a refreshing salad, the mix made a good topping for a spicy corn chowder. My CSA corn and green pepper went into the chowder.

I blitzed a bit of the cucumber salad to make a riff of tzatziki sauce which also went well with some chowder.

Oh…those little tomatoes!!! They are sweet like candy and I ate most of them just like candy – as a sweet snack!

Kale, sweet onion and green beans roasted in olive oil and basalmic vinegar…

…. they went in another soup.

As the calendar flipped to September, the weather flipped to Fall. Cool/cold nights warming to Fallish afternoons. Soup sounded good and it was.

But…still time for some salad. This last week had beautiful lettuce mix. I added some ham, corn off the cob, pumpkin seeds and a ranchish dressing…along with some Washington State Elberta peaches.

Roast Chiles!! Anaheims, Red, Jalapeno – on the grill…for chile rellenos…

Oh, yeah! And in addition to the above which were part of my CSA distribution, the local grocery had a chile weekend and I bought a number of the best Anaheim peppers I’ve seen in these parts. Those have been roasted and frozen for Winter enjoyment.

Cooking and eating from the garden and local produce. It continues to be wonderful eating and preserving.

Yep, I missed a week. Things are hoppin’ around here what with the work and the weeds and getting ready to launch Wild Thing in two weeks. The entire crew: Captain Bear, First Officer Bob and me, the lowly pilot and supply officer are planning a September 13 departure for points south and a visit with the folks, Grandma Betty and the 4 legged “cousins”! Departing from my previous “blast south like the devil is on my tail” kind of trips, I intend to meander a bit and take it easy…as if I am actually on vacation :)!

Usually, the prep for such a trip is minimal and amounts to keeping an eye on the weather and work and then going. But Wild Thing is 9 years old and I’ve put a good many miles on her and some maintenance was in order. And the maintenance stuff has been like the proverbial can of worms. I believe we have found the last worm and all is ship-shape and ready to go pending receiving and installing (Billy Bob’s RV doing the installing) one last part.

Meanwhile, I’ve been sharing much of the garden produce and getting a few ready to take over the bounty after I leave.

BUT…the summer stuff is really starting to kick in. A few small cucumbers, some cherry tomatoes, BEAUTIFUL cabbages, green beans, broccoli, larger carrots, some small but tender and flavorful sweet corn and also some small summer squash…along with chard, kale and basil.

Off and on these last days of summer have been hot and smoky and refreshing cool food sounds good. I blitzed green cabbage, broccoli and carrots into a slaw dressed with a simple sweet vinaigrette (olive oil, sugar, apple cider vinegar).

A bit of bacon, with a side of fresh peaches and the slaw made a good lunch.

I cook burgers every 3rd or 4th day as I feed Bear burger/rice/yogurt twice a day. Oh…and hamburger with fries is one of my most favorite meals so I always have a fresh burger on cooking day. As good as my bread, bagels and muffins are, I’ve been using a leaf of chard for a bun to lighten things up and I’m finding I do NOT miss the “bread” at all. The chard from the garden is tender but firm and works very well as a holder for a burger!

Although small, the first of the corn is very good. I couldn’t resist eating one cob (with plenty of butter!) before scraping the rest off to use in a salad…

…or a scramble. Broccoli, corn and scrambled eggs with cherry tomatoes. Although the garden did produce a half pint of cherry tomatoes, these are from a local hydroponic garden, not my CSA.

This weeks slaw is made with red cabbage and the same vinaigrette, but I did experiement with the little cucumbers. Those I dressed in a creamy yogurt-buttermilk-tarragon dressing. Tarragon is a new herb for me and I like it! It did well in this with the cukes….with a bit of chives, cumin, salt and pepper.

I blanched and froze green beans, ate carrots dipped in homemade ranch and put fresh kale in my smoothies.

Some potatoes are still in the bin for a rough mash as it gets cooler and I have 2 little squash that I hope to make into fritters for a zucchini squash fritter benedict in the morning.

***EDIT

The zucchini fritter “benedict”…hardly a benedict, but zucchini cornmeal pancake, sausage, poached egg and a dollop of greek yogurt with a drizzle of chipotle tobasco…worked for me :)!

The garden and all local produce is hitting its peak.

This week: peas, carrots, potatoes, parsley, basil, salad mix, head lettuce, beets, kale, chard and hiding from me…2 itty bitty zucchini found just in the nick of time. I shared quite a lot as I was still working on some pea pesto, carrots and chard from the week before.

The chard has been wonderful – tender, flavorful and I enjoyed it on sandwiches but especially on this savory version of a basil ricotta creme “pastry” – on the left…the creme topped with fresh tomato slices and a chard/onion saute. On the right, a pastry to save for breakfast: huckleberries!

I had huckleberry or cherry pastries several mornings – all made on the grill. It was mostly a bit warm to fire up the oven. As I am hoping for garden tomatoes and corn, it is a bit easier to take the heat. I pass the farm garden on my road and can see the corn and tomato plants. I think there are cucumbers in there also and I’m waiting. We’ve passed mid-August with the days getting shorter and the nights longer and cooler so it is a race to see if things have time to ripen before the first frost.

A lousy photo but I made two roast veg salads and only took this one photo. One salad with the red potatoes and one with beets. Both I added celery and onion and dressed lightly with a mayo/yogurt vinaigrette. I scarfed the potato salad forgetting to take a photo and only took this one of the beet salad…oops. Aside from the good roasted veg and the light dressing, the celery gave both a wonderful crunch and flavor. I added goat cheese and walnuts to the beet salad to make it a complete lunch.

Later in the week, the last of the kale needed to be used. Fresh kale, left to marinate for at least two hours in a vinaigrette, softens just enough to be crunchy but not tough. In fact, I’ve made a large kale salad and eaten from the bowl for 3 or 4 days. This salad, I used a lemon juice/garlic/vinegar mix, and topped with goat cheese, flathead lake sweet cherries and sunflower seeds.

So, those zucchini! They were hiding under some carrots. I found them late in the week and I was getting ready to make some baked sweet potato fries so cut up one of the squashes and threw it in with the sweet potato. A ranch dip made with yogurt, buttermilk and spices on the side.

Round 2 with the remaining zucchini, I added a coating of bread crumbs (from my broa bread), parmesan, salt and pepper. Same dip – another hit and another good week of cooking and eating from the garden.

And not to be forgotten…spearmint from my herb patch… and ice and white wine. All of this fresh green stuff…it is not bad :)!