Eating Out Under An Autumn Sky

Autumn is officially here and with it comes cool days and chilly nights. We can still take advantage of our back yard, night or day with eating out. It can be elegant.It can be fun. It's up to you.

A cozy evening for two or with the kids could consist of eating around the fire pit. Everyone seems to have one these days and it makes for a lovely night despite falling temps.An easy supper under the stars is a charcuterie platter, complete with veggies and fruit. What is great about charcuterie is that there are no set rules about what to serve. The variety is usually a pate alongside salame, mortadella, prosciutto and speck, an uncured, smoked piece of pork, You could put out beef tartare if you want or bresaola, a dried salted beef from Italy. A luxe one would be jamon, Spanish ham, sliced wafer thin. Charcuterie boards also demand cheese so have wedges of Brie or Gruyere. A sharp Vermont cheddar would be the perfect fall choice as well. Make sure you have a sliced baguette too, already sliced. You could add a crusty artesenal rye or sourdough one too. Small bowls of olives , grapes, and peppers would round it out as well as bowls of herbed olive oil for dipping. As for drinking, a hot mulled wine could be a great option, You could also go with Zinfandels or  Sirahs too. Finish with brandied coffee , a fruit galette and a blanket to snuggle into  to watch the stars.

Of course it's not time to put away the grill. An autumn barbecue is just as fun as the ones you had in the summer. In fact make it like the tailgate parties of years past since we can't go to the stadiums this year. If you ate beef burgers for the past three months, then switch it up. Lamb is very flavorful. Add some fresh mint , parsley and garlic along with cumin, paprika and oregano for a Greek spin. 

Serve with Greek yogurt.  Beyond Meat is another choice  as is Gardein's Ultimate Beefless Burger. They deliver the same juiciness and flavor as the real thing. Instead of hamburger buns, think artesanal bread instead. You can also go full tailgate with brats and hot dogs too. Think of splitting them and filling them with cheddar or Swiss.  As for sides, a black bean and corn salad is a different idea after months of macaroni  salad and cold slaw. You could also make a simple but delicious beet salad. Bathe sliced beets in a classic vinaigrette seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Another fun side are bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers. This is first splitting the peppers in half and then stuffing them with a spicy cream cheese mix. Bacon is then wrapped around them and fastened  into place with toothpicks. Dessert could be s'mores made with different chocolates, white ,  milk and dark or just old fashioned brownies with mugs of hot coffee and tea.

There's nothing like eating outside and you can still do it. Enjoy a beautiful night sky with a good charcuterie platter or a warm fall day with an at home tail gate meal. It's just a nice way to enjoy the change of weather with good food and good drink.

The Savory Side of Honey

 We'reused to using honey as a sweet ingredient. We put it in teas , breads and a variety of different desserts. Yet it can also be used in savory dishes too for a different spin. Using it gives a more mellow flavor to savory dishes.

Many home chefs will first  ask what's the better choice of honey - white or brown? From a nutritional point of view white, light or golden honey has more vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Darker honey has a richer flavor which imparts an earthy sweetness on dishes. I use Carmel Honey's Company's dark Wildflower in both my tomato sauce and chili (yes!!). I like the depth it adds to both, especially the sauce. It gets rid of that tomato-y tang and mellows out the other ingredients, softening the sharp flavors of the garlic and other spices. It's usually a heaping tablespoon which should do it. If not then an extra teaspoon should do it both the sauce  and chili. Dark or light honey is also a great add in to different viniagrettes. It balances out the vinegar and adds a sweet earthiness. One great recipe is mixing light honey with olive oil and apple cider vinegar. Add salt  and pepper along with a mix of orange zest and fresh orange juice for a tasty dressing for  grilled chicken salad. The dressing gives the salad a Mandarin chicken kind of vibe. Add some fresh ginger for zing and sesame seeds for more flavor.

Honey and chicken pair well together. A fun weekday dinner idea is honey garlic chicken. It's a perfect meld of sweet and savory,Vinegar and soy sauce give the recipe that zing while light honey balances it out. To really spice it up add some sriracha sauce to it for some fire. Honey also works well as a glaze for both chicken and Cornish hens. One recipe involves  frozen orange  concentrate, lemon juice, garlic and thyme mixed with the sweet. There's also onion powder and soy sauce mixed in.It's an easy cook being boiled together in a microwave for two to three minutes (it may take longer depending on your microwave). Keep in mind that honey burns all too quickly and when you're oven roasting a chicken or game hens , baste with the honey glaze after about forty-five minutes in the oven. If the skin is burning but the meat is still raw, tent the chicken with aluminum foil to prevent burning. This will also keep cooking the chicken or Cornish hens. Of course there's nothing like honey glazed ham.It's usually pared with brown sugar for a sweet , crunchy covering that works well with the ham's saltiness.Honey also works with pork too, especially if it's paired with garlic and soy. it gives a crispness to chops and shoulders while still sealing in the juiciness.

Definitely use honey in your savory dishes. Its' sweetness gives mellowness to sauces while providing flavor to pork and chicken. Make it a part of your cooking for more variety.

Le Bouchon A Hidden Gem Along The Hudson

 Cold Spring New York is one of those idyllic towns with beautiful views of the Hudson River and a thriving riverfront town. It's quaint and picturesque, being only an hour north of New York City.There are some good restaurants there including Le Bouchon,a phenomenal Alsatian French bistro with a lovely outdoor garden.

The quaintness alone can draw anyone into this eatery that even has spaetzles, baked into a chic mac and cheese and a dish of duck confit. The restaurant is located at 76 Main Street,at the corner of Main and Fair Streets. It's on the first floor of  a charming early 19th Century building with a cheery red interior and ample back garden complete with a fountain and brick patio.

Despite its' meagerness , the menu has a wide range of different Alsatian  and American inspired dishes along with craft beers and wines.

I started with their Alsatian onion soup which had a good amount of Gruyere cheese and flavorful onion broth. The onions were plentiful and melt in your mouth tender.

I had to have the charcuterie plate which was a generous mix of mortadella ,prosciutto, salame and an in house pate. This last was interesting. It kind of had a beefy liverwurst quality to it (I didn't ask what it was made from, however). There was also a generous helping of cornichons, those cute but tart little pickles and a small cup of mustard..

Of course I had to have dessert,knowing that French restaurants  always have the best choices. I chose their flaky apple tart with vanilla ice cream.

This was a wonderful confection of sliced apples baked in a choux pastry and served with different berries and vanilla ice cream. The apples and ice cream were perfect together (I suspect that Le Bouchon makes the ice cream ) and the pastry was just buttery and tender. C'est parfait, especially with the accompanying blueberries and blackberries.

Le Bouchon is worth the trip alone to beautiful, picturesque Cold Spring, New York. It is a quaint eatery serving Alsatian food with an American twist. Head up there this fall for a lovely dinner , reminiscent of Northeastern France.

Sustainable Eating

 Climate change is on everyone's mind, thanks to the massive hurricanes in the South and the horrible forest fires out west. One of the ways is sustainable cooking. Home chefs can do their part  thanks to a new cookbook that shows them how. Saving the planet can be delicious and relatively easy.

Think Eat Cook Sustainably, 100 Recipes plus Tips and Ideas For A Healthy World  (2019 Rachel Khanna) was written by Rachel Khanna, creator of the organic catering company Tiffin,. She is also author of Live Eat Cook Healthy : Simple Fresh and Delicious Recipes For Balanced Living wrote this informative cookbook to not only open our eyes to sustainable food shopping and cooking but also our impact on the world.  The first chapters explain how we can shop and cook responsibly.It is an eye opener with a push on eating more vegetables and leaner meats. She lays out her sustainable plan with Key Principles. Home chefs should know where their food comes from and who grows it. Ms. Khanna also urges to purchase as many products as possible from local farms or vendors along with cutting down on waste and become conscious of what we eat.Ms. Khanna also lays out the groundwork for a new eating paradigm. It's a healthy way of eating. Consume lots and lots of fruits and vegetables.You can eat meat and their are recipes for it. She recommends healthy sources of protein such as grass fed meats,eggs and dairy products.Also opt for legumes and whole grains  along with buying foods with expiration dates. There are some good nuggets of advice too, like shopping on a grocery's perimeter where the freshest foods are  and minimizing purchasing frozen and packaged foods.She addresses superfoods, meat alternatives and the juice controversy (she is definitely nay)

The recipes are good for you and good tasting. Ms. Khanna divides the book into such simple chapters as breakfast and brunch , soups, salads, entrees, sides and desserts. I like this book and the recipes are what I would create. Breakfasts can be beginner's bread which can be dotted with olives, cranberries or walnuts or a congee , a porridge of brown rice and quince or prunes. I love the different tarts that would be perfect for brunch along with the Gruyere and garlic scones. I love her soup recipes. The butternut squash and ginger soup is a fall must cook. Home chefs will  love making the curried cauliflower and sunchoke or Jerusalem artichokes along with the creamy, garlic infused leek and sunchoke one. Salads are great too, There's the interesting purslane salad with halloumi cheese, a Cypriot goat's milk based cheese. Try the pea shoot, watercress and endive salad with Roquefort The entrees and the sides are just as healthy too. A  nutritious dinner could consist of her roasted halibut with shallot and saffron sauce  and a side of sauteed lima beans , kale, carrots and turnips. Ms. Khanna also celebrates her husband's'  and daughters' Indian heritage too with kicheree, a stew made with mung beans and potatoes along with mattar- gaajar , a pea and carrot mix, spiced with curries. I love her grain bowls how to, with a variety of different ingredients starting with the grain base and ending with the different vinaigrettes. Dessert lovers will appreciate her pound cake recipe with its' many variations and her  mother's Swiss chocolate almond cookies.

Think Eat Cook Sustainably 100 Recipes Plus Tips & Ideas For A Healthy World is the perfect cookbook for those who want to cook and eat sustainably. It's full of delicious recipes that can help with making the world a better place. It's eating better and feeling better about what's in the kitchen and on the table.

Summer's Last Bounty

 There are still harvests to be found, relics of a summer garden.Green beans and peppers can still be fashioned into tasty recipes. Figs can be turned into a delicious dessert. We can still hold on to the season, thanks to some interesting spins on classic dishes.

David Tanis wrote  about doing such in his column in yesterday's New York Times Food section. Gardens and groceries are still yielding up sometimes copious bounties that are perfect for an early fall table.The flavors from this fresh picked are brighter and more flavorful, resulting in a more delicious dish. He starts with the recipe for roasted peppers with capers , olives and anchovies. The peppers are sweet on their own but something salty added, like those three ingredients will amp up the sweetness. Mr. Tanis recommends using Corno or red bell peppers along with anchovy fillets, capers and olives although I would have just stuck with the anchovies (this and the peppers creates the great Piedmontese dish pepe e anciugi). The peppers are first roasted .They're then marinated in a garlicky vinaigrette and served with the fish, olives and capers. The main dish is lamb chops  with seasonal veggies.It's accompanied by a stew of green beans, corn , zucchini and summer squash. Again Mr. Tanis marinates here , the chops are seasoned with garlic, rosemary and sage.They're then fried and served with the vegetable stew which has been flavored with onions.

These recipes remind me of a Northern Italian meal my  Mom and cousins have made over the years. Mr. Tanis reinforces that vibe with the bonus of a polenta recipe. This can be a side or made the star , served with a side of the veggie stew. His polenta is baked with ricotta and Parmesan cheese along with olive oil. This is perfect for cheese lovers because the ricotta will still be in big blobs once cooked, perfect for mashing into the polenta.It's baked until brown and garnished with a good sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper.  You could just make this with sausages too, for an easy weekend supper. To finish off the meal, Mr. Tanis again goes with an Italian classic. It's a creamy panna cotta - cooked cream with figs and berries. The panna cotta has a light nutty flavor thanks to the addition of almond flavoring. The fig compote that pairs with it has  stove top roasted figs, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries. These have been roasted for forty minutes with Calvados brandy or kirsch. (this depends on your taste) They and the roasting juices are placed around the panna cotta and all of it can be served in a wine glass or ramekin.

Take advantage of the last of the summer harvests with these great recipes. They'll remind you of a dinner in Northern Italy, when the temps dip and fall is in the air. It's a perfect way to welcome in a new season.

Tacos Go Vegan

 The pandemic has hit the food industry, none more so than Mexican restaurants and food trucks. Yet it also has created a new kind of cuisine - vegan tacos. Chefs are using veggies when beef isn't available or is too expensive. The result - a tasty new idea that's quickly catching on.

Regular contributor and chef, Tejal Rao wrote about this phenomenon in today's New York Times Food section. Meat has had a dicey reputation in the last six months. Beef packaging plants have been breeding grounds for the virus along with the price of beef going up. Most restaurants had to change or rewrite their menus when beef prices tripled from three dollars to nine dollars a pound. Street vendors have it even worse, without the protection of a brick and mortar base. yet they can travel and have always catered to outdoor eating as well as to food trends, Some, such as chefs as Alex Garcia and Elvia Huerta of Evil Cooks ,went for a pork filled one call al pastor, popular in the Yucatan where it originated. It starts with pork rubbed with a mix of burnt tortillas and cacao. The two have also tried it on soy. Now many chefs are turning to veggies which is nothing new. Indigenous peoples have been making tacos with veggies and even fruits and flowers for flavor for centuries. It was the Spanish colonists who introduced pork into the cuisine.

Vegan tacos have been part of the Los Angeles scene for the last decade. Plant Food For People started selling jackfruit carnitas for the past ten years. Jackfruit is a wonderful fruit when it's cooked. It can be soaked in different marinades and juices and rubbed with a paste of achiote seeds and chiles. The flesh is soft and shredded but fries up into bacon like crisps as if they've been roasted on a spit. Diners prefer it to meat thanks to it' flavor and crunch.Vegan taco stands are also in the more gentrified sections of LA thanks to ones like Vegatinos which also produces such meatless classics as taco suaderos or beef from the shoulder bone and chicharrin , fried pork bellies along with pozole -pork shoulder and birria goat meat stew. Now they're opening up a second vegan one in the San Fernando Valley. Flowers are also being used as fillings too. Former Nordstrom make up consultant ,  and pop up restaurant owner Stephanie Villegas is using hibiscus which can soak up flavors like a sponge when it's rehydrated. She also has thinly shaved seitan too as a filling along with potato ones with a smoky matcha salsa. Her eatery, Alchemy Organics also sells vegan taco kits that has fried and marinated seitan along with veggies , salsa and A Kernel of Truth tortillas.

Vegan tacos are an old treat that's gaining new popularity. They're a great stand in to beef , thanks to  versatile chefs and ingredients. Veggie filled taco will be here long after the pandemic has left.

The Fall Pantry In A Pandemic

 It's time to start thinking of refilling the pantry now that fall is fast approaching. It'll be different, thanks to the pandemic which means  a different way of stocking up. what should be bought in bulk and what should be bought sparingly? What will give us hearty and delicious dishes in the upcoming months?

Apple season and fall go together perfectly so stock up on them. If you're lucky some farms in your area are open for limited picking. Take advantage of this because apples can keep for a relatively long time compared to other fruit. A basket or two is perfect and can keep well in a cool pantry, basement or even root cellar.If you can't make it to a farm, your local grocery store has a wide variety to choose from. Try Cortlands or Galas. Of course you can make pies with them, but also consider making something a bit long lasting like homemade apple sauce. This will go great with such cold weather dishes as pork chops or roast. The fruit can also be used in making apple butter and a variety of baked goods such as muffins. Canned fruit is another must have. Think peaches or pears which make great snacks or desserts on their own. Canned veggies are a must since they're versatile and can keep for long periods of time. Try to stock up on such essentials as canned potatoes - perfect for potato salads or soup, green beans  - again great as a summery salad or as a side  cooked almondine with almond slivers. Kids will love canned corn so consider buying a few cans of those . It is versatile too, being added to corn muffins or fritters or to chowders to add color and flavor. 

Every fall pantry needs beans - and plenty of them. They're a great source of protein and can be put into a variety of different dishes. Since chili will be prevalent for the cooler days, stock up on the kidney and pinto ones. Black beans are another must stock. Combine them with rice and spices for a nice side to roast or barbecued chicken. Chickpeas are another bean that should be bought a few can at a time. They have a dual purpose. Use the beans for everything from the Indian stew choley to homemade hummus and save the aquafaba or bean liquid for vegan meringues and mousses. Bean flour among other flours are another good pantry buy. Make sure you have plenty of white or gluten free too along or almond and coconut flour  if you're eating more healthfully. We may be baking a bit more again so stock up on yeast too. There has been a shortage in the past and there may be one again if everyone uses the cooler weather to bake bread.Sugar and confectioner's sugar will keep so again get the larger containers. There may not be school bake sales but there may be at home Halloween parties where cupcakes and cookies will be required.Take stock of the spices you have as well. You may need to buy a new bottle of cinnamon and nutmeg for baking and cooking.

it's time to stock your fall pantry. It'll be a bit difficult because of the pandemic but it can be done. Buy what is needed the most and your pantry be fine.