Moving Into Fall

Hurricane Sandy is churning in the Atlantic, threatening the east coast of the United States.  We are a bit further inland these days but I think we’ll see high winds and rain so we spent the day preparing.  We’ll lose water if the power goes out so we’re filling up barrels with rain water runoff to water the chickens and flush. We have a generator that we will use sparingly to keep the freezers cold.  There’s a summer’s worth of growing, picking and preserving in there.  At least the weather is cooler so we won’t swelter without the window air conditioners at night.

We went nine days without power in Hurricane Irene last year. It was OK and we took advantage of friends for a shower or two, but it’s just a daily struggle. And, all our appliances are electric these days.  I made a big pot of soup with chicken and lots of fresh and frozen vegies. We can heat it on the camp stove.

I baked a loaf of almost whole wheat quick bread from Mark Bittman’s The Food Matters Cookbook.  I added cooked onions, grated yellow squash and sharp white cheddar cheese.  It is moist and delicious and I toasted slices to go along with the soup. This was my second loaf of homemade bread this week. I made whole wheat baguettes to go with chock-full-of-vegies spaghetti sauce earlier this week.  I was feeding Bob and a buddy who was staying over to help with some construction work. Even baked a batch of molasses cookies for them. After what seems like months of travel, I’m home for a bit and enjoying a little time off from the workaholic lifestyle.

We are busy moving into the fall season.  Greens are very popular, especially flat kale (as opposed to curly).  We have turnip, mustard and collard greens as well. I am planning my Thanksgiving menu around what we’ll have available including fresh sweet and regular potatoes, fresh green, corn and green beans from the freezer. We’ll just have to add the turkey and dressing.

I have to admit that it’s pretty cool to have your own vegetables.  Since we have fresh kale coming in, I have started using my frozen kale.  It goes into almost everything: the meatballs for the spaghetti, the spaghetti sauce, the soup.  I did not put it in the bread but might try a loaf.  I think it would be a matter of getting it very dry.  Mix in some parmesan cheese and fresh herbs.