Autumn Pleasures: Recipes and Tips for Stocking-Up

Recipes for: Pumpkin Pie, Crumb-free Cornbread, Amazing Quince and 'Nooks and Crannies' Hot Cereal

Autumn is a time for enjoying the bounty of the garden. Every bite of cucumber or tomato takes on special pleasure knowing the season is almost at an end. We enjoy preserving foods for later consumption; whether through canning, dehydration or freezing. It's also a time for seasonal favorites like pumpkin pie from scratch. Here is a collection of relevant posts to expand your autumn pleasure and help you squirrel away some of the season's bounty for leaner, winter times. Enjoy!

Stocking up: Whether your motivation is to ride out a short-term power-outage, make less frequent trips to the grocery store, hedge your bets against the rising cost of food by taking advantage of sales or just to avert that sinking feeling when you go to your cupboards and there's nothing you really want to eat, this Tips for Maintaining a Well-Stocked Pantry offers many simple ideas and habits to keep your pantry 'topped off'. Note: the link will take you to All Things Sharing, our blog about positive things happening in the world.

Autumn at the Sharing Gardens; a time of beauty and bounty!

Amazing Quince! - Sugar-free Recipe (LINK): Many people are unfamiliar with quince though it's becoming more popular. Its tart apple flavor has undertones of pears and rose oil. It can be cooked into homemade applesauce, dehydrated for fruit leather or be baked as a stand-alone autumn treat. Be sure to read the full post and comments to read about other recipes and improvements we made on our methods of preparation. Nutritional benefits of quince. (image LT: www.modernfarmer.com)

Making Pumpkin Pie from Scratch - Recipe (LINK)

Pumpkin Pie recipe: Though it's a lot easier just to open a can of pumpkin puree to make your favorite pumpkin pie recipe, there's nothing that compares with the satisfaction of growing your own (or buying from a local farmer) and making enough puree as a base for pies all throughout the fall and winter. This post will help you avoid making common mistakes: Making Pumpkin Pie from Scratch - Recipe. (image RT: Llyn's niece, Jesse during her first autumn harvest, 4 months old).

Mix up a big batch of the dry ingredients for Crumb-Free, Whole-Grain Cornbread Recipe and you'll always have it on hand for a quick baked treat.

Cornbread recipe: We make large batches of the dry ingredients for this delicious Crumb-Free, Whole-Grain Cornbread Recipe. This makes it easy to just add the eggs, oil and other liquids, pop it in the oven and have a comfort-food snack or side dish for a larger meal, a quick dish to take to a last-minute pot-luck invitation or unexpected guests.

We grow two kinds of corn for our hot cereal. Hooker's Blue (left) and Golden Bantam (right). Though we've tried to keep the strains pure, corn is notorious for cross-pollinating, hence the variety in color. Grow your own Sorghum for grain and flour (LINK)

'Nooks and Crannies' hot breakfast cereal RECIPE (LINK): This recipe for hot cereal starts with the basics: mixed grains,nuts and dried fruit but it goes much further, offering suggestions for toppings that will make this a delicious power-house of nutrition that provides energy all morning long. Though we've been fortunate these past few years to grow enough of many of the ingredients ourselves, you'll find almost everything you need in a well-stocked bulk-foods section. Remember to buy organically grown ingredients: better for your health and better for the Earth. (RT: Tiffaney removing corn from the cobs using a homemade tool.)

And lastly, though not part of the main topics of this post, here is some really inspiring news about a river in England that was encouraged to return to its original meandering course. Not only did this encourage many kinds of wildlife to return but the new river's pathway and the subsequent wetlands this created served to mitigate flooding of the downstream towns and villages during record-breaking wet years of rainfall. (Note: the link will take you to All Things Sharing, our blog about positive things happening in the world.) LINK: What happens when you set a river free?

Double-rainbow seen to the north of our land.