Roasting Weather Arrives

Who really needs official recipes in September and October in the Midwest, when the farmer’s market is full of flavorful in-season produce? So today, I just have some quick snapshots of what we’ve been eating. Yummy!

Yesterday I was working at home and it was sweater-weather, so I killed two birds with one stone by roasting some of my Saturday Farmer’s Market goodies and warming up the kitchen at the same time.  

Winter squash, orchard apples and onions

This is butternut from the market and another winter squash, from my neighbor’s garden. I peeled and sliced, sprinkled generously with freshly-ground nutmeg; added a little bit of cinnamon, kosher salt and pepper. On top, I added fresh orchard apples from our outing on Sunday, and sliced sweet yellow onion. Cover and bake at 350 for about 45 min. until soft.  Two very enthusiastic thumbs-up on this one from the kids. They had seconds, and Milo had thirds.

Fingerling potatoes - on the way into the oven

While the squash was baking, I threw in some beets (of course) for a later meal in the week on the bottom rack. And I tucked this dish of heirloom fingerling potatoes on the rack next to the squash, for tonight’s dinner. I had selected about 4 different varieties from the farmer’s market, all with exotic names I forgot immediately, but those dark ones are blue. I scrubbed the potatoes, then tossed with some sliced leek, purple onion, carrot, olive oil, dried thyme and rosemary, and fresh marjoram and oregano leaves. (cover until almost done). Look at those colors, mmm.

Our kitchen is still filled with the pungent smell of pesto-making

Tom’s been harvesting the basil that Milo and I grew from seed way back in April. With the squash, we ate pesto ziti with freshly-grated Parmesan (more thumbs-up), and an unbelievably good spinach recipe, which I’ll share later this week.