Fall Festival: Favorite Fall Foods

I think beginning in the fall, through Christmas, is my favorite time of the year for certain foods. One is Creamed Chicken and or Turkey over biscuits. Which is what I'm making tonight.
I'm trying a different recipe this evening...but usually just use a white sauce made with a little chicken broth, add my chicken or turkey, some onion, and peas. Then I make up some Jiffy biscuits (I don't do homemade from scratch very often, because they don't turn out nearly as nice as Jiffy's mix does!), and voila...supper.

I've mentioned before that I bought pumpkin butter. That's something I look for in the fall, and not just pumpkin, but apple, pear, peach.... wonderful on whole grain bread, or on those biscuits!
I'd like to experiment and make apple butter this year. I'm getting apples this weekend.

Speaking of apples...I love making homemade apple crisp. It's lower in calories and fat than apple pie...so I make that much more frequently than pie.

Another fall favorite around here, is chili. Making it with onions and green peppers is dependent on whether or not my son is going to be around to help eat it. If he is, no veggies...poor thing just can't handle his veggies! But if he isn't around, I brown up the lean ground beef or lean ground turkey with onions and green pepper. When it's browned, I add 2 cans of diced, no salt tomatoes, 2 cans of kidney beans, chili powder, a pinch of cumin, and if I have it, some Texas seasoning from my brother and sister-in-law. Then I add a little bit of fine cornmeal to thicken it. And just to take the edge off the acidity, a pinch or two of brown sugar.

We usually serve chili with corn bread, sour cream, and low fat, shredded cheddar cheese. Yummmmm.

I would love to learn to make a real homemade pumpkin pie - I mean with fresh pumpkin. I've tried before, but it didn't set up well, at all. Got any ideas?

If you want to read other Favorite Fall food ideas...just click on my title, and it'll take you there!

Fall Traditions

Fall Traditions

Today, I spent some time enjoying one of my fall traditions. I love to go to country stores, farm markets, nurseries, and fruit farms. I especially love to find new ones - but today I went to one that is fairly new, but that I've been going to for a couple of months now.

It's called the The Covered Wagon...and it's owned by a German Baptist family, I believe.
They have lunchmeats, sausages, baked goods, pickles, relishes, jams, home grown vegetables, and now mums, and pumpkin, gourds, and squash.

Here, you can see the "covered wagons" - each little wagon has some specific group of things, ie., veggies, or snack foods, homegrown popcorn, breads...that kind of thing.

By the way, do you see the fudge on the counter to the lower right? Homemade fudge. Chocolate, Peanut Butter, snickers, Mint, Pralines and Cream, Sugar Cream, Vanilla, Chocolate Nut, and the list goes on and on...the only real danger of coming here. Thankfully, the price prevents a pig-out.

The outside looks like a very nice barn!

Here's a few of the mums, gourds, and pumpkins...but they had a whole field full of mums, and a big area filled with all kinds of pumpkins.

This picture doesn't do the pumpkin area justice...but you get an idea.

As confirmed by the sky in the above picture, it's been a dismal, humid kind of day. The kind of day that makes you want to do something instead of stay indoors looking out the window at the gloom. So since I was looking for a few pumpkins and some new jam (there's is some of the best!!), my dd and I headed on over to take part in one of our traditions.

By the way, I didn't end up with jam...but pumpkin butter! Oh, yum. We had rolls and pumpkin butter with our soup this evening.

Saturday, we're going to go on our Apple Tradition...and celebrate our 31st anniversary while we're at it.

Check in with Fall Festival tomorrow...just click on my title...it should take you there!

Fall Fun

Fall fun around our house usually entails taking short trips to find fall produce - like apples and cider. There's many places around here that sell bulk apples of all kinds, and where there's apples, there's cider! We try different places every year. I hope we'll get out in the next two weeks to do that. I love Ida Red, Gala, Jonagold, and some of the more old-fashioned types that you can only get from a farm - the stores don't carry them.

Our children are pretty much grown, so things like high school football (which was never a favorite of mine - sorry), and volleyball are not a part of our lives anymore. My dd was never into any of that stuff anyway.

I also like to pull up the dead or dying annuals, run to the market nearby and pick up some mums, and plant them to replace the annuals. Now, I love doing this - but always hope that there will be some return for the effort...as in they'll come up next year!! However, so far, that has not happened. I don't know if the squirrels get them, or there's something in our soil that poisons mums - or what, but they do not stay til next season. So I can't even show you a picture of the mums I've planted in the past!

This is the time of year all our activities at church pick up as well. Our small group started up last Sunday night. We're going to be doing a Bible study on the Names of God. We had a good time, watched a DVD on the greatness of God's creation, chatted and prayed. It's good to get back in to the swing of things with them.

We're also gearing up for Thanksgiving Baskets at church. Yes, it starts already. Our church provides 1,000 + baskets to needy families in the area. It takes a lot of planning, advertising, data processing, approvals, calling, ordering, etc. That sounds like work more than fun...however, you're spending time with friends and enjoying each other while you're working. So, it IS a fun thing to do. Who ever said volunteering had to be all work and no play?

I like to try out new recipes in the fall, too...but old ones are great standbys.
Here's one for those of you still willing to cook outside.

Hobo Hamburger Dinner

Take 1 lb ground chuck and form four patties.
Tear off 4 sheets (good size for wrapping patties with veggies) of foil.
Put the patties in the middle of your foil.
Add 1 washed and chopped potato
Add 1 - 2 washed and chopped carrots
Add onion slices if desired
Add salt and pepper to taste
Add 1 Tbs dry chicken bouillion (or beef, and or low sodium)

Wrap all that carefully into a neat packet. If your foil is very thin, you may wish to double wrap.
Place on your grill and heat for 10 minutes on one side, flip the packets (this is where wrapping securely comes in handy!) and cook for 10 more minutes. Check to make sure hamburger is done and vegetables are tender. It depends on the amount of heat from your grill, whether or not you need to increase the time to cook.

Yum!!

(If you don't want to grill out - just put these packets on a cookie sheet and bake in oven at 350 for about 35 to 45 minutes - again - checking before serving.)

Well, now I'm in the mood to set up a time to go apple hunting. So I'll call it a day. If you'd like to visit others for Tuesday's Fall festival...just click on the Fall festival picture or title at the top.

Wish I could have added some pictures - but Blogger's uploading is working too well today!

Fall Festival

Decorating!

Well, I don't do a lot...however my serving table has a stuffed turkey I made many years ago, plus a fall candle, and some orange pumpkins on it. Our kitchen table has two fall leaf votive candle holders on it as well as my usual sunflower salt and pepper shakers. I need to go out and put the Halloween costume on my goose in the three-season room, too.



Food!

Now's the time for soups and stews. Last week I made homemade vegetable soup...which my hubby and I just love along with some crusty rolls. A stew is on the menu for later this week. Stew is one that even my son will eat up..with the exception of any onions, of course.

Clothes!

I'm not sure we have a lot of change over going on yet. I may occasionally don a long-sleeved shirt, but by mid day, switch to short-sleeved. This part of Ohio goes up and down, down and up. I noticed more of the afghans are migrating their way into the living room, though. My mother has made an afghan for everyone but the dog (he's still waiting), and usually it's just mine out in the living room. Last night there were two out there...so hubby's getting into the act now, too.

Preparing the House!

Other than getting the leaves out of the gutters before winter, putting the garden to bed, and putting tools and stuff from outdoors away, we don't have much prep work to do inside. No fireplaces, none of us like flannel sheets, about the only thing I and my hubby do, is switch summer clothes for winter clothes in the closet we share.

Produce and Stockpiling!

Well, my tomatoes are about done and since I don't can...we pretty much used them as they came in. However, we purchase a 1/2 a bushel of peaches this year and I froze them. We grow raspberries - and we had a bumper crop this year, so I was able to freeze them, and I bought Michigan blueberries while I had the chance - and froze them. The one thing I didn't get to do this year was get corn to shuck and freeze. I was sorry about that one!

So that's my Monday blog for the Fall Festival of Fun, Foods and Friends!

Join others who are participating in this event at: http://hoosierhomemade.com