In Season & Fresh from the Garden, the Fields, the Orchards & the Woods
Continuing our series of Roast Chicken on Sunday means easy tasty meals for the week… This is day 4 and we are using the remaining Day 2’s Chicken Tomatillo Soup of which we made a big batch. With the help of onions, potatoes and corn, …
I love visiting other people’s gardens and tasting food they cook from their garden. So when I went to visit Pat D.’s garden in Castleton, VA, I was in for a treat. She asked me to stay for lunch, and served a most intriguing Tomatillo …
The season is changing: I can taste it in the air. The nights are getting cool yet the days are still warm. The daylight hours are shortening; the light is mellowing; the air is crisper. The leaves on the trees are subtly goldening – soon to burnish or russet. The dew sparkles again in the early morning grass; soon there will be mist in the morning. Soon the geese will honk overhead, soon birds will gather to go south.
The colchicums raise up their rosy goblets to the sky; the cyclamens nod gently. The bees are buzzing in the goldenrods and the asters – their last chance to gather nectar and pollen in quantity before frost does away with the flowers.
Golden-fingered Autumn is here.
Lots to do in the garden, from transplanting the lettuces and the kales, to bundling the cardoons for blanching, from sowing the rocket-salad to digging the potatoes. And…weeding – always – and picking, picking, picking: peppers, okras, tomatoes, tomatillos, carrots, beets, the late corn and the last of the green beans. Tomato fatigue has settled. But with cool nights, it’s time again for warm soups! It’s time to reawaken those taste buds to the goodness of tomatoes with a mellow Early Fall Tomato Soup that’s perfect for a light dinner on a cool night, maybe with toasted bread and blue cheese, followed by poached pears or an upside-down apple cake. Or for lunch with a grilled cheese sandwich.
