Monday, November 23, 2009

I noticed Cider Hill Farm is now following me on Twitter


I have made an addition to my valuable links section. I added Cider Hill Farms. What an oversight!



My wife, some friends, and I went apple picking at the farm in October and we had a great time. With all of the apples we picked, we made "Halloween Party Apple Crisp."



Cider Hill also has the best cider donuts and cider around. Come September, my palate usually changes and I switch from my summertime favorite, lemonade, to my fall favorite, apple cider.


Cider Hill Farm uses some windpower, as well as a large amount of their own compost, making them an eco friendly local source of fruits and vegetables. Go check out their site and their store. I think their last day of the season is the wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Pumpkins are good more for than just carving

I wish I had my own photos for this. Sorry for having a lame text-centric blog.

Black Bean and Pumpkin Soup

2-3 tbs olive oil
1 sugar pumpkin
2 leeks
4 cups chicken stock
1 dried (or fresh) chipotle pepper
3 tbs cilantro
2 15 oz. cans of black beans
salt
pepper
couple shakes of cumin
toasted pumpkin seeds (recipe below)
sour cream

Peel and coarsely chop the pumpkin. Dice the leeks. Add olive oil into a big pot and heat. Toss in pumpkin and leeks and saute for 5-10 minutes. Add chicken stock, chopped cilantro, cumin, and diced chipotle pepper. Raise heat to bring to a boil and then lower the heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until pumpkin is soft.

When pumpkin is soft, add about 2/3 of a can of black beans. Use an immersion blender and puree. Use more or less beans until you get your desired thickness. Then add the rest of the beans and simmer until heated through. Add final dashes of salt and pepper.

Serve in a soup bowl and garnish with toasted pumpkin seeds and sour cream.



Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Preheat oven to 400.
Pull seeds out of pumpkin and wash clean with water.
Add salt to a pot of water and boil seeds for ten minutes.
Remove from brine mixture and lay on a pan.
Coat in olive oil.
Toast until brown (10-15) minutes.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Another Salsa

We got some tomatillos and long red peppers from a friend of a friend. I didn't know that we could grow tomatillos up here, but we can, apparently. Here's a nice recipe for a simple salsa.


Tomatillo Salsa

20 tomatillos
1 garlic glove
1 small red onion
4 long red peppers
2 jalapeno peppers
salt

Preheat oven by turning to broil. Char the peppers. In the meantime, add the garlic, onion, and peeled tomatillos to the food processor. Pulse a few times.

When the peppers are black, seed them and put them into the food processor. Add generous pinches of salt. Pulse until the salsa reaches the consistency you like.


Da duh. Da duh. Da duh...salsa shark.
We're going to need a bigger boat!
Man goes into cage.
Cage goes into salsa.
Shark's in the salsa - our shark.

link

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Guacamole

One of my favorite dips is Guacamole. Easy to make - few ingredients - and it tastes great. Bag a bag of Chips and indulge. Don't wait for Superbowl Sunday.

Guacamole

3 avocados
2 small red onions
2 tomatoes
1 jalapeno pepper
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt

I like a smoother Guacamole so I put the onions, lemon juice, jalapeno pepper, and avocados in the food processor first and give it a couple pulses. Then add the tomatoes and salt and pulse and a few more times. Good luck - don't add to many onions or you'll end up sleeping alone.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Jalapeno Poppers

I just made myself a jalapeno and cheddar Quesedilla for dinner. Now my forehead is sweating, my lips are burning, and my mouth has yet to stop burning. I did drink a glass of milk confirmed by the Mythbusters team to help hot pepper pain.

But I gave me an idea, maybe I should post a recipe of my favorite jalapeno popper, not fried but grilled. So I searched the web a bit, and realized that I am feeling quite lazy today, and really don't want to type any more. But I found a great blog. Check out the link to Armida's Jalapeno Poppers.

Here's the unemployed guy in the ruins of a 20th century millionaire's castle in Methuen, MA. I had never gone to this city park when I lived in town.