Fall is upon us (actually it's almost gone). One of the best things about fall is apple cider. The only way to make cider better is to make it alcoholic. The easy way is to have warm cider with a but of whiskey, but we are talking about hard cider here. And now we have two different hard cider related bits:

1. The Corner Brewery is going to finally have hard cider.

2. We are going to give making hard cider a try. I saw this article and thought that it looks easy. The plan is to do a batch of 3 gallons. We are going to pick up the cider and the couple brewing items we need this weekend, so in a few months we should have some ready for consumption.

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Bridgit brought home some a few days ago and we cooked a buttercup last night. I forgot how much I love squash. Properly prepared it is a wonderful comfort food. I usually prefer squash in the smashed form, but in cubes it is good as well.

Everyone loves butternut, but I think it is a little overrated. Buttercup is lesser known, but has wonderful nutty and smoky notes that make it great for blending into butternut.

And don't forget pumpkin! Pumpkin pie often gets a bad rap, but is one of my favorites.



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Last night I tried the Stovetop Roasted chicken from the newest Cooks Illustrated. The advantage is that cooking a whole chicken (cut into pieces) gets moist chicken with crispy skin in about a half hour. The chicken was amazing, but required way more attention then a roaster in the oven.

I enjoy fire and forget cooking. It is the best kind of fast food. throw some stuff in a crockpot turn it on and 6 hours later your dinner is ready. Putting a roaster in the oven takes 5 minutes. Then you can get the kitchen cleaned, make a salad, pay the bills, and probably some other things while the chicken cooks.

I am not ruling the process out totally, the first time with a new recipe is always a little hectic. I will give it another shot before I give up on it. It delivered as advertised and is pretty simple: sear, steam, sear. It just requires more attention but less overall time. Using pre-cut chicken would save on the prep time, but I couldn't harass my wife with the chicken carcass as I cut it up (the best part is the chickens we get have necks attached) or the noise of crunching bones.

The meal was great. We had friends over for dinner. The chicken was in a lemon herb sauce, served on rotkohl (braised red cabbage). We had fresh corn and broccoli and a brown rice pilaf to round the meal out. Dessert was pumpkin dip with apples and ginger cat cookies.

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So we have almost the full collection of Nigella Lawson cookbooks, and they really are full of good recipes. She has had a few cooking shows in the UK, some of which have made it across the pond, but they are so strange to watch. Sometimes she cooks in a nightgown with the lights all down low. The camera work combined with everything else makes it what can only be described as cooking porn.

While the show is strange, the books are amazing. Feast has a chocolate cake hall of fame; The Guiness Cake is amazing. For Bridgit's B-Day I made the Zucchini Cake from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. For valentines day I did a variation on Slut Red Raspberries in Chardonnay Jelly with blackberries and Muscat jelly. We often use her pancake mix recipe, which Bridgit modifies until it is unrecognizable.

Below are some clips from youtube.


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Who doesn't love drinking bubbly? Be it actual Champagne, Prosecco, or any of the sparklers and naturally effervescent wines out there people love popping open a bottle in celebration. I think it should be drank more often. There are a few problems though: cost, preservation, and education.



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Last night I made a Summer Corn Soup from BA and it was good, but not as good as corn chowder.

To go with it I made a tart (I have been craving pastry lately) with tomatoes, caramelized red onion, and zucchini. The tart was all I had hoped for. Then later in the evening I was reading the new BA and found an article all about what I had just made.



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