Golden Cauliflower & Mushroom Fettuccine - Gluten-Free

It's Royal Foodie Joust time again over at the Leftover Queen's Foodie Blogroll and this month's trio of required ingredients are mushrooms, cauliflower and noodles. Sounds simple, right? Well, for me it was a stumper, since I couldn't get past all that creamy whiteness. How could I violate the basic principles of Home Economics Cookery and make a dish out of three white ingredients, much as I love them all separately?

Husband Dan saw me muttering over a pile of cookbooks and asked me what I was up to. When I relayed my culinary quandary, he immediately shot back with the brilliant suggestion to use one of those beautiful yellow-orange cauliflowers that have been cozying up to the regular white "choux fleurs" at our supermarket. It seems that plant scientists recently worked with a mutant head of cauliflower dug out of a Canadian marsh and bred a new variety of beta-carotene enriched cauliflowers that are a splendid sunny shade of yellow.

I procured the desired golden cauliflower head and that got my creative kitchen mojo working. I made up a pot of rice fettuccine and made a buttery wine sauce that got added color from some flat-leaf parsley and a handful of dried grape tomatoes that we grew in the garden, sliced and half and threw in the food dehydrator last summer. The tomatoes add a nice bit of chewiness and acidity to the sauce.The result was not only tasty but colorful and so I present to you the recipe for Golden Cauliflower and Mushroom Fettuccine:



Golden Cauliflower and Mushroom Fettuccine

4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
10 oz. mushrooms, cleaned and sliced (I used baby Portabellas)
1/2 medium head yellow-orange cauliflower
3 Tbsp. Italian parsley, finely chopped
8 Tbsp. butter (1 stick)
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/3 cup dehydrated or sun-dried tomatoes
Grated Fontina cheese to garnish
Salt and pepper to taste
1 lb. pasta
Extra-virgin olive oil

Cut out core of cauliflower and break into very small flowerets (1 inch average size). Set aside.

Heat butter in saucepan. Add garlic and cook, stirring 2 minutes, over medium-low heat. Add mushrooms, and cook another 5 minutes, stirring. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in boiling water until al dente. Drain and rinse with warm water and set aside.

Back to the mushrooms: Turn heat to high and add white wine. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium, and cook until pan juices are reduced to half, about 5 minutes. Add cauliflower and cook until crisp-tender, about 5-7 minutes. Add 2 Tbsp. of the parsley and the dried tomatoes and stir another 3-4 minutes.

Toss pasta with a little olive oil to moisten. Put into serving bowls, top with some cauliflower-mushroom sauce and garnish with remaining parsley and Fontina.

Serves 6-8.

There are already some other great Joust recipes posted on the Foodie Blogroll, so you may want to visit the Leftover Queen's Forum to investigate. Hopefully, this will inspire you to Joust along with me!

Novel Food: Snowballs for Robertson Davies

It is time for the sixth mouthwatering installment of that fun foodie event for brainy cooks, Novel Food. This quarterly blog event is co-hosted by Simona of Briciole and Lisa of A Champaign Taste and offers participants a chance to share some favorite books and the culinary creations inspired by them. In the past I have joined in Novel Food fun with a delicious Yemenite Eggplant Salad inspired by Diana Abu-Jaber's novel "Crescent" (and now am looking forward to reading Abu-Jaber's food-laced memoir "The Language of Baklava" for the second Cook the Books event).

One of my all-time favorite authors is the late Robertson Davies. I have enjoyed reading my way through his body of works, which include ghost stories, plays, literary criticism, essays about books, humor, and of course, his novels. The greatest of these is his Deptford trilogy, begun in "Fifth Business" with a young boys' snowball fight. Dunstan Ramsey uses a minister and his pregnant wife as cover from his friend/enemy Percy, and the unfortunate mother-to-be is struck in the head by a snowball with a stone center, causing brain damage to her and a difficult birth for her infant son. Throughout the remainder of this book, and the successive novels in the Deptford Trilogy, "The Manticore" and "World of Wonders", this single act follows Dunstan and the other characters, including the premature baby, for the duration of their lives.

Davies' literary works are packed with plot lines and musings on art, magic, music, psychology and philosophy, and yet they remain easy to read and get lost in. They resonate with wit and passion and I have enjoyed everything I have dipped into, even his editorial pieces from the Peterborough Examiner writing under his curmudgeonly alter-ego, Samuel Marchbanks.

To honor Davies and his wonderful writings, I fashioned some snowballs of my own, although they are of a decidedly less dangerous and more delicious nature. The oldfashioned treat, popcorn balls, are incredibly easy to make with the following recipe which I found here.



You have to work quickly and carefully to shape the popcorn balls before the mixture cools and hardens, but they are otherwise easy little snack treats to whip up and will be enjoyed by my daughters' indoor soccer team (if they last around), rechristened as Soccer Balls.

Be sure to check back with Briciole in a few days to see the roundup of a culinary-literary World of Wonders with Novel Food.

Panforte and Madeleines with Gluten Free South Africa

Sea over at the Book of Yum had a thematic Adopt-A-Gluten-Free-Blogger event to prepare recipes for the holiday table and I knew immediately who I was going to adopt: Aylena of Gluten Free South Africa. Originally from Ireland, Aylena moved to South Africa two years ago and blogs about the beautiful landscape and gluten-free restaurants, bakeries and bed-and-breakfasts in the Capetown area. And then there are those wonderful recipes for baked goods that she provides with equally enticing photographs! Her recipes are provided in metric measurements, but these are easy to convert to American measurements if you click on the Cooking Conversions link at the lower right-hand side of the Crispy Cook links section.

I was lured in originally by her panforte recipe. Panforte is a classic Italian dessert studded with lots of fruits and nuts, somewhat like a fruitcake, only without those nauseating clots of candied fruit. Aylena's recipe makes use of some non-traditional nuts and seeds, like sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and adds a tasty bit of cocoa. Based on Aylena's photo, I assumed they would be more chocolate-y than they are. Rather, this panforte version is more spicy from the ginger and makes a sophisticated sweet treat. You could make one giant panforte or make smaller panfortes for, as Aylena puts it, versions of the "original energy bar".

Aylena's recipe was easy to follow, and though I couldn't find my candy thermometer, I was able to determine when the heated syrup was ready through the old soft ball test (a drop of syrup is plopped into cold water and it can be squished between one's fingers to form a soft ball). I decided to divide my panforte into two separate batches. One was formed into small patties and baked on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and the other half was pressed into some silicon Christmas tree forms.



The Christmas trees really came out well as the syrup base of the panforte oozed into all the crevices of the silicon mold. If you go this route, though, you have to let the panforte cool completely before popping them out. These were intended as holiday gifts for some friends, but I notice that my panforte supply has been tapped by hungry members of the Crispy Cook brigade and I will have to do a better job of protecting my homemade holiday gift supply. Or make more panforte!



Thrilled with Gluten Free South Africa's panforte goodness, I decided to make a second recipe from Aylena's wonderful blog and got another hit with her Baby Marrow Madeleines. Marrows are also known as courgettes or zucchini, and I had a bag of frozen shredded zucchini from our garden which I thawed out and squeezed dry for this lovely recipe. I actually have a madeleine pan (from the Dollar Store, woo hoo!) which formed the lovely shell shape for these appetizers. We ate them with some other snacks while waiting for the main part of our Thanksgiving meal to cook. They are like mini-quiches, delectably moist and cheesy and were so easy to make.



Two stunners from Gluten Free South Africa! Thank you, Aylena! And thank you Sea for hosting this great gluten free blogging event. It is so much fun to roam around the gluten free blogosphere in search of new recipes and blogger buddies. Be sure to check back at the Book of Yum for Sea's delicious and festive roundup.

Grow Your Own #21 Roundup

I have had the honor of hosting the 21st round of Grow Your Own, an always fun, always informative food blogging event which is the brainchild of Andrea's Recipes. Grow Your Own (GYO) has grown to become a twice-monthly project "that celebrates the foods we grow or raise ourselves and the dishes we make using our homegrown products" (from Andrea's Recipes).



For GYO #21, ten home cooks around the world invited us into their kitchens and so I will take you now on a virtual tour to see what's cooking. Here's a map to see where we will be going:

On the tiny island of Hong Kong, effervescent Rita of Mochochocolata-Rita has no backyard or balcony for growing her own garden, but undaunted by a lack of real estate and by being a self-described "plant murderer" (her writing is very funny) she has taken over the care and feeding of a potted mint plant, named "mint jai", and used some of "his" carefully suntanned and watered leaves to make delectable Lamb in Creamy Coconut Milk and Mint.



Winging over to the Republic of the Philippines, we have two wonderful entries:

First up is the guest host of GYO #20, Ning of Hearth and Home, who prepared Steamed Milkfish en (Faux) Papillote using wine, tomatoes, peppers and some homegrown dill. Her recipe post provides some good points about using the freshest ingredients and sealing up the packet of fish and seasonings to let everything steam up inside for the best flavor. Check out this luscious photo:


Gay's blog, A Scientist in the Kitchen, offers another scrumptious dish from the Philippines, Inihaw na Liempo and Dill. Inihaw na Liempo is grilled pork belly, which Gay cooked up at a recent Sunday picnic in the garden. She chopped up the pork and tossed it with tomatoes, onions, soy sauce, Thai chilies, homegrown dill, and calamansi juice. Calamansis are a kind of citrus fruit grown in Southeast Asia. What a delicious combination of flavors!


From the Philippines we head west and north to arrive in the Mediterranean city of Athens, Greece, where Ivy of Kopiaste...to Greek Hospitality invites us to share some Tyrokafteri, a spicy cheese dip made with feta and Xynomyzithra, a sheep's milk cheese that her relatives from Crete made from their own flock. When there were no chili peppers to be had at the market for Ivy's traditional Tyrokafteri recipe, she improvised with harissa and roasted green bell peppers and a new recipe was born! Ivy is also organizing a new initiative to raise funds and awareness about hunger issues through Blogger Aid, so be sure to visit her site to learn more.


From Greece we trek north to Hamburg, Germany, where PG of My Kitchen Stories tempts us with Black Olive and Sage Pesto. The sage is from her garden and she used her aromatic pesto as a topping on toasted bread and mixed with zucchini, mushrooms and other ingredients for a heavenly sounding pasta dish.



On to London, England, where two food bloggers provided two seasonal entries using homegrown apples.

Abby of Eat the Right Stuff tried her hand at Apple and Lemon Curd, a favorite bread spread remembered from her childhood days. Using apples from a friends' trees and an overabundance of lemons from a supermarket order mixup (when life hands you lemons....) Abby whipped up 5 jars of curd from butter, lemons, apples, sugar and eggs. While curd is perishable and must be eaten within 4-6 weeks, she reports that only one jar was left after only three weeks, so you know this recipe must be a treat!


Jeanne is a transplant from South Africa living in London and blogging about food, gardening, travel and photography at Cook Sister!. She was also in food preservation mode and tried hot water bath canning for the first time with a batch of Spicy Green Tomato and Apple Chutney. Bravo Cook Sister! That made good use of some of the numerous green tomatoes she was tenderly rearing during a decidedly unsunny English summer.


Crossing the pond, we arrive at the southern United States and into Nashville, Tennessee, home of country music and Tamra, the food blogger author of Eat Seasonally. Tamra participates for the first time in Grow Your Own with a savory Pumpkin Coconut Soup using pumpkin and cilantro from her garden. This recipe tempted me so that I have a can of coconut milk in the pantry awaiting its marriage with a certain winter squash from our garden. Perhaps dinner tonight? Welcome to GYO Tamra and I look forward to more of your homegrown recipes.


Heading east in to Virginia, we visit our Founding Mother, Andrea of Andrea's Recipes, who used homemade vegetable broth and sage from her garden to whip up a batch of Risotto with Onions and Sage. Andrea served this elegant risotto with her Thanksgiving turkey and that must have been some feast! Making risotto is a time-consuming but not difficult cooking skill if you follow Andrea's instructions (guided by Italian kitchen goddess Marcella Hazan), but you do need patience and a strong stirring arm.


The final leg of our culinary journey takes us north to my Zone 4 garden in upstate New York. Rachel, the Crispy Cook, has only a few windburned Brussels Sprouts plants and a hardy thyme plant soldiering on. For my GYO entry I headed to the freezer, where I have several bags of frozen, blanched green soybeans. We harvested these easy-to-grow legumes from seeds we saved over the last several years and they are great steamed green and sprinkled with kosher salt in the Japanese manner, as Edamame, or tossed into stir-fries. I tried Roasted Soybeans for the first time with my GYO entry and they were delectable.



I hope you all have enjoyed this peek into the kitchens and gardens of fabulous cooks from around the world. I know I have enjoyed this armchair travel and learned a few new things about food from my other blogging buddies. Thanks to all who contributed their recipes and insights. And now off to make Tamra's Pumpkin Coconut Soup!

The next round of Grow Your Own will be hosted by Andrea herself at Andrea's Recipes, so be sure to visit to see what's in season and in the cooking pot. Andrea is looking for more guest hosts for future GYO adventures so visit her wonderful site to learn more.

Bhajis Enable My Legume Love Affair

Some time ago I discovered Jeena's Kitchen's fabulous Onion Bhaji recipe. It was an instant hit with my family and has become one of our quick and easy recipes for weekday nights. I have made these Indian oven-baked delights with various kinds of vegetables, including thawed (and squeezed out) packages of our garden string beans, diced par-boiled potatoes, blanched cauliflower and even blanched Brussels Sprout halves, and they are always winners. The vegetables get delightfully CRISPY and we make bhajis at least a couple of times a month.

Dan even made bhajis one night for supper using a jar of my pickled dilly beans thinking somehow that they were just like our frozen green beans, and while they were not great, they were edible. Their taste was how I imagine a deep-fried pickle is.

Jeena's Onion Bhaji recipe is fantastic and uses buckwheat flour and a great mix of spices. Her recipe blog, which features many other gluten-free recipes, is a great resource and has many detailed instructions and photographs to guide you along on your first go at these delicious little fritters. She has also recently added a video of this marvelous recipe so you may want to view this step-by-step instruction before you whip up your dinner.



We make our bhajis and like to accompany them with some rice, a dab of Cucumber Raita and some Apple Chutney. One batch of bhajis with these condiments makes a hearty dinner for four, but they can also be served as an appetizer or first course for more hungry mouths.

I like to make Jeena's recipe with chickpea flour, or besan, which I find at my health food store. Larger urban area grocery stores may carry this in the natural foods or Indian foods section. The buckwheat flour version is fluffier, but the chickpea flavor seems to be our favorite. We also add in chopped pickled ginger, snipped fresh cilantro or chives from the garden and substitute cumin seeds for ground cumin for a little variety.

Here's my tweaked-up version of the Jeena's Kitchen recipe using green beans and our customized seasonings. No doubt we will keep playing around with this versatile recipe. I plan to try it with shredded zucchini and summer squash and perhaps chunks of sweet potatoes. Hopefully you will love this recipe too and come up with your own special version.

Green Bean Bhajis

1 medium onion, peeled and sliced thin
2 cups blanched green beans (I use frozen green beans) squeezed dry
Olive oil

First Seasoning Mixture:

1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. cumin seeds

Second Seasoning Mixture:

2 Tbsp. pickled ginger, finely chopped
3 Tbsp. fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. salt

5 Tbsp. chickpea flour
1 tsp. tomato puree or sauce
Several Tbsp. water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil in frying pan. Add onions and saute until softened, about 4-5 minutes. Add beans and heat through, another 2-3 minutes. Add first seasoning mixture and continue to cook, stirring, another 2-3 minutes, or until spices are fragrant.

Take off stove and pour into medium-sized mixing bowl. Add chickpea flour and second seasoning mixture. Stir to coat beans and onions well. Add tomato puree and a tablespoon of water to make into a batter consistency. Add more water, a tablespoon at a time, if needed for right consistency. You don't want the bhajis to be runny, just moistened. If you think your bhaji batter is too wet, add another tablespoon of chickpea flour.

Drizzle olive oil to coat two cookie sheets. Drop about 2 Tbsp. bhaji batter onto your sheets for each bhaji. Flatten a little with spoon.

Bake 10 minutes. Remove trays, flip your bhajis so they brown evenly and return to oven for another 5-10 minutes.

Bhajis are best served right away, but for the rare occasions when we have a few leftovers, they are also good reheated in the microwave over some more rice.

Serves 4 as dinner, or more for appetizers.

This is so delicious, you will have to try it. Make sure to try Jeena's original Onion Bhaji recipe too with the buckwheat flour and her delicious spice combinations to see which you enjoy best. I know my husband pouts when I promise him a bhaji dinner and then make something else, so you know this is good!

Simona at Briciole, a wonderful food blog that offers definitions (and audio file pronunciation) of Italian culinary terms AND mouthwatering recipes, is the current host of My Legume Love Affair, which celebrates the awesomeness of the legume and is the baby of Susan over at The Well-Seasoned Cook. This Green Bean Bhaji recipe is my contribution to MLLA, which runs until tomorrow. Be sure to check back with Briciole to see a noteworthy roundup of beany recipes.

Simona is also the co-host of another event, Novel Food, which invites readers to select a novel, short story or other literary work and cook up an inspirational recipe. I have something in mind for this fun event, which runs until December 20, 2008. If you would like some more Foodie Fiction fun, be sure to check out Cook the Books, a new book club started by yours truly and two other blogger buddies, Food Junkie and Kahakai Kitchen. We are reading "La Cucina" by Lily Prior and cooking and blogging about Sicilian foods inspired by this lush and lusty novel by the December 15 deadline. Come joins us!

Thyme for Mirepoix

Thanksgiving logistics hinged on lots of aromatic and flavorful magic from sauteed carrots, celery and onion, infused with fresh leaves from my still verdant thyme plant in the garden. Making two different stuffings (bread for the kids, rice for me and Dan) and two different gravies (turkey drippings-based for the meat lovers and mushroom-based for the vegetarians) was made a whole lot easier by chopping up a whole bunch of celery (leaves and all), 6 big, scraped carrots and 3 onions, sauteeing the lot in a stick of butter and then seasoning with salt, pepper and a handful of thyme leaves stripped from their stems.

In classical French cuisine, this fragrant mix is called mirepoix (pronounced meer-pwah) and it forms the basis for many soups, stews and braised dishes. I made up a whole mess of mirepoix and then divided it into fourths to make my vegetarian vs. carnivore, kid vs. adult, celiac vs. non-celiac menu dance a little easier. The Crispy Cook didn't need to get any crispier during Thanksgiving meal prep.



For a traditional bread stuffing for the kids, I took the 1/4 of my master Mirepoix mess and mixed it in with an assortment of torn up stale bread, frozen waffles they refused to eat and subsequently lounged about for months, leftover hot dog rolls from a Labor Day cookout and a few other stale oddments of bread that I had cleverly stashed in the freezer. I then added enough vegetable broth (a la crockpot) to moisten, threw in a beaten egg and then tamped the lot into a greased baking dish and baked it 30 minutes.

Another quarter of my Mirepoix was then added to 3 cups of cooked brown rice and augmented with 10 oz. fresh mushrooms, cleaned and sliced and sauteed in butter. More veggie broth moistened it and I threw in about 2/3 cup grated Asiago cheese and that was an awesome mushroomy rice stuffing for Dan's Thanksgiving portabellas, with much more rice stuffing baked up on the side.

The rest of the Mirepoix was divided in half and each portion formed the basis for gravy. Dan's gravy was started with 2 cups of vegetable broth and a quarter of the Mirepoix in a small saucepan. I had some of those sauteed mushrooms reserved from the rice stuffing above to throw in and then I used some of the hot broth mixed with cornstarch to make a paste which I then whisked back into the boiling broth. When it was thickened, about 10 minutes later, I turned off the heat and I was done. I added a further bit of richness to his gravy by adding some wheat-free soy sauce.

The final quarter of the Master Mirepoix was mixed in with drippings from our roast turkey and the same cornstarch paste technique was applied to thicken it up. Dan's gravy had sliced mushrooms floating in it, so it was readily identifiable.

The thyme was the perfect seasoning for all of the four gravies and stuffings above: it was nicely herbal without being too overpowering or musty, like sage can be and having the fresh herbs was a treat now that the garden has largely gone into hibernation. And the Mirepoix certainly kept me delightfully sane in the Crispy kitchen when I was juggling all my family's food requirements and holiday requests. Thank you, Mirepoix!

I am submitting these tips for using thyme and mirepoix to this week's round of Weekend Herb Blogging (WHB), a food blog event that celebrates the use of herbs and unusual plant ingredients now maintained by Haalo of Cook (Almost) Anything Once. Our host for WHB #161 is Scott the Real Epicurean, a U.K. blogger who likes to focus on wild and seasonal food and sustainable foods. Be sure to check out Scott's blog, especially after November 30th, to see an always-intriguing, always-educational roundup of recipes.

Copper Pennies - Carrot-Pepper Salad with Tangy Tomato Dressing

I used to work with a fun and feisty woman, Diana, who was a terrific cook. My office mates and I would always lick our chops and surround her like saber tooth tigers when she arrived at the office bearing some home cooked treat, like her almond-scented Danish Puff, or her homemade candies. Diana was also one of the organizers of a monthly theme lunch in the main conference room which some of us would cook for and all of us would attend (we sold lunch tickets for $3 as I recall), with the year's total donated to a local nonprofit that provided needy area families with clothes and gifts for kids at the holidays. We would "adopt" a family and get the list of what items were needed and then we'd shop and bring the presents to our December lunch for a group wrap-up. Great food for a great cause and it was all so much fun.

There were never any leftovers with Diana's contributions to these monthly lunches; the bowls were scraped clean, the crockpots scoured, the tins of cookies reduced to a meager crumb or two. One of the great recipes that she shared was for Copper Pennies, a carrot and pepper salad that was bathed in a sweet and tangy tomato dressing.

I made this salad a long time ago according to Diana's recipe and it was awesome. However when I took it out the other day, I wanted to tailor it to my family's updated cooking and eating habits.


First to go was the can of tomato soup called for in the recipe. While there are probably gluten-free canned tomato soups out there, I don't want to have to read three crowded paragraphs of ingredients and frankly, I am spoiled by the taste of my own homegrown, homemade tomato sauces and soups, so I substituted tomato sauce or puree. I also slashed the amount of sugar called for in Diana's recipe by 2/3 and did a little other seasoning adjustment. The result? Still as tasty as I remember and still a winning salad dish. I think Diana would approve.

Copper Pennies

2 lbs. carrots, peeled and sliced into thin coins (a food processor works great for this)
3 green bell peppers, seeded and sliced into thin slivers
1/2 Bermuda onion, sliced thin and separated

1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1 tsp. soy sauce (check to make sure it's wheat-free)
1 cup tomato puree or sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. prepared mustard

Bring 2 quarts of salted water to a boil in a soup pot. Cook carrots until tender, but not mushy, about 5 minutes. Drain and cool.

Mix together oil, vinegar, soy sauce, tomato puree, brown sugar and mustard.

Layer carrots, onions and peppers in 2 quart serving dish (looks lovely in a clear glass bowl). Pour sauce over vegetables. Cover and refrigerate at least 8 hours to marry flavors.

This recipe keeps very well, so you can make it several days ahead of any big feast, like Thanksgving.

When your salad veggies are gone, use the remaining marinade as the basis for a Catalina style homemade salad dressing.

Allergy Mom over at The Allergic Kid is rounding up recipes in her Thanks for "Nothing" Thanksgiving that are gluten-free, vegan, and allergy-friendly, and the Copper Pennies cover all the bases. Be sure to check back with her blog for more recipes to share at your holiday feasts that would be safe for everyone to enjoy.

Grow Your Own #21 Food Blog Event Announcement

Ning of Hearth and Home has passed the torch to me as the next guest host for Andrea's Recipes great Grow Your Own blog event. This twice-monthly event celebrates recipes and informative blog posts about food that bloggers have grown themselves, foraged, fished or hunted and it is always so dazzling to see the dishes that are submitted from around the world. I will be the guest host for the 21st round of GYO from now until November 30, midnight (Eastern Standard Time), so if you would like to participate see the event rules below.

While the garden harvest is winding down in the northern hemisphere, food bloggers in the southern parts of the globe are planting and foraging spring goodies, so keep your eyes peeled for a variety of recipes about any number of interesting foods. In Ning's Grow Your Own roundup alone, there were dishes from six different countries and included such intriguing edibles as Rhubarb Schnapps, Old-School Pork Chops with Apples and Tarragon, Steamed Colocasia Rice with Coconut Gravy and Prawn Pot Pie, among others.

I have enjoyed participating in Grow Your Own over the last year with such recipes as Creamy Brussels Sprouts Soup, Dried Apples, Roasted Ambercup Squash, Roasted Rainbow Beans, Tomato Sauce (Canning), Italian Fried Peppers, Black Raspberry Parfait, and Tatsoi with Mushrooms and Indian Spices, so you can see that this event is near and dear to my culinary heart.

To join Grow Your Own #21, follow these rules from Andrea's blog:

• Make a dish that uses at least one item from your very own garden or farm and post about it. Your garden doesn’t have to be big. Container gardens are welcome! If you hunted or foraged, those items are also eligible. You can also use something that was given to you, but the giver must have personally grown or raised the item. If you paid for it, then it doesn’t count.
  
• Anything edible that you have grown or raised qualifies, including fruits, vegetables, herbs, sprouts, edible flowers, nuts, grains, legumes, dairy products, eggs, livestock, and anything else I might have forgotten. Produce from both indoor and outdoor gardens are welcome! Different regions will have different things available, so feel free to feature things unique to your area. Andrea's Recipes GYO page has archives of previous roundups to give you an idea of what kinds of recipes have been submitted before.
  
• Please make sure your dish is posted during the month of the event because we like to celebrate seasonal items. One post per blog, please.
• As a courtesy, please include a link to this announcement and this announcement in your blog post, and then update later with a link to the round-up.
• Feel free to use the GYO badge in your post or one of the other GYO badge designs which can be found on Andrea's Recipes GYO page.
• Let me know that your post is up by sending me an email by November 30 at oldsaratogabooks [AT] gmail dot com with: 1) your name and location, 2) your blog name and URL, 3) your post URL and recipe name, and 4) a photo of your creation (300 x 300 pixels or smaller).

I look forward to your posts!

Mocha Pepper Sandwich Cookies, Gluten-Free and Spicy!

Once more the Leftover Queen summons me to a Royal Foodie Joust and this time the challenge of concocting a scrumptious edible out of the required three ingredients: black pepper, honey and coffee, was really a cranium stretcher. I've never really cooked with coffee, though I love (need) to slug it down each morning.

The ingredients sounded like something from a medieval cookbook so I did a little research with my cookbook collection and online but nothing struck my fancy. Perhaps a Middle Eastern dish? Again, I was stumped with the flavor combination and it was only after taking a culinary break that I thought about the spicy, peppery holiday cookies from northern Europe, like Icelandic Piparkokur and German Pfefferneuse.

I thought coffee and black pepper needed a third major flavor partner and since chocolate is my universal go-to flavor when baking, I decided on a mocha-flavored cookie with honey sweetener. My first batch of cookies was destined for the dog, Martha, but then I remembered that dogs digest chocolate rather poorly, so I just threw it on the compost pile.

For the second round of cookie dough I got a decent tasting batch with my first tray of cookies but they did spread out too much, so I really had to concentrate when dishing out further lumps onto the greased cookie sheets so that I got the right nuggety size. The second tray also got a sprinkle of Turbinado sugar before baking, which, while not needed for sweetness, adds some dazzle.

This second batch of cookies was more toothsome than the first, but it was still a bit on the arid side, perhaps because that's how all my gluten-free baking experiments end up. However, I got the idea to make them slide down easier when mortared together with a luscious and decadent coffee frosting. I think these are pretty much cookies for grownups, as my kids thought they were a bit too spicy, but they went crazy over the frosting, so I may have to concoct a coffee-frosted cake in the near future. I and my gluten-free husband, Dan, however, really enjoyed these sophisticated cookie sandwiches. One was just enough to suffice as a sweet at the end of our dinner meal and they were also wonderful with our morning mug of coffee.


Mocha Pepper Sandwich Cookies

3-1/2 cups gluten-free flour blend (or all-purpose flour if baking for a glutenous crowd)
1 Tbsp. instant coffee
1 Tbsp. baking cocoa
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup Turbinado or raw sugar crystals

Coffee Buttercream Frosting:

4 Tbsp. butter, softened
4 Tbsp. cream cheese, softened
1 Tbsp. instant coffee
1-/12 cups powdered sugar


Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

In large mixing bowl, mix together flour, 1 tsp. instant coffee, cocoa, cinnamon, black pepper, and salt. Blend in honey, milk, oil and vanilla, mixing well. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

Grease cookie sheets and put about 1-1/2 tsp. cookie dough for each cookie, spaced about 1 inch apart. Sprinkle with Turbinado sugar crystals.

Bake 8-10 minutes. Cookies will still look a little shiny on top when they are done, but don't overbake or they will be dry as the Sahara.

Remove with spatula to wire racks to cool. When cooled completely, sandwich together with Coffee Buttercream Frosting: Blend together cream cheese and butter until completely blended and fluffy. Add second teaspoon of instant coffee and then gradually beat in powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time.

Makes 18-20 sandwich cookies, depending on your parsimony in placing the batter on the cookie sheets.

Be sure to check the Foodie Forum to see what other jousters are whipping up out of these three intriguing ingredients. It sure is an interesting challenge, and luckily for the Crispy Cook, it came out a sweet success.

The Fall Harvest Continues with Dried Apples

Putting up the fall harvest is not over for the Crispy Cook. Those apple trees in our "orchard" (backyard) are still half full of apples so I feel compelled to make use of it. Wasting food is a sin, right?

Dan was in charge of the dried apple project and came up with an easy way to make these delightful and healthful snacks. He prowled around our extensive cookbook collection and gleaned preserving tips from several sources for this fail-proof recipe.


Dried Apples

Apples
Pineapple juice, fresh or canned

Peel and core apples. We have one of those corer-slicer gadgets that also cuts the apple into eight chunky slices. Cut each slice in half and then toss into pineapple juice to cover. This keeps your apples from turning an unappetizing dark brown.

Drain (and make yourself a pitcher of pina coladas with that juice!) and place on trays of your food dehydrator. We find that it takes at least 24 hours for all the apple slices to become fully dried out for storage, but check them every 8 hours and restack trays to keep them cooking evenly.

If you don't own a food dehydrator, you can dry them in the oven on very low heat as well, but that does tie up one's oven for a long stretch. In a drier climate, apples slices threaded and hung to dry on a string are probably even easier, but the humidity and fly population in our autumn kitchen conjures up scary thoughts.

This is my submission for the latest round of Grow Your Own, founded and hosted this time by Andrea's Recipes. Grow Your Own highlights home grown and harvested food from around the world. While our Zone 4 home garden is at its ebb, be sure to check out what exotic homegrown fruits and vegetables will be featured from our Southern Hemisphere Grow Your Owners when Andrea does her roundup at the end of the month.

Soup in the Leaves

Though the nights are frosty, we have so far resisted turning on our heat and stuffing our precious wood into the fireplace because: a) we haven't cleaned out the chimneys yet, b) we are cheap, er, frugal, yeah, that's it, and c) we have plenty of sweaters and furry friends to keep us toasty at night. It is definitely soup and stew season, and I used my day off to peruse my cookbooks for a new soup recipe for "No Croutons Required", a monthly soup and salad cooking event alternately hosted by Tinned Tomatoes in Scotland and Lisa's Kitchen in Ontario. This month's challenge is to create a hearty vegetarian soup that would stand alone as a filling meal on a chilly day, and I came up with just such a soup.

Inspiration was divined by "Chef on a Shoestring", edited by Andrew Friedman (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2001) and based on the CBS Early Show feature in which top chefs produce budget-friendly meals. I was hooked on a recipe Greenwich Village chef Jeanette Maier served at her Herban Kitchen restaurant for Hearty Root Vegetable and Lentil Stew with Three Herbs. Perusal of the Crispy larder came up rootless, veggie wise, however, and I didn't have a couple of other ingredients, but with a little substitution here and there I concocted this satisfying, hearty, and vegetarian pottage:

Autumnal Peasant Soup

2 Tbsp. 0live oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. dried rosemary, crumbled
1/2 tsp. caraway seeds

12 oz. small lentils, picked over and rinsed (I used a beautiful autumn blend of brown, grey and orange lentils from my health food store. They look divine dried but all turn the same shade of brown when cooked).

1 (28 oz.) can crushed tomatoes
2 qts. vegetable stock, homemade if possible
5 small potatoes, peeled and cut into small dice
4 stalks celery, diced
3 carrots, peeled and diced (I used a small bag of baby carrots that had been hiding in the fridge and were unappealingly dessicated to eat out of hand, but were fine cooked)

1/2 head medium cabbage, chopped (next time I would chope more finely)

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed soup pot. Add onions and garlic, and cook, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes, or until onions are translucent. Add herbs and caraway seeds and cook another 2 minutes.

Add lentils, tomatoes, vegetable stock, potatoes, celery and carrots and bring to boil. Lower heat, stir, cover and simmer on low heat about 40 minutes, or until potatoes are fairly well cooked. Add cabbage, stir and cook another 10 minutes, or until cabbage is softened. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Makes 4 main dish servings, 6-8 starter servings.

This is the last day for the Hearty Vegetarian Soup No Croutons Event, so I am squeaking into eligibility, but check back on Lisa's Kitchen later in the month for a satisfying, seasonal roundup.

Double-Stuffed, Twice-Baked Acorn Squash

It's time for another Royal Foodie Joust over at the Leftover Queen's Foodie Forum. Last month's winner, Stickygooeycreamychewy, produced an intriguing Gorgonzola, Fennel and Pear Tart using the required ingredients of fennel, parsley and dairy and as part of her Joust prize, she got the honor of picking the ingredients for the October Joust: acorn squash, oranges and sage.

As usual, I was able to think of many recipe options to combine two of the ingredients, but the oranges had me stumped. I kept thinking of sweet squash options and savory squashes, but I couldn't reconcile the two until I had the idea that it might be fun to have both sweet and savory flavors cuddling next to each other in the same dish. The sculptural beauty of the acorn squash was also not to be overlooked. Aren't they sexy squashes?



So I tried out some ideas on my willing Crispy Cook guinea pig, husband Dan, and after a bit of back and forth taste testing, I ended up with two squash fillings canoodling with each other in their heart-shaped squash love nest. The rice base contains baked acorn squash, sauteed mushrooms and scallions and sage and is topped with a slightly sweet and very aromatic squash-orange puree with toasted walnuts. It's like having your dessert first and then plowing through to the main course, and the two fillings also blend nicely together on the same fork. Without further ado, here's the recipe:




Double-Stuffed, Twice-Baked Acorn Squash


2 medium acorn squashes
Olive oil

1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
Zest of one orange
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1 bunch scallions, trimmed and chopped
1/2 lb. mushrooms, trimmed and chopped
1/2 tsp. dried sage
1 cup cooked rice

Cut acorn squash in half. You'll aim for 2 equal halves, but if your cleaver aim is poor, as mine is with this roly-poly squash, you'll end up with one much larger half. That's okay, too, because I just ended up cooking all four squash halves and then scooping out the flesh of the skinny halves to use for filling the love nest.

Back to the squash. Scoop out seeds and pulp with a teaspoon and then place in a lightly oiled baking pan, cut side down. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes, until softened, but not mushy-soft. Let cool.

Scoop out flesh from acorn squash halves, making sure to leave at least 1/4 inch of flesh remaining behind to provide the superstructure for your stuffing. Divide squash flesh in half.

For the first half of the stuffing, add first part of baked squash with orange juice, orange zest, nuts, brown sugar and cinnamon. This will not be a super sweet mixture as you might be used to when making sweetened, mashed acorn squash, but later on, when this aromatic stuffing mixes with the savory second stuffing, the flavors meld beautifully.

Take the other half of your squash flesh and mash in a bowl. Heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil in a skillet and heat. Add sliced scallions and cook, stirring, until softened, about 3-4 minutes. Add chopped mushrooms, and cook, stirring, another 3-4 minutes. Add mashed squash and cooked rice and heat through. Season with sage, salt and pepper.

Stuff acorn squash halves with a base layer of the rice stuffing and then top with citrusy squash. Score with tines of a fork for a decorative top and top with sage sprig, if desired.

Place bake in 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, or until heated through.

Serves 4. (or 2 hefty servings if you hack up your squash unequally as I did).

This would make a terrific vegan entree for any holiday meal, perhaps accompanied by an herbed mushroom gravy.

Grow Your Own Squash and Roast It

It is time again for another round of Grow Your Own, a blog event started by Andrea's Recipes that features dishes cooked up by folks who harvest some of their own foodstuffs. Grow Your Own is being hosted this time by A Scientist in the Kitchen, a molecular biologist blogging from the Philippines with a passion for cooking.

There's not a whole lot of edibles left in our Zone 4 Fall garden, but Dan and I did try a new variety of winter squash this year, Ambercup, which looks like a pumpkin but cooks up like an acorn or butternut squash in flavor and texture. We didn't get too many Ambercups to harvest since we were besieged by various kinds of squash-eating beetles, but we have enjoyed a few sliced, brushed and grilled on the barbeque (they're kind of mealy, but good with a spicy condiment slathered over them) and even more tastily, grated up and roasted in the oven.


The recipe is simple and has been enjoyed by our family as a mellow side dish for hearty autumn dinners.

Roasted Ambercup Squash

1 medium ambercup squash, peeled and cut into large wedges (you can substitute other firm winter squash)
3 Tbsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp. smoked paprika
Salt and pepper to taste

Grate squash wedges on the coarse end of a box grater. Toss with olive oil, paprika and salt and pepper in 9 x 13 baking dish.

Bake at 425 degrees F for 45 minutes, stirring several times to mix in browned bits.

We have also tried this recipe with cumin instead of the smoked paprika and with steak seasoning instead of the paprika, but this version above is our favorite.

Serves 6 as a side dish or 4 as a main dish if mixed with some cooked rice and topped with some grated cheese.

Be sure to stop by the Scientist in the Kitchen's blog over the next few days to see a harvest roundup of home-grown recipes.

Gluten-Free Crackers with the Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen

Sea at the Book of Yum is once again hosting the Adopt-a-gluten-free-blogger event she founded and this time around it has a lunchbox theme. I had bookmarked a recipe for chickpea crackers on Susan's Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen blog for a long time now and this seemed like the perfect excuse to assemble the ingredients and bake some up.

Susan's blog is not not exclusively gluten-free, but she has a wide range of gluten-free recipes noted in the left-hand sidebar of her well-designed blog, from Kidney Beans in Curry Sauce to Cherry-Chocolate Mousse Pie. She's a Mississippi resident whose popular blog provides a wealth of healthy, low-fat or fat-free vegan meal ideas that are perfect for planning meatless menus. Her photography is impeccable and every recipe typically gets added to my heap of TBC (To Be Cooked) bookmarks folder. Even if you are not vegan or vegetarian you are sure to be tempted by many of these delicious recipes.

I had never tried making crackers, gluten-free or otherwise, but Susan's post inspired me to grab another bag of chickpea flour and nutritional yeast from my local health food store and cook up some of these wafers. While Dan has appreciated having the almond-based Nut Thins crackers for a safe snack cracker, he was hankering for some variety in CRISPY edibles, so I took on this project.

Cracker making was surprisingly easy. I had thought that rolling out the cracker dough to 1/8 inch thickness would be a feat, but the dough worked well as long as I kept sprinkling white rice flour on my counter and rolling pin. If anything, I think I made some of the crackers too thin and they and their smoked paprika topping came just shy of being overdone. I used a one-inch wide heart-shaped cookie cutter to make the crackers, but as Susan notes in her recipe, you could even more easily cut them into squares.

We paired our crackers with hummus and cheese and they were a welcome addition to our gluten-free recipe file. Thank you Susan! And thanks to Sea for this fun blog event which always inspires me to break out of the weekly recipe rut and try something new.

Be sure to check out the Lunchbox Roundup at the Book of Yum after October 13th, when this Adopt-a-gluten-free-blogger round ends for some more portable food ideas. Gluten-free, of course!

Novel Food: Yemenite Eggplant Salad

Simona of Briciole, a foodie blog that illustrates Italian culinary terms and Lisa of Champaign Taste in Illinois had the brilliant idea to start a quarterly food blog event based on the delicious inspiration found in books. Novel Food is now in its fifth round and after perusing past roundups that beckoned with Italian murder mysteries by Magdalen Nabb, Donna Leon and Andrea Camilleri, Turkish Delight inspired by the White Queen in C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe", and artichoke dip inspired by Rebecca Wells' "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood", I was lured to my bookshelves to find something to read and then cook from.

I recently posted a list of foodie fiction titles (which I have moved here to my other Crispy Cook 2 blog so I can keep updating it frequently) and decided to read Diana Abu-Jaber's second novel, "Crescent" (NY: W.W. Norton, 2003). The book is a beautifully woven tale about an Iraq-American woman who is the chef at a Lebanese restaurant in Los Angeles that feeds a pan-Arab contingent of homesick students, professors and locals. She starts a romance with a haunted Iraqi professor of Arab literature that pulses between strong undercurrents of emotion for their respective families, their love for each other and their personal identities. Throw in spicy restaurant and kitchen scenes and it's a winner all the way through.

"Crescent" inspired me to look up some Arab recipes and I settled on a Yemenite Eggplant Salad that I found on Ashbury's Aubergines website. This purple website is all eggplants, all the time, and at last count had 3,116 eggplant recipes to peruse. The photo below shows only a small remnant of the salad and zhoug condiment that was left when I managed to pry away the bowl from my hubby, who tells me that this is one of My Top Five Best Recipes. Whoa! He ate the eggplant salad in a double dinner that night, first on top of leftover GF pasta, followed by heated up rice. I liked it on salad with more fresh garden tomatoes cut up in it.

The zhoug is like a parsley-hot pepper-cilantro pesto and was not as hot as I had thought it might be, so I would add the full amount of hot peppers next time (I was a chicken and only used two jalapenos). It was delightful swirled into the smoky eggplant salad, which was sort of a punched up version of Babba Gannoush. We also smeared it onto sauteed tofu cubes for another winning supper.



There is still time to enter Novel Food if you feel like poking into a good book and cooking up something wonderful. The event runs until September 20th so be sure to check in with Simona or Lisa at the links above to find out how to participate.

Happy Reading and Eating!

GAHIGF Seasonal Vegetables Roundup

While Straight into Bed Cakefree and Dried Naomi, the Founder of the Go Ahead, Honey, It's Gluten Free, takes stock after a holiday in France, I am pleased as guest host to offer a roundup of colorful vegetable recipes. The theme for this round of GAHIGF was Seasonal Vegetables (fruits also cheerfully accepted). We had fifteen participants, all of whom made a rainbow of gorgeous, healthy, gluten-free treats which I now present for your delectation, arranged according to color.

PURPLE

Jai and Bee of the vegetarian food blog Jugalbandi produced beautiful purple potato crisps in the microwave.


Ivy from Athens, Greece, maintains the food blog Kopiaste, with lots of great Greek, Cypriot and from-scratch recipes. She contributed Spicy Baked Eggplants.



RED

Karen, the Gluten-Free Sox Fan, consulted with Marcella Hazan and whipped up a batch of Home-Made Tomato Sauce from her own tomatoes and basil.


Cheryl at Gluten-Free Goodness also made use of an abundance of homegrown tomatoes with Roasted Tomato and Caramelized Onion Soup.


ORANGE

Naomi of Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried found time for her blog baby and made a Velvet Squash Soup and Bread from one sexy looking squash.


SPEAKING OF SEXY VEGETABLES......

Vittoria of Deliciously GF, made an entire week's menu from seasonal offerings found at her New York City farmer's market which you can check out here.


YELLOW

Lauren in New Brunswick, Canada of Harmless FOMA, a vegan blog, used some sexy veggies as well in her Creamy Roasted Garlic, Chanterelle and Cauliflower Soup with Chanterelle Croutons.



Kimi at The Nourishing Gourmet provided a tasty batch of Grilled Corn.



Here at the Crispy Cook, I plucked a cauliflower from the garden and made a Cauliflower and Mushroom Saute.


GREEN

Mansi at the Fun and Food Cafe provided a beautiful Healthy Avocado Smoothie.



Divya from ..And a Little Bit More prepared a tasty Soybean and Green Pepper Fried Rice for us to drool over.



In Tampa, Florida, Allergy Mom at The Allergic Kid tackled an armload of cukes to make Marinated Cucumbers.



Oakley from the Portland, Oregon food blog, Lemon Basil, scoured the farmers' market for her ingredients for Local Fingerling, Edamame, and Goat Cheese Salad with Asian Vinaigrette.

BROWN

Chicagoan Joelen of Joelen's Culinary Adventures played around with some spices and vegetables to come up with Spiced Turkey Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms.



Scrumptious explores her weekly vegetable goodies in her CSA(Community Supported Agriculture) box in her blog In My Box. For the GAHIGF event, she took potatoes, zucchini and tomatoes and made a lovely, and undoubtedly SCRUMPTIOUS Summer Bounty Gratin.


Thanks to all the participating cooks and to Naomi for coming up with this fun blog event to showcase the deliciousness of gluten-free cooking. What an inspiring rainbow of vegetable dishes: all beautifully prepared and photographed and naturally gluten-free. Time to gather up some veggies and cook!

Go Ahead, Honey, it's Cauliflower!

The garden continues to pump out an astonishing amount of produce, which Dan and the girls and I are valiantly trying to eat, give away or preserve for the winter like a bunch of crazed squirrels. The latest produce to pop are some beautiful heads of cauliflower. I've tried growing cauliflower before, but been skunked by bad soil or growing conditions, but now I've got lots of lovely yellowish heads of cauliflower to play with. If I had been vigilant and tied up the leaves over their heads they would have been snowier white, but I don't mind little yellowing of my cauliflowers.


Naomi, of Straight into Bed Cakefree and Dried, the founder of the Go Ahead, Honey, It's Gluten-Free blog event, is off on holiday, so I am this month's host for that fun cooking event. The theme for this round of GAHIGF is "Seasonal Vegetables", so I came up with a delicate mushroomy saute to feature my beautiful cauliflower bounty as my contribution:


Cauliflower and Mushroom Saute

1 big head of cauliflower, separated into small flowerets
1 large onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
1/2 lb. mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
2 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Steam cauliflower flowerets in lightly salted water until crisp-tender, about 7-10 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Heat olive oil in large skillet. Add onions, and saute until softened, about 4 minutes. Add mushrooms and continue cooking, stirring often, another 4 minutes. Add cauliflower flowerets, salt, pepper and nutmeg and cook another couple of minutes, until heated through.

This delicate dish is lovely served over rice or GF egg noodles.

Serves 4-6.

The Seasonal Veggies Round of Go Ahead, Honey, It's Gluten-Free, continues through Sept. 7th, so feel free to join in the fun until then. There are already a colorful array of veggie entries that will tempt you all, I'm sure. The details for submitting an entry in this foodie blog event are found here. I believe Naomi is also looking for a guest host for the next round of GAHIGF, so feel free to contact her if you are interested.

Back to harvest....

Canning Spicy Salsa

Yesterday was a gorgeous and warm summer day, perfect for visiting the Washington County Fair on its last day. We saw crazy crested chickens, lop-eared goats, prize-winning pumpkins and sampled lots of great maple syrup treats. Not to mention the people watching!

The highlight for me was talking to some of the farmers and young kids exhibiting their prize animals and of course, checking out the blue-ribbon preserves. I grabbed up a leaflet from a Master Gardener at the Agricultural Extension booth about canning tomatoes and was inspired to keep chipping away at my tomato harvest with some Spicy Salsa. I kicked up the heat in the recipe with a can of smoky chipotles in adobo sauce and now I have four quarts of summer gold for winter meals.

Smoky Chipotle Salsa

7 lbs. tomatoes
1 lb. hot peppers, seeded and chopped
1 lb. sweet peppers, seeded and chopped
1 lb. onions, chopped
1 (7 oz.) can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1 cup cider vinegar
1 Tbsp. pickling salt

Bring a pot of water to boil and dip tomatoes in pot, several at a time, for 1 minute. Remove with slotted spoon and plunge into cold water. Slip off skins, core and chop coarsely.

Place all ingredients in large kettle and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Ladle hot salsa into hot, sterilized jars and fill up, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Add lids and screw on rings to seal. Place in boiling hot water bath and process 20 minutes.

Makes 4 Quarts.

I am submitting this bold, red recipe to the "Food in Colours" food blog event sponsored by Tongue Ticklers. The featured color is RED, so this salsa fits the bill nicely. There is still time to submit a red vegetarian food entry (the deadline is August 27th) so if red is your color, check it out!