What we’ve been up to the past month and a bit

Once fall rolls around, we seem to completely change our daily menu. Soups are more prevalent, as are soups and stews. We still had a bit of canning/preserving to get finished up. This year we left it too long and didn’t have access to our lovely local peaches (from Niagara), so we had to use others to make my wife’s terrific mango and peach chutney. That’s now completed and ready to enjoy. This year’s batch we made slightly hotter than in previous years. It’s lovely. We also experimented with pickled beets, which, while good, are probably going to need to be tweaked in the recipe department.

Once the basement cools off (below 60°F), we can begin our yearly meat curing. Up to now that’s included guanciale (hog jowl), pancetta (pork belly) and lonzino (boneless pork loin). We’re getting close which is a good thing. We have only one chunk (a half jowl’s worth) of guanciale left, 3 small packages of lonzino, and we’re pretty good for pancetta at the moment. This year, we’re also going to make some bresaola (cured dried beef) and maybe some duck proscuitto. (Update: the basement is now below 50° and things are looking positive so the first things we’re going to make is lonzino because we ate all that we made last year!)

Soups are also on the menu (we love soup around here) and the nice thing about soup is you can easily make enough in one go to enjoy it for several meals. It’s also an easy thing to take to work. Look for the soup maven around here (Vicki) to share some more of her terrific recipes: Pasta e Fagioli, Pumpkin, Manhattan Clam Chowder, French Canadian Pea Soup, and more. If you enjoy homemade soup, over the next few months, you’ll get your fill!

We also have a number of great stew recipes, and what’s better on a very cold night than a warming stew. We’ve shared a few of them, but there are many more to come. Look forward to Chicken Cacciatore, Ysgyryd Fawr Sausage Stew, Greek Stew, Chicken Stew, Brasso Steak, Pork Paprikash, Beef Short Ribs and even Cassoulet.

Finally, A Man for All Seasonings is not just about sharing food recipes. It’s also about the current state of farming, the food industry, and our food supply. I have a number of posts underway about all of these topics and they will be shared as soon as I’ve completed my research.

So while I’ve been very busy with my newly-released novel over the past month, I haven’t forgotten my food blog. Stay tuned for more!