An apple a day keeps the doctor away!

There’ s nothing like a beautiful Saturday afternoon to get in touch with nature’s finest fall produce. I headed out with my parents and my sisters, all in the same car, just like when we were little.  We drove out to a local orchard for an afternoon of  exterior fun!

After the apples, we stopped by a pick your own vegetables farm.

I picked up one of these great spaghetti squashes.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

I love soup! Growing up, and even to this day actually, my mom always had a large Tupperware of homemade soup in the fridge. Soup has just always been on the menu!

-    4 small packages of white Paris mushrooms, thinly sliced
-    6 tbsp of butter
-    1 onion, chopped
-    1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
-    2 tbsp of flour
-    6 cups of beef stock
-    3 tbsp of rice
-    1 branch of fresh thyme
-    Salt and pepper
-    cream, optional ( I used 15% cream but you could use a higher or lower fat content cream)


- In a large pot, cook the mushrooms in 4 batches using 1 tbsp of butter each time. Season with salt and pepper.
- Put the cooked mushrooms aside. Keep ¼ of the mushrooms apart for later use.
- Cook the  onion and garlic in the remaining butter until golden.
- Add the flour and stir well. Cook for 1 minute.
- Add the beef stock, rice, thyme and mushrooms. Season to taste.
- Cook for 15 minutes on low heat.
- Remove the thyme branch and pulse the soup in the electric blender until you obtain a creamy consistency. Add the reserved mushrooms,  (sliced and cooked).
- Add a little splash of cream just before eating.


Enjoy!

Somewhere over the rainbow

 

After a night of stormy thunder and lightning, I woke up this morning to the nicest rainbow I have ever seen.  

Tiny Yellow Plum Jam

My dad came home with a big bag of these tiny yellow plums. Home grown by one of his friends who, as a hobby, has many different fruit trees at his home.  At first sight I thought that they were yellow cherries but no, sure enough they were plums. Small, sweet and perfectly ripe.

I looked up a few jam recipes and all of them called for the same amount of sugar as fruit. The plums that I used were perfectly ripe and oh so sweet so I decided to use dramatically less sugar. From past experience, I find that cooked jams that use so much sugar are too thick to my liking. I put less than half of the sugar that was called for and the results came out perfectly. Just thick and sweet enough! 

- 4 lbs of plums
- 2 cups of water
- 3 cups of sugar

-    Wash, cut in half and remove the pits form the plums.
-    Place the halved plums in a pot with the water.
-    Cook on low heat until the plums are nice and soft, about 40 minutes.
-    Add the sugar and cook until the liquid thickens, about 1 hour.

                     Sinfully delightful on toasted crusted bread with butter!