Autumn: Root Vegetables and Love!

Oh Autumn, I love you! I love the crunchy leaves falling in the yard. I love wearing a hoodie to walk the dog. And I love snuggling in with cozy dinners as the sun sets way too early. Root vegetables fit right in! Tonight we roasted a juicy Bell & Evans chicken over CSA onions, potatoes, and carrots.

You'll notice the makeshift roasting pan (a baking pan and a rack), which was a last minute attempt (successful) to save dinner. Unfortunately, the delightful gorgeous roasting pan we purchased this summer (below) doesn't actually fit into our slightly-smaller-than-standard ovens.

Preparation was pretty straightforward. Ina Garten offers a lovely recipe that I modified slightly to include a couple of pounds of our CSA potatoes. Inside the chicken resides a whole lemon, half a head of garlic, a big bunch of thyme and salt and pepper. I brushed the skin with butter and added salt and pepper for flavor and the result was one of the tastiest chickens I've ever roasted!

A co-worker and her husband were kind enough to sample the dinner, along with a big bowl of CSA greens, and a basic starter of tomato jam, goat cheese and prosciutto. L created the perfect pre-dinner bite!

We finished up with bowls of homemade bittersweet chocolate ice cream - again slightly adapted by replacing four ounces of bittersweet chocolate with unsweetened chocolate and replacing the milk with soy milk (because our cow's milk was off). DELICIOUS!

Tomato Jam (with Goat Cheese)

As I've mentioned here before, we end up with what feels like 52 pounds of tomatoes every week, these days, and I am always searching for a new way to love them and make them scrumptious. After tasting some amazing tomato jam at the Imperial Hotel I decided that would be my next project. Where to find a recipe? Luckily, our real estate-agent-now-friend Marian offered up two great recipes for me to choose from. One called for Green Zebras, of which I had two pounds, so we were off to the races.

Tomato jams seem to fall into two categories - very, very sweet or slightly sweet and savory. I chose a recipe that looked like it had a savory component as more suited to our table. This particular recipe intrigued me with its mix of garlic, cumin, ginger and cinnamon (and of course sugar and honey).

After much dicing, grating, measuring and stirring I ended up with a pot full of fragrant, bubbling tomatoes.

It took a little more than 40 minutes of simmering with the occasional stir to end up with remarkably tasty jam that pairs terrifically with a milder chevre and some water crackers! And... I randomly met another tomato jam fan at brunch yesterday who received the smaller jar to take home as a prize!

Recipe after the jump...

Birthday Surprise!

My SIL is with us from Brooklyn this weekend and we are so glad to see her! She came bearing (birthday) gifts to spark my creativity, and I am very much looking forward to putting them to good use, such as here, here, and here.

Thanks, Ellen!