Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for early October

This is Blue Kuri squash. Blue Kuri is a winter squash, with blue-gray rind and orange-gold flesh. It's a sweet winter squash, about 2 lbs each, and round with ribbing. I love the color and think they make beautiful decor pieces. They store well, so can be left in the decor for several weeks. (Check the undersides for mold development from time to time.) I bake them with skin on, cut in half, seeds removed, then scoop out the flesh for serving. The seeds are edible, too! Roast those babies! Yum!

Thursday
*kale, cabbage, apple, bacon, date salad in a mustard dressing
*baby carrots roasted in saved chicken fat
bean burritos in homemade tortillas
*leftover apple pie

Friday
corn pudding with ham gravy (gravy from freezer)
leftover pork and beans (from freezer)
*large salad of garden veggies -- lettuce, beet greens, tomatoes, cucumber
*applesauce (from freezer)

Saturday
*turkey and garden veggie soup -- with baby carrots, Swiss chard and purple potatoes (turkey in stock from freezer)
bread and butter
*tomato wedges in dressing
*fresh pear, fig and dates
homemade brownies

Sunday
make your own pizza night -- mini pizzas with black olives, green pepper, fresh onion slices and fresh tomato slices, in addition to marinara and cheese
frozen green beans w/ almonds
brownies

Monday
oven-roasted chicken leg, smothered in leftover marinara sauce, cheese and leftover pizza toppings
brown rice, cooked with herbs
*kale, cabbage, apple, bacon, date salad (repeat from Thursday, it was that good)
brownies

Tuesday
*chicken-vegetable soup
*vegetable-cheese pizza
*rhubarb-blackberry crumble

Wednesday
*Swiss chard sauteed, with bacon
Blue Kuri squash (a winter squash)
*tomato wedges with 1000 Island dressing
bean burgers
frozen cut corn
*leftover rhubarb-blackberry crumble


*indicates part or all of this menu item came from garden or orchard

Yesterday, in the comments, Kris mentioned that her table is reflecting the season, with the various seasonal fruits and vegetables in her menus. I think we've got the same thing goin' on here in my own kitchen, between the winter squash, kale, cabbage, pears and apples.

It seems that summer fruit and veggies take center stage. But much of the autumn produce is so delicious, too. Do you have any favorite fall fruits or vegetables? Where ever you live, what says fall to you? (I'm looking forward to hearing what YHF has to say, given her location!)


Also, check out the other post, today, for an update from Sara on homemade gummy candies. In today's update, she answers some questions from the original post, concerning how well they hold up to heat, as well as freezing temperatures. Like I said, check it out!

Homemade gummy candy update from Sara

Good morning, Ladies!

Lili and I were talking some more about home-made gummy treats, and she's allowing me a little blog space to update you with some additional information which answers some questions from my original post.

Live and Learn was curious about carrying these gummies in an uncooled backpack or in a hot car situation.  We experimented some with this, and had mixed, but interesting, results.


In our experience, the gummies will travel pretty well in an ice-chest style lunchbox with ice, and moderately well in one without any ice.  As long as they were kept from getting actually "hot", ours seemed to tend to stay firm and gummy, not weep, and not lose their shape for hours... in fact, in two cases, for a couple of days.  I was quite pleased.

Previously-frozen gummies melted in the car on a hot day.

Without any sort of temperature protection, obviously, they didn't fare as well.  In a plastic bag in an un-airconditioned car during a heatwave (I'm not sure of the exact temperature in the car), a half-dozen (previously frozen) gummies almost totally melted to gooey liquid in an hour.  The fruit and fruit juice gummies had not mixed with one another, but they'd melted into one very-liquid mass.  The fruit juice gummies, probably because they were firmer to begin with/had more gelatine proportionally, melted less-completely than the ones with actual fruit; but neither was firm enough to eat with your hands. So, home-made gummies are probably not the best option for an on-the-go snack carried unprotected in a hot climate.

One of the interesting parts of this experiment, however, was that the gummies had held their shape and only gotten slightly melty for the first 45-50 minutes.  Then all the sudden they were liquid at an hour.  The first 20 minutes, I'd actually left them on the sunny dashboard. So, clearly, they can take some heat; but once they're truly too hot, they're going to melt.

Same gummies totally firm again after 20 minutes in the house
 at (not very cool) room temperature.

Even more interesting, however, was what happened when I left the bag of melted gummies on the counter in the house (maybe 75 degrees that day). I came back in 10-15 minutes to find that they had completely re-congealed!  Looking back, I could see that you might re-congeal them in cold conditions, because re-setting gelatin desserts is something most of our grandmothers/mothers knew you could do.  Still, I was very surprised that these gummies firmed up again at (warm) room temperature.  We taste-tested them, and they were not sticky or gooey.  They'd lost a little of their firmness, but were basically "gummy" again (or "jigglers" again, at the very least.)  Neato!

Also, in the original discussion, YHF wondered if home-made gummies could be frozen for later enjoyment. The answer is a resounding "yes!"  We tossed a few from the posted recipe batches into a freezer bag, and left them in the freezer for a couple of weeks.  It wasn't long enough for freezer burn or any real "long-term" damage; but since some foods seem to deteriorate (especially in consistency) from even very short-term freezing, we figured that that was a reasonable introductory test.

We were pleased and a little surprised to find that, after thawing overnight in the refrigerator, our previously-frozen gummies had absolutely no discernible change in either their taste or their consistency.  Both the fruit and fruit juice gummies came out perfect, and they lasted nicely again in the fridge (didn't seem to have any reduction in longevity of freshness) until we sacrificed the last of them to the hot car experiment.

Speaking of longevity, we were frankly amazed at how long these gummies seemed to stay perfectly fresh and wholesome in the refrigerator.  Due to some unexpected changes in plans, we did not eat them nearly as fast as we'd expected to; so the original gummies we didn't freeze must have sat more than 10 days with no noticeable change in texture or smell to indicate that it was time to throw them out.  Everyday I expected to have to, but I never felt it was necessary; and we ate each and every one with relish.  Packaged, artificially-flavored jello has never lasted that long in our house, so I have no idea how long that stays edible.  But one would expect that a product with actual juice and/or fruit, and no real "preservative" would have a more limited refrigerator life.  I'm not suggesting that you leave yours for ages in the fridge (especially since we know they can be frozen), but I did think that this was worth mentioning, at least.

Ginger-Lemon-Honey Gummies

Last, in honor of YHF and the other ginger fans in the group, our latest gummy experiment was a Ginger-Lemon-Honey flavor (only "single" ginger, though, YHF <wink>).  We erred on the side of softer gummies (a family member's preference) in adjusting to make a larger batch than the fruit juice recipe posted before; so if you want the true gumminess, I'd add another half-packet of gelatine at the very least to the amounts below.  Ours were a little more on the "jiggler" side, though still quite sturdy.  The rest of the instructions are the same, except that you may wish to strain the ginger gratings out, especially if your digestion is sensitive to the skin, and you don't peel it before grating.

We thought that these were delicious-- like the ginger broth you might drink when you have a cold.

Ginger-Lemon-Honey Gummies

Juice of 1 lemon
Water to make a total of 2 cups of liquid
1 in. section of fresh ginger root, grated finely (easier to grate, though harder on your grater, if frozen)
3 tablespoons honey

4 packets of gelatine sprinkled in 1/2 cup of room-temperature water

Heat the lemon juice, water, ginger root and honey in a small saucepan and simmer until pungent and slightly reduced.  Meanwhile, soften your gelatine in the cold/room-temperature water.  Strain the ginger liquid, and mix with softened gelatine until completely dissolved. Chill.  Set in an 8x8 square casserole, this batch made us 50 gummies (about 3/4" rounds) and lots of delicious scraps.

Best wishes, everybody!  Sara