autumn

With the first frosts we know autumn is officially here. I spent some time today picking the remaining ripe tomatoes. In the past we have also picked greenies to ripen in an out-of-the-way place. One memorable year I believe we began (unintentionally) making tomato wine in a box in our basement. Let's just say I wouldn't have used those tomatoes in anything I wanted to feed to my family.

So I harvested several tomatoes (only the ripe ones this year), some sage, marjoram, parsely, carrots and kale. Many of these would fare well through a light frost, but I was doing a bit of cooking today, so I took them. And one of the many things I made today was a batch of roasted tomato and vegetable sauce from a recipe sent to me by a friend. She found it on another blog titled An Oregon Cottage. It's a lovely sauce and sooo easy to make. I had to take this photo before I put it in the oven. Gorgeous.

Roasted it at 400 for about 45 minutes. Secret ingredient is balsamic vinegar. Things got a bit crazy in the kitchen after this, so I forgot to get an after photo--but it is all in my freezer waiting for a cold winter day to be consumed on some pasta with a delicious parmesan cheese. Yummy, yum, yum.

The first cold night also requires our masonry heater to be stoked. HE cleaned out the chimney today to get it ready for the season and then we fired it up tonight. It typically "sweats" a bit the first few times we use it--or at least it did the last 2 years, so it's a good idea to start with a few smaller fires initially. Whether it was the ambiance or the music, we had children dancing around the living room...

...coulda been that it was a sleep-over.....