Fall Picnic

Is it just me or did fall completely sneak up on us? We had plans all summer to go camping, but between the fires and the rains and selling our house we never did make it. With one of my favorite holidays, Columbus Day, approaching, it felt like the perfect weekend for a fall getaway. We had hoped to go camping in the Jemez mountains, but thanks to our elected officials' refusal to agree about anything even National Parks and campsites are shutdown! Well we decided we won't let them shutdown our fall excursion entirely and decided to just take a day trip and picnic instead.

 

At some point we had also stopped at this beautiful winery for a tasting

 

 

 

One of my favorite parts of fall is all the delicious fresh harvest food. I've also been in the mood for some soups and other cozy, comfort foods. When planning our menu I wanted to find delicious fall recipes that took advantage of all the wonderful freshness of the season that could also be easily transported and fairly light. We also had a Fall Harvest Feast with Vicki and Johnny on Saturday.  Here's what I came up with:

Fall Harvest Dinner Menu:
Shallot, Mushroom, and Goat Cheese Flatbread
Butternut Bisque
Grilled Chicken with Lemon, White Wine, and Rosemary
Garden Salad
Four Cheese "Grown Up" Macaroni
Green Chili Apple Pie

Picnic Menu:

Ham, Cheddar, and Apple Sandwiches on Croissant with Confit D' Oignon

Oven-Roasted Mushroom Soup

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies (Joel loves these anytime)

and Pinot Noir to drink, which should pair nicely with the Confit D' Oignon and really bring out the flavors of the mushrooms

 

Here are the recipes!

Shallot, Mushroom, and Goat Cheese Flatbread
1-2 Shallots
More than one half of mushroom carton-baby portabellas or other gourmet mushroom
2-3 green onions
Sprinkling of goat cheese
Olive Oil
1-2 tsp minced garlic
Salt
Pepper
Pillsbury pizza dough

Arrange all ingredients on rolled out pizza dough. This would be good really with a variety of other toppings, chicken, roasted bell peppers, or you could use a flavored olive oil instead of regular, or more spices such as rosemary or thyme. As my guests had already arrived I didn't want to spend too much time cooking but this could probably be made and/or prepped ahead of time. Bake at 400 12-14 minutes.

Butternut Bisque

1/2 container of butternut squash (I used the packaged container of pre-cut cubes from Costco)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 shallots, minced
2-3 cloves garlic
2 c. chicken broth
1/2 c. water
1/2 c. cream or half and half
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper or more to taste
pomegranate seeds
goat cheese

Heat oven to 400. Arrange squash on baking sheet, sprinkle with olive oil, a dash of salt, pepper, and sage. Bake 25 minutes.
Saute olive oil, onions, and garlic in dutch oven or large pot. Caramelize about 10 minutes.
Puree the squash in a food processor or blender, mix with chicken broth as needed to help puree.
Add the remaining chicken broth, water, puree, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to maintain a simmer until slightly thickened, about 10 minutes.

I had made all of this in the morning, and at this point I put the soup away and re-heated it right before serving.

Re-heat and add cream, stir. Garnish with cayenne, pomegranate, and goat cheese.


Grilled Chicken with Lemon, White Wine, and Rosemary
We used breasts and thighs from Kellers, which were super fresh and I could definitely taste the difference from the traditional store bought chicken. I marinated it for about 5 hours in 1/2 c olive oil, 1/4 c. dry white wine (I used a cheap Pinot Gris), juice of 1/2 lemon, 1 1/2 tsp rosemary, 1 1/2 tsp thyme, salt and pepper. The grill masters Joel and Johnny cooked for a total of about 25 minutes.

Four Cheese "Grown Up" Macaroni
I don't use a standard recipe for this other than the one I modified from Pinterest, since I've found that many recipes are too much for just two people. This way I modify for how many people I'm cooking for.

Fill a small sauce pan half full with milk. Simmer macaroni or other pasta noodle for about 25 minutes until noodles are soft.  Slightly reduce heat and add cheeses of your choice, I used medium cheddar, sharp white cheddar, Gouda, and Parmesan. Add more cheese or milk depending on how creamy you like it. Season with salt, pepper, and paprika.

Green Chili Apple Pie
I tend to use any basic apple pie recipe: granny smith apples, white and brown sugar, cornstarch, Cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. The green chili is what I think makes it really special. My guests seemed super impressed thinking that a pie was difficult to make, but preparing the apples in advance cut down on a lot of the prep time. I believe shortening based crusts are far superior to butter based crusts, and I think they are easier to make. I used a pizza cutter to make the rows for the lattice crust, which was actually easier than placing a whole crust on top, prettier, and healthier.

I prepared the apples a day in advance, so all I had to do the day of the party was make the crust. They had plenty of time to absorb all the appley-goodness! (I added the green chili right before baking. Marinating it with the chili might have been too spicy.)

 

 

Ham, Cheddar, and Apple Sandwiches on Croissant with Con fit d' Oignon

Assemble sandwich with your choice of deli meats and cheese, the sharp cheddar paired wonderfully with the apples. I think a white cheddar would be good too. We used Granny Smith but any fall apple would probably be delicious. The combinations of the onion con fit and the apples with the Pinot Noir paired perfectly. We also had a few apples leftover to snack on as a side.

 

Oven Roasted Mushroom Soup

Adapted from Country Living

Serves: 4

Yields: 7 cups

 

1/3 c. olive oil

3 pounds mixed gourmet mushrooms, shiitake, cremini, baby portebella, etc, stems discarded and caps roughly chopped into large pieces

1 cranks of sea salt, or about 3/4 tsp.

2-3 cranks of course ground pepper, or about 3/4 tsp.

1/2 c. finely chopped shallots

3/4 c. white wine

3 c. low sodium chicken broth

1 1/2 tsp thyme

3-4 tbsp heavy cream

 

Roast the mushrooms: Heat oven to 400, place olive oil in a large nonstick roasting pan. Add the mushrooms and salt and pepper. Roast on lowest shelf for 20 minutes. Add the shallots, stir, and cook for 10 more minutes.  Remove about 1 1/2 c of the mushrooms, set aside.

 

Make the soup: Remove the roasting pan and pour in the wine; stir, scraping the browned bits from the bottom of the roasting pan. Add the chicken broth, 1/2 c water, and thyme. Return pan to oven and cook about 20 more minutes.

 

Remove the remaining mushrooms and puree with 1/4 c of the soup in a blender. Stir the puree and cream into the soup. Stir in remaining mushrooms and pour into thermos.

 

French Onion Marmalade - Con fit D' Oignon

I found this marmalade in a recipe on a blog paired with the cheese and apple sandwiches. It is a french condiment that they often use with meats or  as a spread for sandwiches, breads, and appetizers. I'm thinking this may also be great as part of a cheese platter.

3 large red onions, peeled, cut in half, and thinly sliced*
1/2 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon coarse or sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper
2 bay leaves
2 rosemary sprigs
2 tablespoons soft brown sugar (you can add more or less according to your taste)
1/3 cup dry red wine
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/8 cup good-quality Balsamic Vinegar

* You can use any large onion variety that you desire. If you use a white onion, use white wine and white wine vinegar. I only used one onion because 3 sounded like a lot. Total cooking time for this recipe was about 2 hours, so if you are going to make it, making it in a big batch makes the most sense. (Although it took 2 hours you could easily do other things while the onions are cooking. I'm still adjusting to cooking on gas so I was worried the onions would burn.)

Cut off the stem and root ends of the onions, then halve then lengthwise, and peel away the dried skin. Cut the onions into 1/4-inch slices. It is important to have all the onion slices roughly the same size so they cook evenly. At this point, your pot will be full of sliced onions, but the onions will wilt and shrink dramatically during the cooking process.

In a large heavy frying pan over medium heat, heat up the olive oil. Add the sliced onions, tossing around to make sure they all have a coating of olive oil. Reduce heat to mediums and cook, covered, until the onions start to color. Add the salt, pepper, bay leaves, and rosemary. Cook, stirring occasionally, an additional 20 to 30 minutes or until the herbs have wilted.

Add the brown sugar, wine, and wine vinegar. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly; then lower the heat to low and let simmer for approximately 20 to 30 minutes until the liquid is dissolved and the onions are soft and sticky. NOTE: Stir constantly during this process so that the onions do not stick to the bottom of the pan and become burnt.

Remove the rosemary and bay leaves; discard. I didn't have bay leaves or fresh rosemary, I used about 1 tsp of rosemary and left it in the onions.

The Onion Marmalade is now ready to serve and eat, but it only gets better if left to mellow at least 2 weeks, even better after 1 to 2 months. The onion marmalade will keep for up to 6 months if immediately poured into sterilized glass preserving jars and then sealed or for up to three (3) days in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

To sterilize the jars I put the jars in water and heated it to boiling, boil for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and add lids and tongs, leave in at least 10 minutes.

One jar at a time, ladle the hot prepared jam into the hot, sterilized jars. Fill to within 1/8 inch of top of jar. Wipe rim of jar or glass with a clean damp cloth. Immediately place a hot lid and ring on top of the jar; tightly screw the ring on the jar.

 

 White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

Nothing fancy here, I just used the recipe on the back of the white chocolate. I think the secret to these is using the white chocolate chunks instead of chips, especially for a white-chocoholic like Joel.

Here's some pics from the forest area north of Santa Fe. We missed the trees at their peak but it was still nice to get away.