From the category archives:

Recipes for Fall

Baby Barmbracks with Sherry

by Laura 9 May 2012
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My Honey Girl and I spent the first week of April together in Ireland.  Beneath a cornflower blue sky and tucked into the soft Connemara mountains, celadon in sunlight, black in shadow, we settled into the Cashel House where Mrs. McEvilly and her soft-spoken staff surrounded us with their incomparable care, tucking hot water bottles [...]

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Five-minute Cranberry Schmutz

by Laura 14 December 2011
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Alongside a Thanksgiving or Christmas turkey or smeared on sandwiches, this five-minute, four-ingredient cranberry schmutz is a little tart, a little sweet, and exactly perfect.  I’m putting a little on a pumpkin muffin for breakfast, too.  If there were ever a reason to stop sliding that factory cranberry sludge out of a can, this is [...]

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Seriously Simple Apple Tart with Hot Buttered Rum Raisin Sauce

by Laura 12 December 2011
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Oh my, this is good.  Our Honey Girl’s dear friend from college, Vickie, wrote to me to ask if I could suggest a recipe or two to use up apples that she had picked this fall at an orchard.  After a little dance of joy around the kitchen, and with a dorm kitchen and limited [...]

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Cranberry Tart with Cognac-soaked Raisins, Tangerine Zest, and Dark Chocolate

by Laura 25 November 2011
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If you, by chance, bought a couple of pints of fresh cranberries too many, or your market still has a stash, this tart is quite simple, and a lovely way to liven up Thanksgiving Day leftovers.  Apart from warming some cognac with star anise in which to soak a handful of raisins, all of the [...]

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Crispy French Toast

by Laura 21 November 2011
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The house is quiet now—very, very quiet. I return in distracted moments to small things: the view of the bare branches of the trees against the sky from the chair I read in, the deep blue sky beginning to glow just before the sun rises as I drive my Sweet Boy to high school. It’s [...]

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Rich Blue Cornmeal and Applesauce Pancakes + Lost Things

by Laura 10 October 2011
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The summer is fading now.  I know it’s autumn, of course, but it’s been so unseasonably warm in Minnesota these past weeks that, despite the leaves changing color and blowing from the trees, in my mind it’s still summertime.   And I wish it were still summer, before everything had changed and I had lost so [...]

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Cheese and Apple Salad

by Laura 6 May 2011
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At our house, when you’re the birthday boy or girl, “plan your heart’s wishes, plan your menus, and enjoy” is the rule of the day.  Here is our Sweet Boy’s supper menu for his 17th, which we celebrated Wednesday: filet of beef juicy Lucy (grilled filet stuffed with fresh mozzarella and wrapped in thick bacon), [...]

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Roast Pheasant with Pan Gravy

by Laura 22 December 2010
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I am test-driving a pheasant tonight for Christmas Eve dinner at my darling sister Molly’s house.  In fact, her husband got twelve pheasants on a recent hunting trip, and, if all goes well, we’ll be feasting on them together Friday night.  I haven’t had a pheasant dinner like we’re planning since my dear grandfather passed [...]

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Butternut Squash Soup with Arkansas Black Apples, Cream, & Fresh Marjoram, Thyme, and Sage

by Laura 25 November 2010
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Do you ever walk into the grocery store with a plan and suddenly you’re so seized, so mesmerized by an ingredient, either new or in its most glorious incarnation, that you can’t even remember what you thought you were going to cook?  That happened to me today when I saw Arkansas black apples for the [...]

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Fall Supper: Pork Tenderloin with Autumn Sauce, Butternut Squash & Buttercream Potato Gratin, and Dark Magic Gingerbread with Butterscotch Sauce

by Laura 3 November 2010
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I remember the first day I joined my book group.  They had been meeting without additions to the group for about a decade, so I was a bit puzzled about why I had the good luck to be invited.  They were smart and well read and covered a wide political and religious spectrum.  But most [...]

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Pumpkin-shaped Iced Sugar Cookies for Halloween

by Laura 31 October 2010
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Except for the years we lived in Tokyo and didn’t have an oven, my Honey Girl and I have made these cookies together every year for each of her 19 years.  The icing has become neater, and the faces more symmetrical over the years.  And I sometimes miss those wonky cookies with their messy icing [...]

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