About

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Autumn Blessings


It really felt like autumn this weekend. There was a crispness in the air and after a rainy Friday, the temperature dropped down in the 50's! Since it was in the high 70's/ low 80's last week...that was quite a change. Here is a photo of the reserve across the street taken from our front steps. The trees are already starting to turn.

And with this cooler weather we wanted warm comfort foods. That is just one of the things I love about fall, the soups, stews, chilies, breads, pies....and the house smells so good when these are cooking!

We pulled out one of our favorite soup recipes that a friend gave to me years ago...(and I'm not sure who to give the credit to, as I recall, it was given to her as well). So we made some rolls to go with it, and it lasted us a few meals. This soup is always better the next day after you cook it! Here is the recipe for this yummy Minestrone Soup:

1 lbs Italian sweet sausage
1 Tbls olive or veg. oil
1 med onion diced
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 cup sliced carrots
1 tsp dried basil
2 small zucchini sliced
1 can (14oz) Italian pear tomatoes
(chopped; undrained)
1.5 cups chicken (or beef) broth
2 cups finely shredded cabbage
1 tsp salt (more if using low sodium broth)
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 can (14oz) Great Northern beans; undrained

Slice sausage (1/2 inch pieces). In Dutch oven, brown sausage in oil; drain excess oil, leaving enough to sauté onions until tender. Return sausage to pot and add garlic, carrots, basil. Cook 5 mins. Add zucchini, tomatoes with liquid, meat broth, cabbage, salt and pepper. Bring soup to boil; reduce heat and simmer, covered, 1 hour. Add beans with liquid; cook another 20 mins. Garnish with shredded parmesan.
Serves 6 to 8 (depending on how hungry they are).... Enjoy!
~*~*~*~*~*~
When we moved into our home 2 years ago one of the first things we planted was a pear tree....seemed silly not to have one of those since that's what I named my business! This year the little tree produced pears. At first, we weren't too excited because they looked so small and not very edible. But they surprised us and these past 2 or so weeks, we've enjoyed eating our pears, and some of them actually look like pears! I think we have probably eaten the last of the season's, but it was a treat to eat ones that we grew.

Happy Fall!

9 comments:

Lorraine said...

Your own pears! Cool!

And ironically, I'm having a virtual potluck at my blog today and I "made" a big pot of minestrone for all the autumnally reasons you mentioned!

Susan McShannon-Monteith said...

You're lucky you have pears to eat, the squirrels always beat me to mine.I have this great recipe for pear,cranberry crisp that's smells fantastic while baking and so yummy to eat.It is also a well known fact that if you sample too much of it you'll begin to take on the shape of a pear!! Susan

Anonymous said...

Lucky you! It's always nice to be able to eat something you've grown yourself. One of the things I love about fall is being able to eat heartier food. I think we live mainly on salads in the heat of summer! Thanks for the recipe!

Manuela

Ruth Welter said...

Thanks for posting that soup recipe Suzanne, it looks so delicious. I wish it were cool enough here to eat some of it..supposed to be in the 80's here for the rest of this week. I've gotta give that recipe a try though.. Thanks.

Wendy said...

THanks for the recipe Suzanne, looks yummy I'm going to try that this fall.

A pear tree...How cool. We planted an apple tree years ago and NOTHING. Probably will produce apples for the next generation!

PAT said...

We love soup at our house and I'm almost sure, we'll be having some wonderful soup weather soon!

This is a yummy post!

Pat

Unknown said...

Yummy! Nothing like a hot bowl of soup on a cool Fall day!! Thanks for sharing your recipe:o)!
Love the pears!

Happy Fall!

sheila from life @ #17 said...

that soup looks so good...that is a possibility for in a week or two when the weather is forecasted to cool down a bit...

Lana Manis said...

Yummmm Suzanne ~ you're making me hungry! The soup looks delicious... and your own pears! We used to have a few fruit trees and unfortunately had to cut them down. I hope we can plant more again soon.