Fall FOOD

Hello my friends...This has been the wildest weather week ever...I was laying on the beach in 90 degree weather on Saturday, and then freezing and turning on my heat for the first time on Tuesday! The rainy, nippy weather and my daughter coming home for her Fall Break spurred me to do some cooking this week. On the way home from the beach, my friends and I saw many produce stands along the way...and stopped to buy some fruits and veggies. I even bought a bag of peanut brittle that we dove into as soon as I got back in the car. My Grandmother Evans used to make that delicious, hurt-your-teeth-it's-so-doggone-sweet stuff, and boy do I love it about once a year or so! We were talking about fall food...and I commented that being an Eastern N.C. girl, I never ate pinto beans until I married and moved to the Piedmont. I never knew that people had pinto bean suppers and cooked huge cast iron pots of pintos with green pepper and onions and seasoned with ham. I only knew of the pintos in the can...and boy there is a BIG difference (sorry, Bush's...you can't compete). Well, this discussion gave me a hankering for some pintos and then the weather turned raw and cold and I had to have some! I bought the DRY pintos and soaked them for about 6 hours, then put them in the crock pot with ham bits, a big chopped onion and lots of green pepper, gobs of pepper, some salt and my secret weapon, Adobo seasoning. I cooked these slow all day in the crock pot. Right before eating them, I poured them into a pot and put them on the stove to reduce the liquid (they needed to thicken a tad), and made some cornbread and grilled Italian sausage, served with lots of mustard. Wow...this was a stellar FALL menu...yum.

Sara Beth came home last night and her roommate Lindsey joined us for dinner. I had bought sweet potatoes at the produce stand, and wanted to do something with them besides just bake them. I didn't want to cover them in lots of brown sugar and marshmallows either. I found a recipe for Honey Roasted Sweet Potatoes on the Food Network website. Sooooo simple...only 4 ingredients other than the potatoes themselves: Honey, Olive Oil, Lemon and a sprinkle of salt. The comments with the recipe were all wonderful and I decided to try it. We loved it! So healthy and so delicious. It's a keeper of a recipe and I plan to make it at Thanksgiving and/or Christmas for my vegetarian niece and the rest of the family!

Right now I am getting my wool, my sewing machine and all my necessary supplies ready for a crafting retreat weekend with the girls I'm sharing a booth with at Holly Days. It's going to be a fun and productive weekend, with everyone busy at their individual crafts! Amy is going to be cranking out socks on her antique sock knitting machine, Renee will be knitting and crocheting hats and working on her monogrammed bag tags, hairbands and baby things; Kelly and Shannon are working on lots of cute hairbows and other cool accessories. I, of course, will be working on "wooly wearables for bottled beverages", flower pins, purses, glasses cases....and more! The "Knotty Girls" are also going to think about our booth layout. Each of us will have our own individual little "shop" within a shop...it's going to be fun for the shoppers at Holly Days (November 14 at Front Street Methodist Church, Burlington, NC). Can't wait to tell you all about our weekend and show you some pictures next post. Have a great weekend, everyone!