It has been nearly a month since my visit to the farm, and I have finally made use of the Sweet Mama squash I was given upon my departure.
A sure sign that Autumn is creeping into Maine is the invitation to a bean hole supper. While we have never dug a hole in our tiny yard to carry out this Maine tradition, we are fortunate to have friends who do this each September and kindly invite us to join in on the fun. This year I actually brought a camera, but due to other commitments, arrived after the bean pots had been exhumed from their underground oven of sorts. Fortunately we were not too late to enjoy the pot luck dinner which included bean hole beans (top right). 
This recipe, which came with a package of cookie cutters my mom bought when my brother and I were small children, has been a family favorite. We make them every Christmas. This time around we made them for my sister-in-law’s baby shower. By we, I mean I baked the cookies and my mom did the elaborate decoration with fondant.
A few weeks ago I bought some blue corn meal at Square Roots Natural Foods. Tonight I finally used some of it to make a healthier version of fried green tomatoes by dipping the sliced green tomatoes in egg, then in the blue corn meal, and baking on a cookie sheet at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes. I used the “Quick Bake” function on my oven and didn’t have to turn the tomatoes over. Continue reading
A couple of weeks ago I found myself with a surplus of tomatoes and was concerned that if I didn’t use them or preserve them quickly they would spoil. It all started when, at school, one of my students brought me a bag of tomatoes from the schoolyard garden he has been helping to care for.
Several years ago, when I mentioned that I wanted to go apple picking, one of my cousins recommended Wallingford’s Fruit House. In the same sentence, he told me how amazing their donuts are. Why would I want donuts, when the purpose of the trip was to obtain fresh, beautiful apples? I soon found the answer to that question, and have returned to Wallingford’s each Fall since then for a freshly made apple cider donut.
This is another recipe, courtesy of my grandmother’s newspaper clippings. I believe she clipped this one from the Lewiston Sun Journal.
The granola bars came out slightly chewy, and just sweet enough. Because I do not particularly enjoy dates, I modified the recipe by increasing the dried apricots to 3/4 c. and the dried cranberries to 3/4 c.
This recipe was easy, and resulted in more than enough granola bars for a week’s worth of snacks. The quality of these granola bars surpasses any store bought granola bar I have tried, and this recipe has inspired me to make my own granola bars again for snacks this week.
Earlier in the summer a friend introduced us to Moroccan Salmon Cakes, which inspired me to try making salmon pie in a different way. Traditional salmon pie is a mixture of red salmon, potatoes, and minced onions in a pie shell. It’s good, but doesn’t have a whole lot of flavor and for me it’s more or less a vehicle for hot sauce or ketchup.
I have driven past Val’s Drive-In hundreds of times, and have often wondered if they were still in business. It turns out that they are only open during the summer months, and will be closing for the season on Saturday, September 11th. There’s nothing like a deadline to get the feet moving and the wheels turning, so we stopped in for dinner on Sunday night.
There’s something about farm life that really makes me feel at home and connected to the land. I’ve never lived on a farm. I’ve never had a garden that produced more than the occasional small side dish or salad. I’m really not sure why it is that I feel so connected to farmland and old farm houses, but perhaps it is in my blood.
