A Fond Farewell with a Traipse Down Memory Lane

 I felt like I should make some splendid recipe for my final post here at the Cafe, but when you've gone over a year with no oven (thanks, pandemic!), it's kind of hard to continue being creative.

But then I came up with another idea - I decided to share my favorite memories about each of my cohosts here at the cafe.

Mondays are Jan's days. I loved reading Jan's posts because I got a glimpse of a life that is so very different from my NYC life.

I'll probably never get to visit the Black Hills, but Jan showed us their glory in all seasons from

Come for a hike with me 

to The Best Christmas Tree Hunt Ever!

Thanks, Jan! I'm going to miss my forays into your neck of the woods!

Tuesdays mean Mindy is dishing up about ranch life. What I will remember most about Mindy's posts is that she's the one to blame for my snake cover.

I was writing a scene in Texas Witness Threat and I needed to distract my hero. I thought of Mindy and her rattlesnake posts and decided to use one. Ooops.

Mindy has shared so many wonderful posts with wonderful recipes like Texas Sheet Cake, but I love this one - Armadillos are NOT Cute. 

*shudder* 

Someday, Mindy, we'll meet up at another RWA.

Wednesdays were mine so we'll pass right over them.

Moving on to Thursdays and hundreds of posts from our Yank, Ruthy in the cozy yellow farmhouse. But honestly, only one word comes to mind - PUMPKINS!

Except not really. When I think of my favorite Ruthy posts, they all center around the children. We watched these little ones grow from teeny babies to real people! 

Thanks for sharing the grandchildren, Ruthy. You've baked some amazing memories in that Yellow Farm House! Someday, if you ever make it back to NYC, coffee is on me.

And finally we had Fridays with Missy - The Belle.

When I think of Missy's posts a few things come to mind, but primarily: 

Family 

Food photography 

and food delivery services like Dinnerly.

And I'd never even heard of Chocolate Cobbler before Missy!

It's always sad to close the doors, but it will be great to have an archive of fabulous recipes that come with a bonus of sweet memories of time spend with friends.

One of my favorite Dr. Seuss quotes sums it up quite nicely: Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. 

So very much has happened within the walls of this cafe, so we should all be sporting wide smiles!

And Fenway sends fond farewell wishes as well.

Love, Cate

Winter Lights and Salad

I goofed.

This post was supposed to go up last week, but I lost track of my days. I'm chalking it up to the 10 hour drive home from Maine on Sunday. I felt like I lost a day.

So, anyway....

I spent Thanksgiving in Maine. Honestly, we weren't sure how to spend our first Thanksgiving without my husband. Our daughters felt strongly about being together, but my Maine daughter's schedule didn't allow for her to fly home.
So daughter number one, her cat, and my dog, made the trek north.

Someone was excited.

The last time I spent Thanksgiving in Maine, we nearly died in a snowstorm, but woke to a winter wonderland.

These wild turkeys came out to play once the holiday was safely over!

This time, the snow fell the day before, but I awoke to this on Thanksgiving morning.

It's a little hard to see, but I loved the scarecrows steering the boat.

As Ruthy and Jan can attest (and Kav too!), it gets cold up north in the winter.

Portland, Maine has a tradition to combat the dreariness. They light the city up.

I love the idea. I'm a little less enthralled by the colors. Call me a traditionalist. The brightness is supposed to dispel the darkness of winter.

I'm a fan of white lights so this was a little over the top for me, but if it keeps people happy, then I'm all for it.

This is the work of a local artist.

We got to see the tree-lighting ceremony. Everyone sang along to the carols despite the cold.

It wasn't a traditional Thanksgiving, but it was just what we needed this year.

On to food - I've been eating tons of this salad. The blanched kale has a hearty winter feel. It's honey mustard chicken, toasted sunflower seeds, sliced beets, pomegranate arils, croutons on a base of kale. It's my go-to meal at the end of a long work day.

Hope you have something good to eat too.

Salvage Soup

I was teaching my class about alliteration this week, so salvage seemed like a good word to pair with soup.

We've frequently been open about our cooking disasters here in the cafe.

Today's post is sort of a disaster turned success.

The background - go ahead and laugh at me, but I'm a novice in this pet owning thing. Fenway is the only dog I've ever had and my experience is limited. So when I found a dead flea next to him last week, I kind of freaked out. Because of his cancer and chemo, and some skin issues, the vet and I had discussed flea med options, but nothing seemed right.

Until the flea arrived. Then the need to eradicate them overrode other concerns so Nexgard entered the picture.

Fast forward to Saturday. I'd bought a good organic chicken breast at the market and was set to make a nice harvest meal.

And then I began vacuuming and cleaning and washing, etc.

And while the chicken was cooking, I noticed Fenny scratching. Oh NO!
Yes, I found a live flea on him. It must have been affected by the meds because it was easy to catch and kill, but in the process...

I FORGOT ABOUT THE CHICKEN.

By the point I remembered, this is what it looked like!

I wrapped in up and stuck it in the frig, but by the next day, I had the idea to try to salvage it by turning the charred carcass into soup!

And it worked!

First I simmered the chicken breast with herbs and garlic. That softened the meat. I added carrots and celery, but the best addition was ............. drumroll............  APPLES!

I chopped a couple of apples and threw them in.

The result was. The chicken had softened enough that it was quite tasty again.

And the apples... they gave the soup a gently sweet flavor.

So, all is not lost. The soup was salvaged.

Have you had to salvage a meal when your attention got diverted?

On another note, my neighborhood is getting ready for Halloween.

This was so cute. I

I passed a mother walking with her small daughter. The girl looked at this tree pit and solemnly informed her mother that someone was buried there. When I passed, the mother was trying to explain it was only decorative.

Is it Halloween or Christmas?

When Life Doesn't go According to Plan

That title could actually apply to quite a few things in our lives, I'm sure, but in this case there is no deep meaning. Simply stated, the meal of pork, sweet potatoes and apples that I intended to bake got waylaid by life events - and then I ended up using the ingredients separately in other meals.

So today you get the other part of that post - the part where I exchange all things pumpkin spice for all things apple spice.

Honestly, I love pumpkin. My absolute favorite muffins are the amazing pumpkin harvest muffins I get at the farmer's market. They are pumpkin muffins with chocolate chips, raisins and walnuts and they are happiness in a muffin wrapper.

Pumpkin spice lattes are not my thing. I'll take a maple latte over pumpkin spice any October day.

And honestly, even if you love pumpkin spice, aren't some of the creations just a little bit over the top. I mean pumpkin spice peeps? Isn't that sacrilegious or something?

Or what about this????

So recently, I was shopping in Whole Foods, and it looked like pumpkin spice had exploded. There was pumpkin spice EVERYTHING!!!!

But hidden amongst the pumpkin delights, were some clever apple treats.

How about these apple cider cookies for starters?

Wouldn't they go well with a cup of this apple cider tea? (Okay, if you look down, you'll see the trio included pumpkin spice tea as well).

And then there is the autumn staple - apple cider donuts!!!!!!!!

   

Oh, and remember that apple tree from my church yard?  Look at it this week!

I spy a nest!

Apparently we love apples here at the cafe. A quick count showed over 80 posts with apple in the label!

Since I should share a recipe - you could always check out my apple (pumpkin) lentil soup, though with temps in the high 80s (and 95% humidity) it's not feeling like soup weather here.

So what do you do when life doesn't go according to plan?

I try to remember that it's all God's plan, not mine, but yeah, I need to keep working on that.

And speaking of that - I found these new-to-me apples in the market. SOOOOO good! They taste like a mix between apples and pears..

Announcing Envy.

Doesn't that seem like a biblically fitting name for an apple?

Shrimp...Again

Mindy spoiled us all with that delicious lasagna yesterday.

Nothing so fancy today. My oven is on the fritz. Some days it turns on, others it refuses. I'm sure we could all comment on that.

It's really only that the electronic igniter needs replacing. 

But I did try a more savory version of the shrimp with pineapple. This time I sauteed some spinach in garlic first, then sauteed the shrimp in garlic and herbs and olive oil. Finally I stirred it all together. Still took about a total of 15-20 minutes and it tasted delicious.

Summer may be gone on the calendar, but someone forgot to tell her to leave. We're in the high 80s, low 90's.

The sunflowers are fading (and eaten),

 but these beauties shine on.