Guess who figured out how to post photos! ;-)   I'm new to this... I'll figure it all out eventually.  Anyhow, here are some photos snapped from some of my favorite recipe creations!

 Photos to go along with my pumpkin-how-to: 














And then we play with some cranberries!

I have 2 kids ages 3.5 and 1.5.    I have 2 cats and a dog and a husband who occasionally gets caught in traffic and has 4:30pm meetings.  Not all of my meals are going to take a lot of time and effort.

Tonight, for instance, at 3:30pm I realized I hadn't showered yet, the baby was refusing to nap, the preschooler needed her tv show changed, the cats were hungry (again),  and the dog was ready to pee on the floor if I didn't take him outside RIGHT THAT SECOND.

So. Dinner...  Dairy-free, kid and adult pleasing... and in the words of Rachel Ray "ready in 20 minutes"... with distractions.  Tonight we're having  "Jarsauce" with mini meatballs, peppers and onions, and mushrooms.  Over wholegrain pasta... with a side of brown mustard balsamic Spring Salad Greens.

A blanket of white is covering the back yard... a tad bit early in the season for my liking, but there nonetheless. It reminds me of a spectacular seasonal side dish that was my favorite growing up.  It is a star at the Thanksgiving table in our family every single year and enjoyed by both kids and adults.  AND it's super-easy to make:

We have turkey at least once a year, as a general rule.  It's actually really hard to get your hands on a fresh one around here... but we FOUND ONE at our local butcher! Ordered it a couple weeks early and it's local, cage-free, bug-and-grass-fed and around $2.75 a pound.   worth. every. penny.   And not really even that expensive, if you think about it.

14 to 16 lbs of fresh Turkey later, we'll all be in a tryptophan coma on Thanksgiving night.  But that's not all!  After all the delicious once-a-year meat has been carved off the carcass it's time to make the best soup EVER... using my grandma's time-tested recipe.

First, you have to roast your turkey!  No deep fryer for me, please... I want this bird done traditionally, so it comes out of the oven looking and smelling like the masterpiece that it is!

 Meanwhile... you can go do something else while your significant other makes:


Pull the giblets out of the (gross little) bag and put them in a 2.5 quart pot.  Add stock to cover the giblets (about 4 cups).   Boil for about 45 minutes.  Remove giblets and reserve liquid.  Melt 1/2 cup margarine in a sauce pan and mix in flour to form a roux. Add stock a little at a time, whisking constantly until it reaches desired consistency.  Add seasalt if desired.

And then, everyone gets to eat this AMAZING bird, with gravy... and the carcass is all that's left.  WAIT!  DON'T TOSS OUT THE CARCASS!  You can refrigerate or freeze it for when you're ready to make:

A bitter wind has started howling through the pines in my backyard and snow was inevitable. Sustained 20-30mph winds rack those trees, year after year and  they still stand tall. Their roots must go just as deep in the soil as their limbs go high up in the air.  And there they stand.  Rooted.

This time of year we turn to our comfort foods. Our lovely, starchy, delicious, subterranean root veggies!

I can't think of a better accompaniment to a seasonal cozy dinner, or a Thanksgiving feast.

But which roots shall we choose?  How about any of them... all at once!  Roasted to perfection, with rosemary, seasalt, and heart-healthy olive oil.

 Preheat oven to 350f.
 Add prepared root veggies to a large bowl and toss with olive oil and seasalt.  Transfer mixture to a large casserole dish.  Sprinkle rosemary on top. Place dish in over uncovered and cook until you can start to smell baked potato and rosemary! (usually about 45 minutes).  It is done when the largest pieces are fork-tender.

I've even made a colorful variation of this recipe for parties using purple potatoes to accent the oranges of the carrot and sweet potato.   :-)

This recipe is one of my favorite staples. Ever. As far as my family and I are concerned, Sunday Sauce is the perfect comfort food.

Between my husband and I we have a lot of different backgrounds in our heritage, but Italian isn't one of them.  I DID, however, make a point of spending a ton of time with a 1st and 2nd generation Italian-American family during my highschool and college years.  And, during this time, I learned how to make The Sunday Sauce.   I felt incredibly honored and could barely believe I was being taught step by step at their kitchen table, as Grandma and Mom were fighting over whether oregano belongs in the recipe (this fight was a weekly occurence, by the way).

So, for years I made this sauce exactly the way they taught me.  Step by step.  Then, a few years ago when my corn intolerance was at it's worst, I become sensitive to the heavy use of pork (corn fed) in the recipe.   I was SO SAD!  So, I decided to make "Robyn Sunday Sauce", with all the flavor and none of the unpleasant side effects.  LOL!

Also, if you ever want to start up a conversation with your butcher and have them  REALLY appreciate you as a customer, start adding things like beef marrow and soup bones to your regular rotation.   They're super-cheap, make soup/stew/ and sauce taste amazing, and are really good for you minerally speaking.

Sauce takes about 5 hours to cook if done right, so you'll want to start around 11am if you want to be sure of an amazing dinner at around 4:30 or 5pm (I have little kids, remember?).

The leaves have all fallen now and a cold front is on it's way in.  This afternoon was the perfect time to sneak in ... well, rather, stumble in through the STRONG winds to pay some attention to my compost pile(s)!  I turned the leaves into this years pile and spread part of last years on to my new apple tree and raspberry bed.  Everything looks like brown little sticks right now, but in the Spring they're going to FLY with the extra boost the kitchen compost will give them.

I try to compost everything, with the exception of meat and really oily leftovers.  Although, in the Spring, I plan to try out something called a "Melon Pit" where you bury ANYTHING organic(meat, bones, pine litter from the cat box, any type of leftovers regardless of composition, roadkill LOL) about 3 feet deep in the soil, cover it up, and plant on it the following year.  I guess I'll know a couple years from now whether it's a good idea or not!   Thus far, composting raw ingredients, bread, and yard waste is working out great for me with minimal effort.  I let the rain "water" the pile and I ignore the prescribed ratios of carbon to nitrogen.  I just put stuff on there as it occurs for one year and then turn the pile at the end of the season... ignore it for the Spring and Summer, and then spread it on the garden in the Fall.

Here's one of my favorite gardening quotes regarding compost, and life:
"If you are a good organic gardener, looking at a rose you can see garbage, and looking at the garbage you can see a rose.  Roses and garbage inter-are." -Thich Nhat Hanh

So, as I mentioned, not too much going on out in the garden right now but what has arrived at the grocery store in the last week is fresh cranberries!   They don't stock them year round... usually only around Thanksgiving through Christmas and New Year.  Then they disappear for the rest of the year.

With Thanksgiving on the horizon I'm looking forward to some awesome home made, super easy, cranberry sauce.  And for the Holidays and beyond I like to make homemade Cranberry Jam.

These recipes are Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Corn-Free, Vegan... and friendly to just about everyone, including my 3-year-old picky eater. You'll never go back to eating that weird jiggly stuff out of a can ;-)

Searching for:  Home.

I started searching as a teenager.  Chasing an elusive feeling brought on by reading mostly fantasy novels.  Unfufilled, I moved on to Arthurian Legend and archaic medieval and Celtic texts.  I thought that if I dug long enough, or far enough back in time I'd capture that feeling.  Mystical and magical, sure, but it was all either long past or too absurdly fictitious.  I moved on to Paganism, obselete religio, Eastern religions, and Classical mythology and found traces of what I was looking for scattered here and there.

I decided that maybe I needed to GO to the places where people were feeling these things.  And so I went to the Glastonbury Tor, Stone circles, Stone Henge, Tintagel Castle.  All were ruins... the feeling wasn't there... only ghosts.

Maybe I needed to study life?  I went to pubs in Ireland and England and Wales.  I went to a thatched cottage by the sea in Cornwall. I listened to loud music and local culture and stories.  Hoping there'd be something in the sad melodies weeping out of those penny whistles or in the glint in that old local's eye...
and there, again, were traces.

I went to ancient/holy Native American sites, Central American ruins and cities, and burial grounds both new and old.

Saw the book of Kells, became an Antiquarian and worked with old and rare books... nothing.

Maybe Newage philosophy and music.  Maybe organics, hands-on living/getting back to the earth was the answer...
I moved to the Mountains, sat in the desert, ran 10ks, practiced yoga and meditation for 2 hours a day... 
something started to unravel... but always recoiled.

Then I thought maybe I needed to move back to the town where I grew up and travel those roads again... see the lake again. 
... I was getting close...

One day I sat at the kitchen table with my then 2-year-old daughter.  She was eating Costa Rican beans and rice, wearing mismatched clothes, and was filthy from head to toe.  The December sunlight caught her hair just right and I saw her.  Really saw her.  Then that same light shined on me and there I was.  Finally.  Moments later, I realized I wasn't looking for "home" anymore. Home was here, in me, all along.  It's otherwise unattainable, but is everywhere you are at the same time.

"Your home is in the here, and now"  -Thich Nhat Hanh

Costa Rican Beans and Rice is one of our favorites and was a favorite first "real" food for both of my girls when they were babies.

In my late teens and early twenties I did a lot of traveling (Yes!  With an anaphylactic food allergy!... but that's another topic for another blog).  One of the trips I took was to Costa Rica for an ecology class. Unforgettable trip. Changed me forever.  Changed me so much that it affects my buying habits every. single. week.  at the grocery store.

If I only buy one organic item from the store (read: if we can only fit one organic item into the budget for the week),  it is bananas.  I have a house full of little kids and banana lovers... and with winter on it's way they become a fresh-fruit staple.
So, here's why we do organic :

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/09/24/225793450/global-love-of-bananas-may-be-hurting-costa-ricas-crocodiles

not only are rivers and wildlife affected but THIS was once rainforest...

http://mongabay-images.s3.amazonaws.com/cr/600/costa-rica-d_0192.jpg

This obviously isn't my own image, but I have a book of similar photos at home.
you get the point.

Or maybe not?   This is not high-desert.  It's rainforest.  It's the world's lungs and it's supposed to look like this:

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/costa-rica-photos/#/santa-helena_10967_600x450.jpg

Soooo  we should all pay $.40 extra a lb. for bananas.

Oh, and the carbon footprint is HUGE compared to locally grown produce. The least I can do is not let the last couple sitting up there on the shelf rot and be thrown away (ok, composted... but still they didn't make the trip all the way to NY from Central America just to be thrown on a compost pile).

Well, the leaves raining down in the yard made a huge mess and we spent the afternoon mulching them with the lawnmower and spreading them on the garden beds.  A great solution to our gardening and landscaping needs, considering a load of wood chips usually puts you back about $300. And we'd probably need at least one, if not 2, every single year to properly tuck in our yard and gardens for their Winter nap.


Sitting on the kitchen table from this week's haul are a few Acorn squash.  I wait all year for the opportunity to use this ingredient as I find it tastes best during the cold months of the year.  It can be a meal unto itself, or it's lovely served with pork tenderloin.  I love serving this to guests as it's pretty to look at as well as delicious.

" Mommy, it's raining leaves!"  exclaimed my 3-year-old as we were rushing out the door to preschool this morning.  And she is right.  The last stubborn yellow-brown remainder of  Autumn is falling rapidly this morning.  Soon the trees will all be bare, transfering vital energy to their roots. Resting until Springtime comes once again to wake them up.  My daughter likes my stories, and likes to think of the trees "napping like bears" all Winter long.

Sometimes I wish I could nap like a bear, or a tree.  But humans know about winter and how to stay warm and awake.  And besides, trees can't iceskate and build snowmen. ;-)

This was the first year that my kids celebrated Halloween. We got together with friends, ate A LOT and went trick-or-treating.

Candy, sugar, cider donuts, pie (mmm, pie). Resulting in 2 little kids running around like screaming maniacs...

Put these circumstances together with the decrease in daylight hours and temperature, and my preschooler's never-ending viruses:  we need some real, hardcore nutrition!

Alongside the tricks and treats I chose to make this amazing immune boosting vegetarian soup and will share a dairy-free whole grain bread recipe to go with it: