We have an oat salad, a soup made of greens, and a handful of sauces to serve with your gingerbread. These cool evenings make me think gingerbread season might be just around the corner. It’s still pickle season, however, with some vegetables and fruits available in abundance. Take a bit of time and prepare a few jars of your favorite to stash for those cold dark days.

We have yogurt, yogurt, and more yogurt recipes and suggestions this issue. I’m glad to see our readers are making and using their own. I followed Bruce and Catherine’s suggestion this week and combined several half-eaten containers of plain yogurt in a cheesecloth bag and made a delicious soft cheese that I combined with lots of garlic and onion tops and have been serving on toast, on pasta, and on steamed vegetables all week.

Once again, this month we are not devoted to any one course, or ingredient, or style of preparation. Maybe my love of hodge-podge is reflected in my enjoyment of the variety of recipes you send. Now the weather is changing and days are longer and there are better places to be than indoors. Please send us some quick and easy ideas for feeding a few or a group with good local ingredients.

We are looking for some “clean out the freezer or cold room” recipes for next issue. How do you make the best of the last of last year’s larder? We have a start this month with a few recipes that use those winter vegetables, along with cheese rinds, and other staples. I agree with Beatrice about being drawn in by the name of this soup.

December seems to arrive faster than any other month. There’s so much to do in autumn that I’m still working on my fall chores when winter lands with a wallop. And that wallop usually includes not just snow and ice, but the madness that passes for Christmas in any urban area. I lean into the garish and loud stores much as I lean into the north blasts of wind and snow.

Please sir, more bread pudding

    We have some bread pudding recipes in response to Mary Nearing’s request. These crisp, cool days are perfect for a little oven heat in the kitchen. While you are feeling the warmth, please take a few minutes to send us some holiday recipes: breads, cookies, squares, mains or fripperies – we want them all.

Old time (pickle) religion
As I look at recipes we have on file, my eye is most often drawn to old-style recipes and ingredients. I am not a strict adherent to the four ingredient limit, but I like the timelessness of few ingredients, whole products, and simple preparation.  I enjoy a jar of pickles with lots of different little morsels floating around in the sauce, but I rarely use those recipes at home. 

This little goat went to market . . .

We have a couple goat cheese recipes this issue. We’ll start with a salad and end with a cake. Bookended goat cheese, yum. 

STRAWBERRY GOAT CHEESE SALAD
Liz MacLeod, Sydney River, N.S.
    “A nice change from plain green salad. I had this at my son’s preschool parents’ appreciation lunch last year.”

2 cups salad greens 
1/4 red onion 
12 strawberries 
1 avocado
1/2 cup walnuts 
1/2 cup goat cheese 
Dressing:
6 strawberries 
4 tablespoons olive oil 
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 
1 teaspoon lemon juice 
pinch salt 

    In a dry frying pan, toast the walnuts for about five minutes, stirring constantly. Watch closely so the walnuts don’t burn. Slice the onion and the avocado, and quarter the strawberries. Chop the walnuts and crumble the cheese. Mix the ingredients together gently over the greens.
    Chop the six strawberries for the dressing. Whisk together all the dressing ingredients. Pour the dressing over the salad just before serving.

We’ve got that summer feeling
    Some salads, some sweets: just the right things for summer evening meals. If you’re working hard, add more protein. There is a wonderful variety of fresh local fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, and dairy available these days. Check your closest farm markets, or if you live where many of us do, check the farm stands at the end of the driveways. If you’re looking for meat, watch for fields with beef, sheep, or goats. Those are indications there’s a farm nearby, look for the farmer, ask if he or she sells direct. We produce a great range of food here; let’s get it in the hands of consumers. 
    Eat local, eat in season, eat well.

They know beans!

    We put out a call to ask who uses dry beans, and what they do with them. Here are some of the replies. 
   Bruce Blakemore, from Purgatory Point, N.S. sent us both answers and questions:
   “I am an odd Maritimer in that I cannot stand traditional baked beans. I like beans as long as molasses has come no where near them!
    “That being said, I think every bean recipe I use (mostly tomato based) has been published in RD at some point.

A ham and a lamb and a bun in the oven

    It’s beginning to look like spring. Ha! Now comes the hard part: waiting for the thaw and wading through the mud, and hoping, always hoping, to find those first swirls of rhubarb leaf. That’s what spring really looks like. Nevertheless, it is time for Easter and we can celebrate the day with good local food, and fresh tastes. There are fresh vegetables available that didn’t travel across at least one continent. Try them.

The real baker’s secrets
I have been outed. We ran two recipes last month that I didn’t test, and readers have called with questions about both of them. Here come my secrets. I don’t like cooked peanut butter, and I don’t like baking soda. Cooked peanut butter smells and tastes bad to me, and baking soda burns my mouth. So, I took the recipes for health bars with their peanut butter, and the lassy buns, with baking soda, at face value. Marion MacIntosh from New Glasgow, N.S., called the office to tell us she made the health bars and they turned out crumbly. 
    I mixed the ingredients for the health bars, but the batter seemed dry, so I baked them only 15 minutes. They turned out fine, so I suggest that 30 minutes baking time was too long. My own preference would be to mix the ingredients, pat them in a pan and refrigerate. Forgo the baking altogether. 

Celebrating the season
It’s late November, evening comes much too early, and the sound of lobster boats leaving the wharves and coming home again breaks the silence, always in the dark. I love lobster, but I fret during the season for family and friends putting their lives on the line every day, especially on this shore where the season runs from the end of November to the end of May. 
    On these long and dreary days I am reminded of all the people and the places where turkey and all the trimmings are not part of the Christmas tradition, and would be unattainable even if the desire were there.

Keeping things sweet in the dark months

We have a sugary column this month. Our readers came through with recipes for winter treats. These squares and cookies would be a welcome gift in a tin or jar decorated with a ribbon, or a great easy addition to any potluck gathering. I’ve included the stollen recipe because it is a bit different from the recipes I’ve used, and I really like the ginger flavor of this bread. The sweet gingery smell warms the entire house when it’s baking. 

Edited by Anne Gray
    We have a little bit of everything this month. We’re playing catch-up with the end of season vegetables and fruits: pickles and relishes, jelly, and a twist on jam. Relish recipes are popular for those cucumbers that hid under the leaves and grew too large for dills, bread and butter, or other “chunky” recipes. Enjoy them.