Make the most of bountiful harvests with these favorite recipes – all in one place
Pumpkin chai muffins -- just one of the harvest-inspired baking recipes in Taste Fall! Kathy Morrison
Fall may be our favorite season for cooking. We’re inspired by so much excellent produce – from our own gardens, farmers markets, farm stands and nearby orchards.
And during the five years of garden blog and recipe writing here at Sacramento Dig Gardening, we’ve created quite a few twists on fall favorites. And for the first time, you can find them all in one convenient curated space: Taste Fall!
This is our third e-cookbook, following Taste Spring! and Taste Summer! (Notice a theme?)
Each recipe features something we’ve harvested from our own gardens, or found at the local farmers markets and farm stands. Each recipe is tested, proven in our own kitchens.
Debbie’s bountiful apple, persimmon and pomegranate trees keep her busy. Kathy gravitates towards savory dishes, including soup. They both do plenty of baking – just in time for the holidays. After all, it’s cookie season!
Our fall vegetable menu also features chayote, corn, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, greens, beans and other nutritious and flavorful crops. There are so many delicious options, it’s no wonder we choose fall to celebrate our harvest and give thanks for our local bounty. (Why not celebrate with our French-inspired Provençal salad?)
In autumn, apple may be king, but it’s not the only fresh fruit that celebrates the season. Newly harvested pears, persimmons, pomegranates, figs, grapes, mandarins and limes all deserve to be showcased in fall baking and desserts. They also add juicy flavor to salads and side dishes. (We’ll show you how.)
If apples are your favorite fall fruit, go beyond basic apple pie with roasted apple tart or apple pie-cake. Or try adding those apples to crumble, coffee cake and bar cookies.
Sacramento’s tomato season extends well into October. Make the most of those late-season tomatoes in fresh tomato soup, tomato bread pudding or oven-roasted tomato jam.
Got pumpkin? Use that colorful pulp in muffins, mini-turnovers, creamy soup, hearty stew or pumpkin spice cake (with pumpkin spice latte buttercream frosting). Those other orange fall favorites – butternut squash and sweet potatoes – add flavor, moistness and antioxidants to breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert.
In our Taste Fall! recipe collection, discover more than 65 delicious ways to enjoy our local harvest of fall fruit and vegetables. They’re at their very best right now – in season.
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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3
November still offers good weather for fall planting:
* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.
* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.
* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.
* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.
* Plant garlic and onions.
* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.
* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.
* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.
* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.
* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.
* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.
* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.
* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.
* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.
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