A few years back, when a friend of ours was living with us, I got pretty hardcore into these smoothies. And all three of us agreed, they were delicious. But after about the second week of me obsessively blending these drinks, Josh and Michelle were done. They’d had enough. So I controlled the obsession, but every autumn since, the craving returns.

This is a recipe from the famed Moosewood Restaurant cookbooks, and this particular book is New Classics. Just because we don’t have many trees in this part of the country doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy autumn in so many other authentic ways. Like organic Colorado pears. In smoothies.

Autumn Smoothie

1 ripe fresh pear, peeled, cored and chopped
1/2 cup unsweetened apple juice or apple cider
1/2 cup milk (I suggest almond, they suggest soy. I have no milk and am substituting fresh and local heavy cream. But in a way lesser quantity…)
1 teaspoon pure maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 drops pure almond extract
pinch of ground cinnamon

Puree the ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth.

You can not be disappointed!

There’s been this habit that I just can’t seem to break this week: steamers. Whole raw milk, warm, rich, and fragrant, comfort poured into a glass ball jar and topped with just grated nutmeg. We buy our milk in advance, receiving a gallon every Sunday evening. That’s sort of a lot of milk for two not really into milk people. Not that we’re not into milk. I mean, we are now. I want to make ricotta, mozzarella, raw milk yogurt, paneer. But the time to do so just hasn’t presented itself to me in recognizable form or fashion. So at the end of the week we end up making non-raw yogurt, bringing the temperature of the milk up to about 180 degrees, in a sense pasteurizing it. This yogurt is extremely delicious and such a treat, but we usually still end up with a little milk at the end of the week that we try to save and savor, the milk itself unexpectedly going sour. Thus, the resulting and habitual end of the evening winter steamer.

I know there is a lot of fear generated out there about fat and whole dairy, and I’m not attempting to renounce it, but I’m not sure I really believe it. I would so much rather drink this decadent product, coming straight from a cow I met practically down the road, then a less fresh industrially produced rendition. It sort of bewilders me that so many of us drink dr. pepper, eat high-fructose corn syrup cereal, snickers bars with a mighty long list of ingredients, cheeses wrapped in individual portioned plastic and advertised with “real milk.” I choose the raw whole milk over all of these things. I don’t want them. I want my local udders! My comforting sweet treat! I can’t stay away from it!

So here’s how I do it.
Milk
Vanilla or almond extract
Honey
Heat this in a sweet little pot, being frugal with the extract. If you really want to try for a steamer you can whisk the milk and make it somewhat frothy. My slippers are usually forcing me up the stairs by this point, so I don’t usually get into the whole froth thing. Pour into a medium glass ball jar. Top with a hearty grating of fresh nutmeg. Sniff the goodness, the nutmeg, the aromatic milk, filling your body with restful intent. Appreciate the leathery and marbled texture to the nutmeg, and then simply rest.

because your tomatoes love you. They are abundant little fruits, these juicy and colorful round orbits. So versatile, the tomato easily transforms a dry meal to saucy, a plain dip to special.

Tonight we were hungry. My desire was to cook, but not to think. I was leaning towards an Indian Vegetable and Paneer Biryani, but that conflicted too much with my desire to not think. Finally, sitting on my porch with cookbooks in tow, I saw my inspiration: the tomato plant. Neighbors have been heralding us with their ripe tomatoes, and the market tomatoes cat call us as we walk past. At some point we surrender. I’m not ready to make salsa or dedicate my evening to jarring homemade marinara. But tonight we were ready to peel and de-seed our pile of tomatoes, puree them into a rich pulp of sweet raw goodness. We were to eat pasta tonight.

First, we needed pasta. We ran to the store and bought fresh pasta made in Madison, WI at RP’s Pastas. We also picked up a block of parmesean, some slices of side pork, and a pineapple for dessert. We started with frying the pork in a bit of olive oil. Even though it hadn’t been aged like bacon, the fresh smokiness of it was reminiscent of hearty breakfasts around a campfire. We added some minced garlic and a small onion. These browned with the pork, and when they turned a sufficient shade of golden we tossed in chopped parsley and thyme from the front yard garden. My patience was waning at this point. It all smelled so good. Onto the stove went a pot of water. One by one we dropped our tomatoes, so at home on the windowsill, into the water, blanching them so the peels and seeds were easier to remove. They were chopped and then pureed in the CuisineArt, and slowly added to the sputtering pork mixture on the stove. The sauce started to thicken, we added salt and pepper, and before we could scoop up the whole darn mess with our tasting spoons, the pasta and sauce were ready to dish up. We grated the parmesean on top, mostly for good measure, and dug in, slurping the whole thing with great satisfaction. The flavor was surprisingly intense and savory, bite after bite seeming to fuse more fully.

Needless to say, there was no room for the pineapple. But we did accompany our food preparations with a large bottle of Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere Farmhouse Ale. Oh so good.

Okay, so things got a little hairy last week. We did juice, and we did fast, but I won’t lie: the fasting lasted 24 hours. The juicing, however, lives on!

Monday was a day off of work for me, so we started the fasting the night prior at 7pm, knowing that we would have the time then to start juicing immediately in the morning and throughout the day with little interruption. That morning was actually a tad bit frantic as I rushed about town, my stomach proclaiming its resent, collecting a myriad of fruits and veggies. My heart beat strange and insecure as I bought oranges, lemons, limes, bananas, greens, cucumbers, etc. I tend to avoid non-local, non-seasonal, non-organic produce and this shopping venture shamed me slightly. But the juicing mission had begun and I hadn’t yet had my juice breakfast! I had to bite the bullet and heave products from California, Mexico, and Argentina in my ever expanding cart, ignoring the moral cues that taunted me.

My good friend Michelle had agreed to be in on this juicing extravaganza and was going to supply the juicer. So with fruits and veggies in tow, and my obnoxious receipt in hand, I called her to let her know that I was on my way over. Three times I called her, but to no avail. Her sleepy head would not budge. So I decided that Josh and I were on our own with this one. Next to the store whose heat bill I probably just paid for with my hefty bill was a KMart. Uh oh. Talk about moral obligations. I haven’t been in a KMart or Wal-Mart for 3 years. But I was having the inner turmoil of my conscience and my stomach. And not surprisingly, my stomach won out. I bought a juicer that was made in China.

When I got home, Josh and I juiced. Watching Josh with that first glass, his nose recoiling in contempt of taste, had me worried. Had our three person fast become me alone? But Josh kept with it, religiously squinting his eyes and shaking his head as he downed the multiple concoctions and combinations of all his not-so favorite foods.

You’d think that all the calories we consumed throughout the day would have us full and satisfied. But it seemed that this juice created new empty voids throughout our system. We were starving to the point of moodiness and a threatening lack of motivation for the remaining tasks of the day. At some point I called Michelle to whine and she somehow rationalized with me that we should go eat Thai food and be happy that we made it 24 hours. So that’s what we did. It was phenomenal. Ah, the art of cooked vegetables in coconut milk, particularly on a day where your mind is consumed with thoughts of food (or lack thereof).

The rest of the week gradually became less fast-like, but still reminiscent of our new juicing knowledge. Tuesday was primarily juice but also unjuiced fruits and veggies, Wednesday we had brown rice, and then on and on…

I’m so happy to have a juicer, even if it is from China, and so happy to have experimented with a bunch of recipes. Here are a few of our favorite combos:

Apples (6 of them), Beet (one large), Limes (two juiced separately)

Carrots, apples, beet, parsley

Carrot, cucumber, celery, spinach

Carrot, apple, orange, ginger

Pineapple, carrot, orange, watermelon, cranberry (pre-bought juice)

Pineapple, grapefruit, parsley, spinach, watermelon, beet greens

There are multiple thoughts that spun from this one single day of fasting/week of juicing. Hopefully those thoughts don’t dissipate before I have a chance to write them. But in the meantime, I can definitely recommend juicing! If not for how good it feels, for the change in complexion it can bring. Friends were shocked at my healthy color this week. I think I turned orange from all the beta carotene.