LOVING FALL

This is my favorite time of year as you all know.
Every morning I wake up and I am happy. Happy to see the fall colors coming on, happy to see the deep blue cloudless sky, happy to smell the fresh brisk air, happy to bake and make and decorate. A perfect season for Zo.

So today I begin this incredible day by first of all taking care of business which of course is my house. After these to-do's I will be making another batch of applesauce, baking my fave chocolate chip/walnut cookies, and recovering my dinning room chair seats. So a little of everything. A fruitful day.

Yesterday hubby hung the new wood blinds in the office the day before he put up a new small contemporary fan light in the office. That inspired me to clean and wax all the office furniture, windows, floors etc. So now as I sit here typing I am thrilled with what we have done. This is a great space and now it is sparkly clean, organized and best of all the light coming through the wood blinds and the new fan/light makes it perfect.

Yesterday I went to the farms that are nearby and purchased three pumpkins, a daddy, mommy and baby pumpkin. That was all that was needed to complete our front porch area.  At the farms I also picked up the needed veggies and fruits for the coming week. As I said before having those farms right down the road about a mile away is truly grand. The produce I bought there yesterday all looks invitingly good.
For last nights dinner I made one of my favorites recipes with some the bounty.
It is a baking pan chucked full of veggies. A red and green sweet pepper 1/2 inch chunks,  a large zucchini, a yam, a sweet potato and a yukon gold all 1/2 inch pieces, red onion slices, two garlic cloves minced and the best part fresh sliced tomatoes from our garden cover the top then all is drizzled with olive oil,  add salt and pepper give it a good stir then top with a combination of fresh grated Parmesan cheese and Italian bread crumbs add another drizzle of oil over the top. Bake at 400 for about forty minutes. I love this dish in the fall. 
There is some left over as I made quite a lot so today I am going to add some V8 juice to the leftovers put in the blender and puree then pour into a quart jar and freeze. All those good veggies will be amazing added to a soup or stew later on.

Tonight for dinner we are having grilled pork spare ribs. We do not care for the baby backs as they tend to be dry and there is no meat compared to regular St. Louis style ribs. I bought a fine rack yesterday at a great price. So I will tear off the silver or membrane from the back of the ribs then I will give them a rub of my steak rub this afternoon and let them a sit a hour or so then put into a roasting pan, add a tad of water to bottom, cover and bake at 325 degrees for about an hour. You can bake longer if you like them fork tender when they come out of the oven and then just sauce them till heated on the grill. However we like to be outdoors and slowly baste them on a 300-350 grill for a about a hour till tender.
The mop sauce I make is very easy.
Carolina style BBQ sauce Zo's version.
This makes about a cup enough for a nice rack of ribs.
1/2-3/4 cup honey bbq sauce
1/4 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
one healthy squirt of ketchup or chili sauce
black pepper
Franks red hot sauce to taste.
Mix well.
Spray your grill with oil
Then add the ribs( We cut them in about three sections)
Mop with the sauce turning occasionally. Continue to mop with the sauce until the ribs are sticky and starting to blacken at the edges.

This method is easy and you grill on a charcoal fire or gas.
Tonight we will have corn on the cob fresh picked yesterday and baked beans straight from the can lol.
Bon appetit'

I will leave you now and get on with an amazing day.
We have been blessed this fall still no rain in sight and the temps holding into the seventies. Sort of takes the disappointment away from the damp, cool wet spring.