Easy Ways to Celebrate the Tastes & Flavors of the Season
Outside of a few festivals and some decorations for the home around Thanksgiving, fall harvest has lost some of the meaning and spirit of celebration that it used to have in families. However, in recent years, the harvest has gotten back to its roots in cities and towns across the country. Now almost any community—from the very small to the extremely large—will have farmers markets offering seasonal produce, proteins and more that simply can’t be beat by the standard fare you find at your regular grocery store.
These local markets are giving harvest plenty back to fall and changing family menus for the better with fresh ingredients and new flavors. So how do you make the most out of the fall harvest?
Start by exploring the options you have for local harvest goods. This can be anything from farmers or festival markets, to open-to-the-public days at local farms and co-ops. You can also check grocery and specialty stores, as some may actually feature seasonal products. If possible though, local is always the best way to go, since it supports your local farming community and helps expand regional agriculture in your area. Check with your grocery store and they may have information about their seasonal products and if it’s grown locally or not.
Once you’ve found where to shop for harvest food, the next step is figuring out how you want to incorporate the food into your meal plans. If you’ve never gone to the market before, you may simply want to go without a list the first time and see what’s available. As you shop, you’re obviously going to find fresh, seasonal varieties of some ingredients that you use often like tomatoes and potatoes; these ingredients can simply be substituted in for the canned or processed varieties you use in your family’s favorite recipes.
In addition though, you may also find more unique and rare items that aren’t common or that you may have never used in a recipe. If you find an ingredient that catches your interest, buy a good amount of it, take it home and then look online or in the indexes of your favorite cookbooks to find exciting ways to cook it. This not only brings new dishes to your table, but it lets you get creative and feed your inner chef while supporting local growers.
This isn’t just true of fruits and vegetables, either. Depending on your area, these local markets can also include seasonal proteins, fish, cheeses, breads and even specialty sauces like fresh maple syrup or autumn-inspired dessert sauces. Just explore the aisles and see what you find, then let your creativity shine through in your cooking.
Once you have your fresh produce and other foods, along with a rough menu plan, make sure to prepare the ingredients fresh—within a few days of when you purchased. For some produce, you may want to consider doing fresh or raw preparations in your Black & Decker Food Processor, like seasonal salads with warm dressings that are perfect for fall or specialty lunch sandwiches that go way beyond bologna.
If you bought local meats or specialty breads, remember that these kinds of products are always easier to cut with an Electric Knife, so you get nice even slices that show off the quality of the ingredients. And of course, once you get to cooking, Black & Decker Cooking products help you make the most of these fresh ingredients, often in less time and with less hassle than your conventional appliances.
Why Fall is the Perfect Season for Comfort Food
When you think comfort food, you think of all of those dishes you turn to when you’re in need of a little pick-me-up. Everyone is different and it’s largely dependent on your culture and the region where you grew up, but everyone has foods they have to have when life gets to be too much. Maybe it’s the familiar flavors or happy memories of childhood meals with the family, but we all have that special list of dishes that just make us feel better.
Fall is a great time for comfort food because as the weather is cooling off, many of those warm-comforting dishes we grew up with as children are back in season. In addition, since school schedules are picking up, companies are working hard to finish off the year strong, and the holiday season is fast approaching, so fall is also a great time for comfort food because it’s a time when your family may need the comforts of home the most.
To help you bring the comforts of home back this season, here are some easy ideas on how to use comfort food to help your family thrive in the fall:
Use Family Favorites as a Way to Bring Everyone Together
Sometimes it’s hard with busy fall schedules to get the whole family to sit down together to eat a nice, hot meal. Particularly if you have older kids in the house or a significant other that brings work home, family dinner can be a little tough to pull off. Still, if you can cook a favorite meal of the family and make the meal an event that everyone can’t possibly miss, you may be able to pull everyone together for just a little while for special family meal.
Make Favorite Meals a Reward for Hard Work
Comfort food may not always be the healthiest, most balanced food, so it may not be a meal that you want to make all the time. However, making a favorite comfort food dish when someone does well on an important test or made a big sale is a great way to make that person feel special and make personal successes a family celebration.
Cater to College Kids When They Come Home
When kids who are out of the house come back for a vacation or a long weekend, it’s the perfect time to wrap them in the comforts of home with their favorite dishes. After weeks of cafeteria meals and late-night vending machine trips a good, hot meal is a good way to welcome them back into the home and make sure they’re at least eating good while they’re home.
Bring Back Your Own Favorites with a Twist
Whether it’s a classic meatloaf, mac & cheese or tuna casserole, everyone has those best-loved dishes that simply remind them of all of the comforts of home. If you want to get creative in the kitchen, putting a new twist on a classic comfort food is fun, delicious and a great way to update a taste that your taste buds love. Try a more adult mac & cheese, for instance, with specialty pasta and different types of white cheeses that are a little more refined than the original American classic.
Turn Your Next Party into a Comfort Food Potluck
Building on the last idea about doing classic favorites with an updated twist, you can make this an entire event with family and friends by doing a comfort food potluck. Everyone brings their won best-loved comfort food dish, either doing a classic version or a more refined twist of the original. You share tastes of your childhood with family and friends and make an event everyone will truly remember for the great food.
An All-American Classic for the Whole Family
Help your family unwind from hectic schedules and daily hassles with this all-American comfort food classic. For true family-style serving, you can make the recipe as a single loaf or you can divide it into 4 individual loaves for more refined serving—the instructions below include details for both. This recipe works in any Black & Decker Toaster Oven or Countertop Oven.
- 1½ lbs. ground round
- ½ cup fresh bread crumbs
- 1 egg, slightly beaten
- ½ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
- 1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- ¼ cup chopped parsley
- 1 large clove garlic, minced
- 1 tsp. salt
- ¼ tsp coarse ground pepper
Preheat your Black & Decker® Toaster Oven to 350°F. Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, combine ground beef, bread crumbs, egg, ¼ cup Parmesan cheese, ¼ cup tomato sauce, onion, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper. Shape into one large loaf or 4 small loaves. Place on bake/broil pan.
Bake in the preheated toaster oven for 1 hour, 15 minutes for the large meatloaf or 45 minutes for the small loaves. Spoon about 3 tbsp. tomato sauce over meatloaf and sprinkle with remaining ¼ cup cheese. Bake 15 minutes longer or until meatloaf is done (internal temperature should measure160F).
Phenomenal Results Right from Your Counter
Love all those oven favorites, but hate the time you spend to cook just one dish in that large cooking chamber? Then you need the Black & Decker CTO4400B Perfect Broil™ Convection Toaster Oven! With convection cooking technology plus a compact countertop design, you can cook the same dishes you love from your big oven faster and easier.
Convection cooking circulates air around food as it bakes for more even cooking from the center to the sides and from top to bottom. Plus, this circulating air helps cook your food up to 30% faster than conventional baking, so you get better results in less time. Then, as you switch to the broil function, you can use our Perfect Broil™ technology to adjust the broiling temperature how you want it to perfectly suit the dish you want to cook. It’s the best in precise cooking with every function!
Thanks to the extra-large capacity with its curved interior, you can cook a casserole for family dinner, a 12” pizza for your kid’s next sleepover or toast up to 6 slices of toast for breakfast at once. The reversible chrome rack fits in two different rack slots in the oven chamber, for up to 4 rack positions for precise cooking at just the right level away from the heating elements.
Setting the cooking functions is easy with dial-up controls for the cooking functions, temperature control, plus a 30-minute countdown timer with a special Stay On feature for longer cooking. The power on LED indicator, easy-view curved glass door plus a handy ready signal bell all provide added peace of mind and better convenience to monitor cooking progress for those busy times in the kitchen.
Once you’re done cooking, the removable crumb tray slides out for easy crumb disposal, while a full range of dishwasher-safe accessories plus a nonstick interior make cleanup a snap. The sleek black exterior with stainless steel accents looks great on counters and compliments a wide range of decors.
The Perfect Broil™ Convection Toaster Oven is available now at major retailers nationwide or you can find it online.
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