Weekly bird in the hand

Here is this week's bird in the hand - all about food:

• Harvest time.  It seems my week has been full of fruit from our garden - apples, pears, green table grapes and now the figs are just ripening!  What a perfect time of the year. And the main grape harvest is yet to come!
• My aga.  The aga is our stove in the kitchen, but we don't use it in the summer when the weather is too warm.  This Monday I turned it back on and it's like a friend has returned to stay!  Yummy...lots of baked sweet potatoes, roasted vegetables, tasty comfort food...and a place to warm yourself when you come in from the cold.

My colorful Aga cooker

• My dehydrator. It's been working flat out this week!  I have an excalibur dehydrator - a wonderful machine, and it's been busy dehydrating apples, grapes to make sultanas (golden raisins), and blended grapes to make fruit leathers.  The last of the sultanas and grape leathers are finishing as I type this...then it's back to more apples.   We are eating the pears fresh as they are so heavenly and juicy, but if we can't keep up with them, we may have to start dehydrating them too!

Dried yummy apples from our trees

Hope you've had a fruitful week too!

Our own sultanas in the making!

Weekly Bird in the Hand

Here is this week's "bird in the hand" - the things I am grateful for:

Photo by lyrandian

• My sister and her husband's marriage - today is their wedding anniversary. Many congratulations

• Shoes maketh the man!  My hubby left this morning for a business meeting in Seattle wearing his 'wooden' shoes.  There aren't really wooden but the leather has that lovely wooden richness to them.  Whenever he wears them I think of "shoes maketh the man".  What do you think?

• Cooling weather so I could switch back on my Aga cooker today! Yippee!  During the summer, we switch it off for the season and cook outside but as fall is approaching, today is the day!  I just LOVE cooking on it and have missed it a lot!  Bring on the baking days!!! Here's a photo of my Aga  - it's the turquoise thing in the middle, in case you didn't know.  A whole different way of cooking.

• A day to myself so I can stretch out in the house and take over!  I have plans for putting up a big table and working on my aluminum today and not getting in anyone's way!

• Finding time to read a good book.

Hope you've had a good week too.

What's (Gluten Free) Baking Today?

I'm doing a little gluten free baking today - and trying a new bread recipe.

If you've never tried gluten free bread before - I suggest keeping  it that way.  Typically it isn't very good but I'm on a mission to find a good recipe for myself that can be made relatively quickly.

At the moment the dough is rising by the Aga (my cooker).....

and I'll bake it in a couple of hours or so....... Fingers crossed it'll turn out better than most GF loaves.

I made a couple of gluten free tarts recently that turned out well.  Here is the slow roasted tomato and gruyere tart:

And the even yummier souffled crab and asparagus tart:

If you have any wonderful gluten free baking recipes - especially bread that is tasty - I'd love you to share them with me.....

I'll let you know how this bread recipe turns out.... Enjoy your day and eat some yummy food!