The foliage is brilliant this year! Maybe I always say that. But we’ve had no driving rains here to knock the fragile leaves off the trees, nor fierce winds. Of course it depends on where you are in New England with the higher elevations showing a lot more color right now, and many areas were more affected by the recent nor’easter.  Reds are stunning, oranges brilliant, and all the other colors are creating our annual tapestry that brings literally millions of leaf peepers to the area each autumn.

The Season of Lasts, hear me sigh

That means locals know better than to try and get a restaurant reservation. Doesn’t bother me, I’ll just cook at home and be happy that the farmers market and farm stands are still going strong. This week, I found some massive onions that I couldn’t wait to do something tasty with, and a very large butternut squash as well. Sadly, this weekend it was a time of ‘lasts’ at many of the stalls at the market. As I chose a couple of beautiful cucumbers, the farmer told me, with a sigh, they were her last of the year. Another said there would be one more week of green beans, and no more zucchini. Still plenty of peppers and lots of tomatoes, but they will be picked still green for the next couple of weeks and ripen on their own, depending on the weather of course. I have some on the windowsill, slowly turning.

October Corn

My neighbor, the farmer who hays our fields, stopped by with an armful of his sweet corn, a nice excuse to break up the day and chat. September corn is always a special treat because we know what we’re losing, but I reminded him it was October and with the warming climate, no frost yet, we’ll have to start referring to it as such. More precious than the last corn, were his stories, opinions, and best of all he shared his mother’s tried-and-true recipe for cooking the corn, ascertaining first how I usually cook mine! Everyone overcooks it, he said, agreeing that my soaking and roasting unhusked method was a pretty good one as long as it wasn’t in the oven too long.

Mama LaBerge’s Corn Cooking Technique: Strip the husks from the corn and place in a large stock pot. Cover with cold water until they float. Place over high heat and bring just to a simmer with a few bubbles on the side, not a boil by any means. Cover and shut off the heat and wait for ten minutes. Then butter up and serve! So good!

We’ve got the side, let’s use up those onions

The corn turned out delicious, a really easy method and I approve. The corn went really well with the stuffed onions I made from that market find. Usually, when I stuff an onion I make a traditional bread stuffing and scoop out the insides of the pre-cooked onion, packing the mixture in, and cooking until nicely browned. We love it this way, but I was looking for something a little different and I happened upon Diane Kochilas’s recipe for Greek stuffed onions called Salantourmasi. This involved precooking the onion to soften and peeling off the layers, then rolling them up around a rice stuffing, sort of like making stuffed cabbage, which is always a little fun. My giant onions begged to be stuffed this way.

Recipes as inspiration

I used her basic technique, but my own spices and additions because I just can’t leave anything as is. I think of recipes as inspiration, and look around at what I have in stock and even more importantly, what I like the best. I had a small fennel bulb that needed to be used up, so instead of Greek seasonings, I used fennel seeds to enhance that flavor. I kept the mint and parsley because I have lots in the garden right now. I also had some tomato sauce from the night before, so in that went to dress it up a bit, onions being a bit colorless on their own.

Make it work

As with stuffing any vegetable, this is not a precise thing to measure, vegetable or stuffing wise; it all depends on the size of your onions, and how much you happen to toss in the stuffing pan. When all was said and done, I stuffed eight nice fat onion rolls, and a lot of filling left over, in part because I added the cores of the large onions that were too small to stuff. You could make 16 stuffed onions from this recipe, or stuff some other vegetables, or freeze the rest of the filling which is what I did. An already cooked meal for another day – my idea of fast food. It doesn’t have to be used as a stuffing, but as a delicious side starch to any plate. Or top it with an egg and call it supper.

Now, let’s have fun with it

I used a local goat feta cheese, but you can keep this totally vegan if you like and substitute a vegan feta, there are some good ones out there. I also chose a fragrant brown jasmine rice. The house smells so good when this is cooking, but only just cook it a bit because it will finish in the oven. You can season this up any way you like, so have fun with it. I had some marinara sauce sitting in the refrigerator, so I added this to the dish with a light sprinkle of Parmesan. Not in the original recipe, which just called for water, but I highly recommend it.

Now, on to that butternut squash!

Stuffed onions with Rice and Fennel

• 1 cup brown jasmine rice
• Vegetable stock if you have it
• 2 very large or four medium onions
• 1 additional medium onion
• 1 fennel bulb, diced 
• 4 cloves garlic, pressed
• 2 tsp. crushed fennel seeds
• 2 cups diced fresh tomatoes, or 1 small can diced tomatoes
• ¼ cup fresh mint, chopped
• ¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped
• 2 oz. feta cheese, or vegan, diced
• Tomato sauce to top

First, get your rice cooking. Rinse it well, then let it soak for about 30 minutes. Once rested, rinse again and place in a pot with 1 ¾ cup water or stock and a big pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce to a simmer and pre-cook for about 8 minutes, about a third of the usual cooking time, so if you are using a different rice, adjust accordingly. The rice will continue to cook in the oven. Set aside.

Bring a large pot of water to boil and add a teaspoon of salt. Chop off the ends and peel the onions, then make a lateral slice halfway through each from pole to pole all the way to the center, but don’t split it in half.

Once the water is boiling, drop in the onions, reduce the heat a bit, then cover. Let these cook for about 7 or 8 minutes, or until the layers start coming off easily. With a spider or slotted spoon, remove from the heat and gently peel off as many layers as you can, resting them on a clean tea towel, and returning the onion to the pot to continue cooking and loosening the layers. It is much easier than it sounds.

While the large layers are cooling, work on your filling. In a large saucepan, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and the onion and fennel. Cooking until nicely softened, then toss in the garlic and fennel seeds. Cook another minute or two and add a splash of red wine or water to lift any glaze on the pan. Note: I also chopped up the inside cores of the layering onions that were too small to stuff and tossed those in the pan, contributing to my surplus but ensuring another meal later in the season.

Toss in the tomatoes, then add the rice from the pan and some of the remaining stock in the pan to add enough juice to keep the mixture very wet, but not drowning. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook another five minutes. Add the mint and parsley along with the feta, stir, you should be able to see a dry trail on the pan with a wooden spoon, and the cheese will start to melt. Let cool slightly so you can easily handle it.

Now the fun part. Using a quarter cup measure, place the filling on one end of an onion layer and simply roll up. Place in an oiled baking casserole dish, seam side down, and continue to stuff the rest. 

Bake in a 350 degree F. oven (180 C) covered for about 45 minutes. Then, remove from the oven and top with the tomato sauce., and sprinkle with a little Parmesan or vegan Parmesan. Return to the oven and continue baking until everything is tender and starting to brown.A last spritz of extra virgin olive oil and you’re ready to serve up a hearty dish with a lovely little side salad for freshness. Garnish if you like, I used some fennel flowers from the garden (have you ever tasted them? Delicious), but you can use parsley or mint or another herb you use in the dish. Another plus with this recipe is they reheat beautifully, tasting even better the next day. I can only imagine how good they would be after freezing, but we didn’t have any left over to try.

“October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!” ~ Rainbow Rowell

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Autumn sunset, reflected in our windows.