Laurel Reufner
And so we come to the end of the year and the last of the harvest festivals. Samhain comes just as farmers have finished up the year’s butchering, storing the meat away with a variety of preserving techniques. I wonder if this is part of the reason they saw it as the ending of the current seasonal life cycle and the beginning of a new year.
Apple Cider Pork Roast
This menu will easily feed 4, maybe 5. This roast is ever so tasty. If you use a lesser cut of meat for the roast, simply let it bake longer. The combination of the time, heat, and apple cider will help tenderize the roast.
Prep time: 10
Cook time: 70–100 minutes
Servings: 12
3 pounds center cut loin roast
1 tablespoon or so garlic minced
1 to 1½ tablespoon rosemary
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups apple cider
Start your oven heating to 375 degrees F. Place the pork in a roasting pan and top with the garlic, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Take a moment to rub it in, then flip the roast and rub the seasonings into the other side as well. (Use the bits of rosemary and garlic that fell off to the sides.) Gently pour the apple cider into the pan, letting some drizzle over the top.
Place in the oven on a center rack and set the timer for 30 minutes. When the timer goes off, carefully flip the roast over and reset the timer for another 40 minutes. If you have the time, go ahead and set the timer to 30 minutes, flip once more, and then let it cook until as tender as you want. The rule of thumb is 20 minutes per pound.
Once the roast is done to desired tenderness, pull it out and let it rest a minimum of 10 minutes before cutting. If you want to make it look all fancy, garnish with a sprig of fresh rosemary.
Garlic Green Beans with Tomatoes and Almonds
I’m going to be completely honest here and tell you up front that we use jarred, chopped garlic in our house. It’s convenient, stores well, and is super easy to grab when cooking in a hurry. If you use fresh garlic cloves for this green bean recipe, you may want to sauté it a little before adding to the green beans.
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 10–15 minutes
Servings: 6
1 pound green beans, fresh
4 ounces cherry or grape tomatoes
1 tablespoon garlic
¼ cup chopped almonds
Balsamic vinegar
Clean the green beans and tomatoes. You’ll want to halve the tomatoes and possibly quarter them if they’re very big. Add the beans and garlic to a pan of lightly salted water, bring to a boil and cook until they are tender-crisp.
Drain and move them to a serving dish. Gently stir in tomatoes, almonds, and a splash of the vinegar. Serve.
Roasted Root Veggies
This next dish was created just for the Almanac, and it was a total hit at our house. Amazingly there weren’t any vegetables that anyone disliked. I really hope that you enjoy it as much as we all did.
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
Servings: 6
3 cups sweet potatoes (all measurements are approximate for the vegetables chopped)
2 cups parsnips
1 cup carrots
1 cup daikon radish
2 cups turnips
1 cup beets
1 cup kohlrabi
About ⅓ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon garlic
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, snipped smaller
1 tablespoon summer savory
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil. Wash and scrub veggies, peeling the turnips, beets, and kohlrabi. You’ll want to cut all of them up into approximately 1-inch pieces. As you finish with each root veggie, toss it into a large bowl.
In a smaller bowl, mix your olive oil and the herbs. Now pour the oil mixture over your veggies and either use a sturdy spoon or your hands to mix it all around, making sure to completely coat the veggies. Once coated, pour them on the baking sheet and spread out into a single layer.
Pop the sheet into the oven and set your timer for 15 minutes. At the 15 minute mark, pull them out enough to give them a good stir, then pop them back in and set the timer for another 15 minutes. Repeat the stirring and roasting process one more time. (They should roast for a total of 45 minutes.)
If you’d like, sprinkle with a little salt to finish, although they honestly don’t need it. Transfer to a bowl when ready to serve.
When making this menu, I cooked the roasted veggies first, then popped them back in the oven for the last 10 minutes of the roast’s cooking time. That way they were nice and hot when they hit the table.
Soul Cakes
A medieval British tradition, it would seem that there were even more variations of soul cake recipes than there are variations on the “Soul Cakes” folk song. This might be part of the reason the tradition eventually died out. It seems high time to bring it back!
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 11–30 minutes
Servings: 1–2 dozen
3¾ cups flour
1 cup butter, fairly cold
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
2 eggs
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons milk
Put your flour into a large bowl and cut in the butter using a pastry blender, a large fork, or—the preferred method—your hands. Get the two ingredients well integrated together before adding the sugar and spices. Blend together well.
In a small bowl, beat together the eggs, vinegar, and milk. Combine with the flour mixture and continue mixing until you have a stiff dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead well. Once you’re sure everything is worked together and the dough is nice and pliable, roll it out to about a quarter inch thick. (I worked with about half of the dough at a time due to my available surface area.)
I used pumpkin-shaped cookie cutters to cut out my cookies, which yielded about 5 dozen. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 11 minutes or until lightly browned. These cookies don’t really rise or spread out, so you can cluster them fairly close together on the cookie sheet.
Store in an airtight container. Makes between one and two dozen cookies, depending on your cutter size.