It’s October. Fall is more than officially here. Which makes my heart pretty much palpitate with joy =) I love, love, love fall {you knew that}! The chill in the air, boot weather arriving, spicy candles burning, fires in the fireplace or a chilly bonfire outside, and the food. Oh, the glorious food! The slow-cookers are unearthed, the soups simmer, the breads bake. Ahhh. And nobody does fall food better than our sweet Gooseberry Patch friends.
Their latest fall cookbook is Hometown Harvest, and ladies. It is adorable. I have dogeared the heck out of my copy – there are SO many winners in here! I don’t often do this, but I’m going to straight up tempt you. Forgive me (and remember you can’t gain weight from reading). By chapter, here are the pages I’ve dogeared to make (things with a * are things I’ve made and intend to share with you):
- Hometown Pancake Breakfast: Pumpkin Pancakes*, German Apple Pancake, Quinoa Breakfast Bake, Cranberry-Eggnog Monkey Bread (this one will be in my oven the day after Thanksgiving – a perfect blend of Thanksgiving & Christmas!), Breakfast Pumpkin Butter
- Church Social Soup Supper: Howdy to Harvest Soup, Willie Family Chili, Sesame Skillet Bread, Pumpkin Streusel Muffins, Cranberry Cinnamon Bread
- Thanksgiving Dinner to Remember: Fancy Faux Crab, Spiced Holiday Ham, Sourdough Mushroom Stuffing, Parmesan Pork Chops,
- Game Day Get-Together: Buffalo Chicken Sliders with Bleu Cheese Dressing, Bewitching Brew, Easton’s Dill Pickle Dip
- Pumpkin Patch Sweets: Pumpkin Spice Shortbread*, Old-Fashioned Soft Pumpkin Cookies, Caramel Pecan Rolls
- Slow-Cooker Potluck Pleasers: Gramma’s Beef Barley Soup, Hot Caramel Apple Cider, Savory Beef & Vegetables*, Chilly Day Spicy Chicken Soup
Even with all these recipes, my favorite chapter is the last. Over the River & Through the Woods is a gathering of memories, shared from across the country. I’ve been reading and re-reading this chapter like a favorite, worn novel. The memories chapters’ have not been in some of the newer Gooseberry Patch books, and honestly I missed them! I’m so glad they brought one into this autumn collection. Here’s one of my favorite stories –
Autumn Fun in the Country: I remember autumn as a child, living in the small country town of Fletcher, OH. Autumn meant church hayrides, hot cider and doughnuts. We would always have a bonfire, too, because the weather was nippy then. My family of either would go apple picking, and Mom would make homemade applesauce, apple pies, spiced apple rings… the house smelled so delicious! The leaves were turning and falling, and we six kids all took turns raking them up in big piles and then jumping in them! We picked the pumpkins from Dad’s garden, and after Mom scooped out the insides to make pumpkin pies and pumpkin butter, we got to carve them. Autumn was a fun time for me as a child, I sure do miss those simple days!
Can’t you just feel it?! Thanks, Gooseberry Patch, for bringing autumn to us via Hometown Harvest no matter what the weather in our neighborhood. And friends, you know they sent me a copy to give you too =) Just use the form below to enter! {It will be open October 3 – October 20. Only open to US residents.} Can’t wait to read your favorite fall memories, and I’ll be back soon with recipes!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
-Anna
{girl with blog}
Oh just reading this made me feel all warm and cozy! Can you be persuaded into sharing about the Cranberry-Eggnog Monkey Bread when you make it?! Sounds wonderful! (and, I agree the perfect combination of Thanksgiving and Christmas!)
And, my favorite autumn memory will always be our wedding – even though it was early September and not “officially” autumn yet, it felt like it to me. 🙂
Of course! I will be making it as soon as I find eggnog in the dairy case! =)
My siblings and I would make leaf houses. We would rake the leaves into outlines of a house and then further do rooms such as bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms, etc. It would take us forever but was always fun to imagine a real house looking like our leaf house. Another very fun memory is being able to ride with my dad in the truck when he helped the neighbor haul sugar beets. It was a fun time of just me and my dad which didn’t happen very often since I was a girl and oldest of six.
My favorite fall memory was carving pumpkins as a child and I got first place for my Ernie pumpkin with a birds nest on it’s head for hair. My cousin got 2nd place for her Bert pumpkin. I still have the picture up on my mantle every fall to remind me of that sweet memory.
My favorite fall memory is so unimportant, but so vivid in my memory whenever I think of fall. I remember in elementary school, I think I was 10 years old, walking home from school, all of the trees were beautiful yellows and reds, it was perfectly crisp with that smell (you know, THE fall smell), and my parents had decorated the house that day, so I walked in to all of the decorations, with the candles burning, and the fireplace on. It was one of those perfect moments you just don’t forget. And I am so excited to have my first proper fall in 5 years!
My most vivid memory as a child is just sitting in the crisp weather, watching the leaves fall from the trees. My favorite memories we are creating with our children are nature walks, opening our eyes to the vastness of God’s creativity and just breathing in deeply the scents of Autumn! Thanks for opportunity.
Thanks for the giveaway 🙂 My favorite autumn memories include raking tons of leaves into huge piles and then jumping in them…now I watch my kids do the same thing. 🙂
Fun giveaway! I’m always a sucker for a good cookbook. 🙂
Favorite Autumn memory is taking my granddaughter into our pumpkin patch to pick a pumpkin.
slrdowney at hotmail dot com
My favorite Fall memory was taking my son to the harvest festival on his first birthday. We looked at the animals, picked out pumpkins and went in a hay bale maze. He picked out his own pumpkin and everything. I LOVE the pics we have of that. Next week we are taking him back to the festival for his second birthday. I can’t wait!
My favorite fall memory from childhood is the school carnivals we went to! 🙂
I love walking through the woods with my family, it is just magical!
I love baking in the fall. The smells are wonderful
I love their cookbooks. My husband has bought me three in the past and I have one DL on my kindle. I like the fact that the recipes are simple
My favorite autumn memory is playing in huge leaf piles on the farm as a kid. Now my daughter looks forward to doing the same thing. 😀
My favorite memory would have to be my wedding. My most favorite time of the year is in Autumn. So we had a themed Renaissance wedding. Costumes castle and all. Including a Castle and dragon cake. Everyone is still talking about it years later. Yep, definitely my most favorite memory. To top it all off. My hubby buys me a Gooseberry cookbook every year on our Anniversary. I discovered them on our Honeymoon trip. So its become part of out tradition.
Love these cookbooks. Always looking for new ones.
My memories are the fall camping trips we always take to the mountains. Love the mountain air and visiting all the apple barns. Thanks.
One of my favorite fall memories is taking my kids to the pumpkin patch. I also love making pumpkin pancakes on the weekend for my family!
My favorite autumn memory is taking the kids to the pumpkin patches every year! Love the caramel apples!
Favorite memory of fall is always going to the cider mill and watching the donuts being made. I used to (and still do) get excited to eat the doughnuts fresh from the cooker and having cider along with it. We would then go pick out our pumpkins to take home and carve!
Growing up in South Florida, I don’t have any fantastic ones like listed…but, we could always count on cooler weather on Halloween night…it would seem…rain too.
One year our church had a hayride and we pretended to me northers with hot cocoa and a fire too 🙂 lol..it was lots of fun.
Great Soup on a cool fall night and some hot cocoa after trick or treating! Always loved dressing up in my halloween costume, and seeing all the other children in their costumes.
Fall is my favorite time of the year. Just don’t care what comes after it. I love the colors of fall. The changing of the leaves.Decorating my house.
As others have mentioned, fall is a favorite of our household. It’s a chance to slow down from all the summer activities and enjoy the fall offerings; cooler weather, colored leaves and anything with pumpkin in it. 🙂
I always love fall for so many reasons. I remember being young (I don’t exactly remember how old I was) and going out to the pumpkin patch with my family to pick out the world’s best pumpkin to carve. I remember attempting to carry the pumpkin and placing it in the wagon, taking it home, watching mom carve the pumpkin and learning about roasted pumpkin seeds. Sooo delightful.
My favorite autumn memories are going to the apple orchard (Pine Tree in Dellwood!) and buying apple donuts and going on the tractor ride!
I love autumn…I think my favorite memories all center around being outside in the glorious fall weather!
We used to spend hours raking leaves and making “houses”. We’d “draw” walls with lines of leaves, piling up mounds of leaves for chairs and couches. We could make cottages or mansions, depending on our mood. All while dad burned more leaves in the street at the end of our driveway. I can still smell that autumn wonderfulness
Love taking a drive through the country to take in the beauty of the colorful leaves. If we take the right road, we even get to see a covered bridge or two. Apple butter, caramel and candied apples, and leaf piles for the granddaughters to jump in are just a few of the great things about fall. Happy fall to everyone!
Okay, I had no intention of entering this. But now that I’ve seen a few of your recipe posts, I really think I need this cook book!
One of my favorite autumn memories: My grandparents had a couple really large, many leaf producing trees. They would rake together the most gigantic piles for me and my sisters to jump in. And then reassemble the pile after too many jumps. We would do this all. day. long. I can’t wait until we have a house with our own yard so we can do this for Avery. : )
My favorite autumn memory was jumping into huge piles of leaves and then passing that on to my children.
I love the leaves and all the comfy food meals people start cooking once the weather is cooler.
still hoping and trying to when one of these excellent cookbooks. I love them all. They are incredible!!!!!
My favorite fall memories were playing in the piles of leaves, and the smell of fall was the burning of those leaves… the smoke in crisp fall days in the days when EVERYBODY burned their leaves… we had never heard of environmentalists then. We always went to the ancient cider mills and watched the huge apple presses, drank the delicious cider and ate the warm donuts. We always came home with a bag or two of apples, a gallon or two of cider, and a bag of donuts for breakfast the next morning. The memories give me the warm fuzxies just thinking about it.
We love to go pumpkin and apple picking. They always have yummy corn, popcorn, cider donuts etc. Its always a tradition in our family.
Raking a big pile of leaves into my mom & dad’s ditch and running and jumping off the banks into it!
I love harvest and canning all the fruits of my labors
I would really love to have this cookbook 🙂
Would love to win the cookbook. Love Gooseberry Patch
Reading a favourite story for my children by candlelight while sipping warm blackberryjuice, was a favourite fall/winter pastime in the days when my children were young. How I miss those days <3
I love different cookbook ,love to try different foods .