Preamble
I’ve noticed it this week. I look up from the stove, and it’s already getting dark out the window, and it isn’t even suppertime.
I’m a sunlight person. Always have been. And I’ll tell you something I’ve never figured out. The minute the dark shows up, my energy goes right along with it. Gone, just like that. In the summer, I’ve still got something left at the end of the day. Okay, maybe not plenty, but enough that I’m not in my pajamas by seven o’clock, ready to hunker down for the night. Come fall? That’s exactly where you’ll find me.
I know it’s all in my head. Mostly. But it always makes me wonder why. Same me, same house, same day. Just less light.
And it’s only going to get worse. I thought we were done turning the clocks back, but no. We still fall back on November 1, and I’ll lose another hour of light at the end of the day whether I like it or not. I don’t like it.
So I’m leaning in. We’ve still got some warm, sunny afternoons left, and I’ll take every one. But when the dark comes, the soup pot comes out. This weekend that means my mother-in-law’s escarole soup, the one that’s been warming this family in the stands for three generations. With plenty of good bread for dunking.
Farm Stand Report
The stand has gone full autumn on me. Chrysanthemums in bloom everywhere you look, hay bales stacked up, corn stalks tied to the posts, and gourds and pumpkins in every shape and size you can imagine.
The produce is another story. It’s winding down. There’s the last of the corn and the last of the tomatoes, and plenty of squash: butternut, acorn, and spaghetti. There were apples, too, but Honeycrisp and Gala, the same ones you’d find at any grocery store. The real Jersey stuff is wrapping up for the year.
So for my escarole, I’m heading to the farmers market. And here’s what surprised me. I always figured escarole came from somewhere else, but it’s a Jersey crop, and it actually likes this time of year. Cool nights are good for it. So the one thing I need most this weekend is right in season. I’ll take it.
As for my own tomatoes, there are a few green holdouts still hanging on. I’m thinking fried green tomatoes, and I can’t believe I’ve never tasted one. When the first hard frost comes, I’ll pick whatever’s left and send those skeletal plants to the compost pile to feed next year’s soil.
I learned a lot this year. Soil, nutrients, how much sun they really need, and which varieties actually earn their spot. The plums were the stars, hands down. I’ll spend the winter figuring out what goes in next year. It’ll be here before I know it.
Weekend Menu
Friday: Get the Pot Going
Scarole & Cottage Ham Soup (the big pot, first bowls tonight)
Nonna's Note: It is scarole—that is not a typo! It's pronounced skuh-ROHL.
Good crusty bread, for dunking
Sharp cheddar and sliced pears on a board
Saturday: Pack It Up
Scarole & Cottage Ham Soup, in the thermos
A loaf of crusty bread, torn and wrapped in a towel, for dunking
Pimento cheese on soft potato rolls, wrapped in wax paper
Deviled eggs, packed back into the egg carton
Spiced candied pecans
Brown butter blondies
Hot cider with a little bourbon, in the other thermos
Sunday: Home From the Game
Kentucky Burgoo, started in the slow cooker before kickoff
Skillet cornbread
Chewy molasses cookies, from the tin
I know. A Jersey girl making Kentucky stew. But the people who invented burgoo had the same idea we do: throw in what you’ve got, keep it going all afternoon, and feed whoever shows up. That’s not Southern. That’s just good sense.
Featured Recipe: Scarole & Cottage Ham Soup
My mother-in-law was a really good cook, and every fall she made this soup. Just escarole and cottage ham, simmered until the whole house smelled like it. My son makes it now in a stock pot big enough to bathe in, and he adds white beans. The broth alone is the point. It warms your innards. Make the big pot. It’s better the next day, and you’ll want plenty to share and some to freeze.
Makes: a very big pot, about 16 to 20 servings, on purpose Pot: 16- to 20-quart stock pot
Ingredients
1 cottage ham, about 2½ to 3 lbs
12 heads escarole
¼ cup olive oil
2 large onions, diced
8 to 10 cloves garlic, sliced
4 quarts water, plus more as needed
2 quarts chicken broth
1 Parmigiano-Reggiano rind
3 to 4 cans (15 oz each) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
Salt, only at the end, and black pepper if you like
Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, for topping bowls
Good crusty Italian bread, for dunking
Directions
Start the base. Warm the olive oil in the stock pot over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until soft, about 8 minutes, then add the garlic for another minute or two. Don’t let it brown.
Simmer the ham. Add the water, chicken broth, and the whole cottage ham. Bring it up to a boil, then lower to a gentle simmer, partly covered, for 3 to 4 hours. Test it with a fork; it’s ready when it’s tender enough to fall apart. Add more water along the way if the level drops.
Wash the escarole while the ham cooks. Escarole hides grit down in its leaves, so chop it, dunk it in a sink full of cold water, swish it around, and lift it out. Do it twice. Nobody wants sandy soup.
Shred the ham. Lift the ham out, let it cool enough to handle, and shred it, pulling off and discarding any fat or skin. Set it aside.
Add the escarole. Drop in the Parmigiano rind, then add the escarole a few big handfuls at a time, letting each batch wilt down before adding the next. You’ll think there’s no way a dozen heads will fit. It fits. It cooks down to almost nothing, which is exactly why you need so much. Simmer for 1 to 2 hours, until it’s silky and tender.
Finish it. Stir the shredded ham and the beans back into the pot and simmer another 10 minutes. Taste before you add any salt, because the ham brings plenty on its own. Fish out the rind.
Serve or pack. Ladle into bowls, top with grated Parmigiano, and put good crusty bread on the table. This soup is meant for dunking. You don’t leave a drop behind. Skip the grated cheese in the thermos, since the rind already did the work.
Notes
Make the big pot. It’s better the next day, when the broth has deepened, and the escarole has soaked up all that ham.
It freezes beautifully. Cool it completely, then pack it in quart containers with a little headroom, since it expands. Freeze some in thermos-size portions so it’s ready on a game morning.
Can’t find cottage ham? It’s a smoked pork shoulder butt and very much a Northeast thing. A smoked ham hock or smoked pork shoulder works, though the flavor will be a little different.
Beans: canned is how my son does it. Dried work too; soak and cook them first.
Shoppable List
Cottage ham
Escarole, 12 heads
Olive oil
Yellow onions
Garlic
Chicken broth
Parmigiano-Reggiano (wedge with rind)
Cannellini beans
Crusty Italian bread (two loaves)
Sharp cheddar
Pears
Cream cheese
Jarred pimentos
Mayonnaise
Dijon mustard
Paprika
Cayenne
Soft potato rolls
Eggs
Pecans
Granulated sugar
Brown sugar
Cinnamon (ground and sticks)
Ground ginger
Ground cloves
Molasses
Butter
Vanilla extract
All-purpose flour
Baking powder
Baking soda
Cornmeal
Buttermilk
Apple cider
Bourbon
Bone-in chicken thighs
Pork shoulder
Beef stew meat
Potatoes
Frozen corn
Frozen lima beans
Okra
Crushed tomatoes
Worcestershire sauce
Apple cider vinegar
Kosher salt and black pepper
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Nonna’s Notebook
My mother-in-law was a really good cook. Every fall, without fail, she made escarole soup.
Now, being from New Jersey, we root for the New York Giants. (We do have some ardent followers of other teams in our ranks. All are welcome. It makes for some vociferous afternoons when the rivals are playing.) And Giants games were mostly cold-weather affairs. After a few hours in the stands, the concrete under your feet sends the cold right up through you, no matter how warm your boots are.
So she sent the guys off to the game with thermoses of that broth to warm their innards. And there was always more waiting when they got home.
It went from my father-in-law, to his son, to his son’s son. We’ll have to wait a little while for my grandsons to take their turn. These days, it doesn’t even matter whether anyone’s actually at the game. Some traditions are worth keeping either way.
My son makes it now, in a pot big enough to feed all of us, with plenty left to freeze.
Around the House: Making the Nest
When the dark comes early, I don’t fight it. I nest. Here’s how.
1. The sheet swap. Out go the cotton percale sheets, and on go the cotton flannel. I’m a natural-fiber girl, no microfiber for me. Last year was the first time I ever slept on flannel sheets, and my first thought was, where have I been all these years? They’re so cozy and inviting. It’s like getting into a big hug.
2. More throw blankets, everywhere. One on every chair and the couch. They’re perfect for taking the chill off after I come in from walking the dogs, and for burrowing under to read, binge a new show, or best of all, take a nap.
3. A short stack of books. I pick two or three to start. In the long, light months there’s always something else to do, and I hardly read at all. But when it’s dark at six, I get my read on.
4. Real hot chocolate. Not syrup stirred into milk. From scratch, with real cocoa and a favorite flavoring. Mine’s peppermint. Rich and chocolatey, with whipped cream on top. And yes, I take the easy route and use the canned stuff, plus an extra squirt straight from the can when no one is looking.
5. The oven stays on. Soup simmering on the stove, and something in the oven. No more worrying about overheating the kitchen. Baking is my first love, pies, cakes, cookies, so out come the cookbooks. My family’s happy about it too, since they become my always-at-the-ready taste testers.
What on Earth Is Burgoo?
Nobody knows where the word came from. Not really.
The oldest “burgoo” on record isn’t even a stew. It was a thin oatmeal porridge that sailors ate back in the 1700s. How it crossed the ocean and turned into a Kentucky meat stew is anybody’s guess.
The early Kentucky versions used whatever was running around. Squirrel, rabbit, and whatever else the hunt turned up. Today it’s chicken, pork, and beef, and nobody’s out in the woods with a slingshot first.
Burgoo was crowd food from the start. It was cooked by the gallon in huge iron kettles for church picnics and political rallies. You didn’t make burgoo for four people. You made it for the whole county.
In Owensboro, Kentucky, mutton is still the star, a leftover from the area’s sheep-farming days, and they’ll tell you any burgoo without it is just stew.
And the Kentucky Derby connection is real. In 1932 a horse named Burgoo King won the Derby, named after a Lexington grocer so famous for his burgoo that people called him the Burgoo King. He bet $50 on his namesake at 40-to-1 odds and walked away with $2,000. Now that’s a good pot of stew.
Worth Knowing: Keeping the Thermos Hot (and Safe)
A thermos of soup in the stands is a beautiful thing. A thermos of lukewarm soup that’s been sitting in the car since noon is not.
Heat the thermos first. Fill it with boiling water, cap it, and let it sit 10 minutes before you dump it out. A cold thermos steals the heat right out of your soup.
Fill it hot, and fill it full. Bring the soup back up to a boil before it goes in, then fill it to the top. Less air inside means it holds the heat longer.
Keep an eye on the clock. Hot food needs to stay at 140°F or above to stay safe. A good insulated thermos will hold it there for about 4 to 6 hours. Plan to eat within that window.
Don’t bring the leftovers home. Whatever’s left at the end of the game gets dumped, not saved for tomorrow.
Cold food has rules, too. The deviled eggs and pimento cheese belong in the cooler with ice packs, at 40°F or below, not on the tailgate. If cold food sits out more than 2 hours, or 1 hour when it’s hot out, toss it.
Weekend Kitchen Planner
Thursday
Shop the list.
Friday
Get the soup on by late morning. The ham needs 3 to 4 hours, and the escarole another 1 to 2.
While it simmers, bake the blondies and the molasses cookies, and do the candied pecans.
First bowls for supper. Cool the rest and refrigerate. It’s better tomorrow.
Saturday: game day
Morning: hard-boil and fill the deviled eggs, mix the pimento cheese, make the sandwiches and wrap them in wax paper.
Reheat the soup to a boil, preheat the thermoses, and fill them. Heat the cider.
Pack the night before (so nobody’s running back inside):
Thermoses, plus a cup or mug for everyone
The bread. Don’t you dare forget the bread.
Cooler with ice packs for the eggs and sandwiches
Real napkins, plus paper towels for the spills
Spoons
A trash bag, because you leave the lot the way you found it
Wet wipes
Folding chairs and a blanket for your lap
The cookie tin
Sunday
Morning: brown the meats and get the burgoo into the slow cooker, on low for at least 8 hours.
Mix the cornbread dry ingredients ahead, then finish and bake it at halftime so it’s hot when the game ends.
Worth Keeping
“There was always more waiting when they got home.”
Before You Go
Around here, fall means soccer. And I wouldn’t miss one of my grandson’s games for anything.
I love that time outdoors. I’m hoping for more brisk sunny days than cold windy ones, but it doesn’t matter. We’re there to cheer the team on. And these future soccer stars get so into it. They seriously man their positions and cheer every time someone scores, like it’s their own mini World Cup. They run around, get sweaty, have a blast, and when it’s over, win or lose, they trot off the field ready for whatever’s next on their weekend.
And I go on about my day happier for it. Happier for the time with my grandson and his family, and for the memories of my own boys’ soccer days that come back while I watch him. Chores and errands can wait. For me, this is the best way to spend my time.
See you next week. Bring your appetite. — The Jersey Nonna