Harvest your fall potential
Fall is my favorite season because of the beautiful leaves, crisp, cool outdoor air, and the bountiful selection of vegetables and fruits, like pumpkin (including seeds), squash, sweet potatoes, pears, apples, persimmons, almonds and harvest grains. A really easy and delicious recipe for sweet potatoes is to thinly slice the sweet potatoes and add red and white onions, also thinly sliced, to a heated pan with a little bit of oil. Heat the ingredients until soft and enjoy the simple, hearty and healthy autumn side dish. If you don’t fancy fall foods, or have allergies specific to some of them, then look at the produce section of your grocery market or farmer’s market, and pick whatever vegetable or fruit looks fresh and try to prepare it in the simplest way possible (raw is in many cases best) to make a snack or meal; try to preserve as many of the natural nutrients as you can.
Fall is also the season to focus and spend time with family and friends, particularly at Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a special time to be grateful for all the simple blessings: whether sharing a cranberry recipe with family and friends (my favorite cranberry recipe uses raspberries, orange zest and walnuts), deciding on which football games to watch, or deciding to spend part of the day helping others celebrate by joining with neighbors to serve dinner at a soup kitchen. One of our traditions is to have each person at the Thanksgiving table say one sentence of grace. Another is having the little ones make “hand turkeys:” cut-outs of their hand traced on a piece of paper. A special client of mine decided one year to celebrate Thanksgiving by inviting not just her family, but all of her neighbors to her house for dinner. She ended up cooking an intimate feast for over one hundred people! The lack of chairs and place settings didn’t bother anyone; what they remembered was the good food, laughter, and great companionship. What generous and loving souls!
Let the nutritious foods of fall, the colorful scenery and the abundance of opportunities for connection fill your mind, heart and belly.