Now, we’re moving on to two fall flavors: Caramel Apple Swirl Bread and Pumpkin Spice Swirl Bread, both available for a short time this fall.

They make delicious toast and French toast. As toast, they combine the crunch of toasted bread with the sweetness of a breakfast pastry.

Check the store locator to see where you can find them.

And if you can’t find the seasonal specialties, content yourself with the year-round swirls: Cinnamon Swirl, Raisin Cinnamon Swirl, Brown Sugar Cinnamon Swirl and 100% Whole Wheat Cinnamon Swirl With Raisins.

Our goal is to keep an eye out for other seasonal swirl breads, a fun new way to “eat seasonally.”

But we still wanted roast pork.

So we were happy when Crofter’s Organic sent us an easy recipe that beginning cooks learn: a pork roast glazed with a jar of apricot jam. How could we resist? We called the butcher and had a pork roast delivered that day.

The apricot jam glaze trick can be used on any meat roast, and it’s tasty and easy. But today’s tip is to be sure that the glaze has more than one-dimensional sweetness—beyond just apricot jam. The fruity glaze in the recipe below is done the right way, with counterpoints of bitter (such as herbs and zest), pungent (such as garlic) and tangy (such as mustard, which also supplies heat).

You can also use the glaze with chicken, duck or lamb.

We enjoyed our pork roast with sides of quinoa (you can use any whole grain); cubed, roasted butternut squash (we roasted it along with the tenderloin); and a mixed green salad with dried cranberries and slivered almonds.

Oh, how delicious! Photo of a glazed pork roast courtesy Crofters Organic.

RECIPE: APRICOT GLAZED PORK TENDERLOIN

Ingredients

Fruit spread contains less sugar than jam,
jelly, marmalade or preserves. Photo
courtesy Crofters Organic.

1. BLEND all ingredients except wine and pork in a food processor or blender. Place the tenderloin in a cast-iron pan and spoon the mixture over it. Let sit for 1/2 hour at room temperature.

2. HEAT the oven to 400°F; place the pan in the middle of the oven and sear for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350°F and continue to cook, 25 minutes per pound.

3. REMOVE cooked tenderloin from the pan and let rest. Meanwhile…

4. DEGLAZE the pan with 2 tablespoons of white wine. Drizzle over sliced tenderloin and garnish with fresh rosemary.

Check on the company website for coupons for Crofter’s spreads.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JAM & FRUIT SPREAD?

Crofter’s makes both apricot jam and apricot fruit spread. The difference is in the level of sweetness. Savory recipes like roast pork don’t need the extra sugar, so you can use fruit spread rather than jam.

Jam consists of chopped, crushed or puréed fruit cooked down with sugar—a recipe as old as refined sugar. Fruit spread began to appear in the 1970s as a reduced-calorie product, made with alternative sweeteners such as juice concentrate.

There are distinct differences between chutney, conserve, jelly, jams, marmalades and the rest of the sweet spread category. Take a minute and take a look.
 
MORE WAYS TO USE THE JAM OR FRUIT SPREAD

Breakfast

 
Lunch

 
Appetizers/Snacks

 
Dinner

 
Dessert

Gumbo is a Creole soup from Louisiana, thickened with okra pods. “Gumbo” is an African word for okra.

Okra came to America with the slave trade and was introduced to the Southern white population by African cooks. As with all recipes, there are regional variations and different styles of gumbo.

You can toil for many hours to make your gumbo, or you can make this one quickly to celebrate National Gumbo Day, October 12th.

Made with Swanson Louisana Cajun Flavor Infused Broth, it delivers the taste of New Orleans when combined with your chicken, sausage and vegetables.

Prep time is 25 minutes, total time is 1 hour, 25 minutes. Serve it at your next get-together.

RECIPE: EASY CAJUN GUMBO

Ingredients For 8 Servings

It’s gumbo time! Photo
courtesy Swanson.

 
Serve With

 
*To save time, you can substitute 1 package (12 ounces) fully-cooked andouille sausage, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, for the fresh sausage. Then, skip Step 1 below, and stir the cooked sausage in with the broth in Step 3.

1. HEAT 2 tablespoons oil in a 4-quart saucepan over medium heat. Add the sausage and cook until well browned, stirring occasionally. Remove the sausage from the saucepan and drain on paper towels. Do not pour off the drippings from the saucepan.

2. REDUCE the heat to medium-low. Stir the remaining oil and the flour in the saucepan. Cook for 30 minutes or until the flour mixture is dark brown, stirring occasionally.

3. Stir the onion, celery and pepper in the saucepan and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the broth, okra, chicken and sausage and heat to a boil. Reduce the heat to low. Cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
 
MORE GUMBO RECIPES

CAJUN VS. CREOLE: THE DIFFERENCE

Some people think of Creole cuisine as “city food” and Cajun cuisine as “country food.” But to eyeball the dish and tell its provenance, here’s a simple trick:

Creole cuisine uses tomatoes and Cajun food typically does not. That’s how to distinguish a Cajun gumbo or jambalaya from a Creole gumbo or jambalaya.

“Creole” referred to people who were born to settlers in French colonial Louisiana, specifically in New Orleans. In the 18th, century Creoles were the descendants of the French and Spanish upper class that ruled the city.

Cajuns, on the other hand, emigrated from the Acadia region of Canada, which consisted of present-day New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. They settled in the swampy region of Louisiana that is today known as Acadiana; their name, “les Acadians,” became shortened in the vernacular as “Cajun.”

Enjoy a deeper discussion at LouisianaTravel.com.

 
CHECK OUT THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF SOUP IN OUR SOUP GLOSSARY.

Fall mocktails, of course. You can find many of them online.

For starters, here’s a recipe full of fall flavor: apple, cinnamon and ginger, courtesy of Reed’s Ginger Brew, which has a portfolio of ginger beers from plain, in different strengths, to cherry and raspberry.

Turn it into a cocktail with one of the optional apple liquors.

> The history of ginger beer is below.

> The history of ginger ale.

> The difference between ginger ale and ginger beer.
 
 
RECIPE: APPLE GINGER MOCKTAIL OR COCKTAIL

Ingredients Per Drink

 
Preparation

1. FILL a tumbler with ice. Pour in Spiced Apple Ginger Brew and optional alcohol.

2. STIR with a cinnamon stick and serve.
 
 
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GINGER ALE & GINGER BEER

Although the name suggests otherwise, ginger beer was never actually a beer, but rather an alcoholic beverage with similar production methods.

Ginger ale is a soft drink, sweetened, carbonated water flavored with ginger extract. There is zero alcohol.

Ginger beer, on the other hand, is brewed for deeper and more complex flavors and a sizzling ginger “burn.” It’s a drier, fermented beverage containing real ginger root and probiotics.

Most genuine ginger beer is made from grated fresh ginger root, acidified with lemon juice and zest, and sweetened with sugar.

Brewers can add citrus zest, cayenne pepper and other hot spices, and blend-ins from nettle or dandelion beers.

It also includes what is known as the ginger beer plant, a fungus that contains specific yeast and bacteria that aid fermentation. Other live cultures can be substituted, including brewers’ or bakers’ yeast, lactic acid bacteria, kefir grains or tibicos, another culture of bacteria and yeasts.

Historically, this blended ingredients were left exposed to the ambient air for about a week for spontaneous fermentation with wild yeasts and lactobacilli.

Today, the gelatinous mass of bacteria (Lactobacillus hilgardii) and yeast (Saccharomyces florentinus) that floats on the surface is introduced during production. This is known as a plant or scoby and is similar to what is produced during kefir, kombucha, and tibicos (a.k.a. water kefir) production.

After a few days of fermentation, you’ve got ginger beer, effervescent with natural carbon dioxide (as in the fermentation of beer).

In the 1930s, dry ginger ale, a soft drink became popularand quickly eclipsed the older, more robust ginger beer [source].

There is confusion because some soft drink companies in the U.S. call their product ginger beer, perhaps to make it sound more exotic, when it is in fact simply ginger ale.

Look at the nutrition label on the bottle. Ginger beer ingredients should include real ginger root (no “extract”), a fermenting or souring ingredient, and 30g or lower sugar content per serving.

[2] Reed’s Ginger Beer is available in three strengths.

[3] Ginger root (photo © Jan Schone | Stock Xchange).

[4] Grenadine (photo © Sonoma Syrup).

Ginger beer was first created in Yorkshire, England in the 1700s, using using ginger root and sugar imported from the West Indies.

The recipe was simple. Ginger, sugar water and optional lemon and/or cream of tarter were combined and left to sit and ferment.

Once the mixture was bubbly and slightly alcoholic it would be strained off and a portion of the old batch would be used to make the new.

You can use:

 
Next, pick your flavor. While chocolate and lemon poppy cakes are always popular, think seasonally:

For Halloween, it’s a pumpkin or a jack-o-lantern. Photo courtesy Nordic Ware.

 
If you’re making a two-bundt recipe, with the special pumpkin bundt or a traditional bundt, you can bake two different, complementary flavors (apple and carrot, chocolate and spice cake, for example).

RECIPE: HALLOWEEN PUMPKIN BUNDT CAKE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. BAKE the bundt(s) from your favorite recipe or a cake mix. Cool.

2. MAKE or buy vanilla frosting. Reserve 1/4 to tint green; tint 3/4 of the batch orange with food color. Mix equal parts of yellow and red food coloring to make orange. For a darker blood orange, add more red. For a lighter pumpkin orange, use more yellow.

This recipe was adapted from one we found in Southern Living (September 2005). You can make a plain caramel frosting, or add pecans and/or coconut.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE all ingredients in a 3-quart saucepan. Stir and bring to a boil, stirring constantly, over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring continuously, for 3 to 5 minutes or until the mixture reaches a pudding-like thickness.

2. ADD optional ingredients: pecans and coconut. Remove from heat. Let cool and frost the cake as shown in the photos above.