Pears! Maybe I got a little carried away, but they had an assortment of Asian, d’Anjou, Bosc, and Red Bartlett. I have them out in the kitchen ripening. Thinking about freshly sliced Asian pears with the salad greens and a Dijon vinaigrette. Maybe some toasted walnuts? Since I have so many, they will also be featured in the dessert. Probably baked in a rustic galette with blueberries and cream.
Apples. I really enjoy the wide variety available at the farmers market. Seems like everyone wants Honeycrisp now, and I don’t really understand why. So these are Nittany, a very firm and tart apple. I had a pie in mind until I bought all the pears, so now I am thinking of the traditional pork chops smothered with a pan-sauce of apples, cider vinegar etc. Maybe some thyme.
Brussels Sprouts and Kale. Just had some success par boiling and then grilling the sprouts, but then what to do with the Kale? I like the slightly bitter flavor of both of these, but having them together might be overpowering. Maybe the kale can be roasted until crispy and be part of the appetizer?… this morning I found a recipe for hashed sprouts with lemon zest on Mark Bittman’s blog that will take the flavor in a different direction and allow the kale to go into mashed potatoes with some leek (and old Dutch recipe that I grew up with called stumpot.)
Roasting the butternut squash and making a soup with ginger and sage-infused croutons sounds like a good way to round things out.