Maybe you already knew this, but in case you didn't: I'm a real home-body. I love being home. I love spending mornings in my kitchen, I love rearranging the furniture, I love hanging clothes on the line to dry, I kind of like hanging shelves, and I prefer to stay in my pajamas rather than put on "real clothes".

Friday morning we head out for new/old home - back to Vermont. We'll drive about 20 hours and roll up to a sweet house with a big barn and two of our favorite people in the whole world. This means the blog will be on a little break, but when it comes back it'll be better than ever. There will be a big garden, enough people in the house to warrant making desserts regularly, better lighting, probably some home improvement projects (repainting a bath tub, anyone?), and more!

In the meantime, I suggest you check out the blog by Ashley English: Small Measure. I picked up a copy of her book Keeping Chickens with Ashley English today in order to prepare for the flock I hope to be tending at our new house. (I could inundate you with cat pictures, but I'd rather overwhelm you with chicken pictures.)

You could also pass the time making this Swiss Easter Rice Tart! George was big, big fan of this because it's not terribly sweet. It is, however, terribly delicious.

I've been meaning to write, I really have, but you know how it goes - computers crash and need to be replaced after you thought it'd been fixed three times, winter finally freezes you in and you want nothing more than to be warm and watch movies that remind you this season will pass and life will return, you simply forget, you go to Atlanta, you lose your camera in one of the four bags you use daily, you can't think of anything good to say so you don't say anything at all.

I'd like to assure you, though, that while my brain may be hibernating, my kitchen is not.

There were some chicken strips:

Peanut butter toast in the pre-dawn snow:

All the unsatisfactory lemon scones which Geo ate most of in one day:

Aliens in both our bread and artichokes on the same day:

There have been a couple batches of beer George brewed with our friend Taft:

We discovered Brussels sprouts when we actually, for real, couldn't find kale in the grocery store:

George launched into a couple weeks of curries after finding a cheap book all about curries:

Finally we ended up with some radicchio in last night's dinner, Chicken Baked with Lentils, via The Wednesday Chef. :

As we truly hunkered down for winter here something incredible happened: we kept cooking and it wasn't an insurmountable task. I made vegetable stock regularly which got used in making rice and couscous and to help steam kale. Days without meals planned showed up and between us Geo and I could manage to whip up a decent dinner that was nutritious and delicious - not simply mac & cheese with peas. I'm remembering to soak beans overnight, to take frozen chicken out to thaw the night before, I'm making enough food to take to work for lunch. It's a dream come true.

It's official: summer's over. We close the windows at night, we brush leaves off the windshield, I've lured my sweaters out of hiding, and finished knitting my first scarf of the season. Fall is wafting in and with it notions of soups, breads, and pies.

This week a surprisingly all-American menu:

- No-Knead Bread

- Roasted Chicken

- Apple Pie

The No-Knead bread recipe comes from Jim Lahey at Sullivan Street Bakery, via the New York Times and it's truly fantastic. (It's especially fantastic for someone with hand and/or wrist problems.) Mark Bittman sums it, "The loaf is incredible, a fine-bakery quality, European-style boule that is produced more easily than by any other technique I've used, and will blow your mind." (Read the full article here.) The majority of work in the recipe is done by time -- the long fermentation and wetness of the dough take the place of kneading. George bulked up this loaf by adding flax meal and sunflower seeds, but didn't add any extra liquid. So instead of being a sticky, soupy mess, it was a dry, clumpy pile. The finished bread was...rustic but tasty. The recipe makes it simple to add nuts or seeds or to substitute different flours, but if you add much more dry than 3 cups, add a little extra water.

After a season of mediocre soups last fall I refuse to do it again. We'll begin at the beginning this time: with stock. In preparation for chicken stock next week we decided to roast a whole chicken this week*. News flash: roasting a whole chicken is incredibly easy. For a 4 1/2 lb bird we put a large cast iron skillet in the oven, then preheated it to 450, slathered the chicken with butter, sprinkled on some salt and pepper then put the buttered bird in the hot skillet and roasted it, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. Now we have plenty of meat for sandwiches and plenty of bones for stock next week.

Like I said, it's pie time. Pie crust is something that's given me trouble in the past. You know the trouble I mean: tearing when rolled out, too thin, too sticky, burning, flavorless, or not even faking flakiness. This time I showed that crust who's in charge. Answer: me. I cut the fat in with a food processor and only until there were pea-sized pieces of fat. I think I'd been over-incorporating it, not realizing that little chunks of butter are absolutely necessary for flakiness. The other necessity for optimal flakiness: cold fat. (I say "fat" and not "butter" because you could use vegetable shortening or lard - which is apparently coming back into fashion.) When the cold chunks of fat melt away in the oven it creates the delicate layers of baked dough. I started with cold, cold butter, put the discs of dough back in the fridge for a hour before rolling them out, and even put the completely assembled pie in the freezer for 10 minutes before putting it in the oven. Was it all worth it? Absolutely. While the crust could use a little more salt or sugar (I haven't decided which yet) it turned out to be, hands down, the best pie crust I've ever made. I used some Granny Smith and some Honeycrisp apples which made for fine flavor - not overly sweet, or overly tart, but I could have gone for more flavor. Luckily we're in somewhat of an apple capital so I've got many many more varieties of apples to experiment with.

No-Knead Bread

Adapted from Jim Lahey & The New York Times

2 c. whole wheat flour

1 c. white flour

1/2 c. flax meal

1/4 c. sunflower seeds

1 5/8 c. water

1/4 t. instant yeast

2 t. salt

Combine flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add water and stir until blended - dough will be kind of shaggy. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest in a warm place 12 to 18 hours.

Lightly flour a work surface, place dough on it, sprinkle with a little more flour and fold dough over onto itself a couple times. Cover with plastic wrap, let rest for 15 minutes.

Use just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to you or the work surface, shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel with flour (cornmeal or wheat bran work also) and put loaf seam side down on it, then dust with a little more flour. Cover with a clean towel and let rise for 2 hours. (The dough will have doubled in size and when poked won't really spring back.)

1/2 hour before baking preheat oven to 450 degrees and place at 6 to 8 quart dutch oven in to heat as well. When the dough's risen, carefully take the pot out from the oven. Turn dough over and place in pot seam side up. Cover with lid** and bake 30 minutes, remove lid and bake another 15-30 minutes, until crust is nice and browned.

*The chicken we purchased came with the most ridiculous sticker: one advertising a free music download.

**If you're using something like an enamel coated Le Creuset pot, you may want to unscrew the knob from the lid, some of them aren't prepared for higher oven temperatures.