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Home cooking means canning jam when the weather is cooler, puttering in the kitchen for a few hours tossing something together because I want to, cookie dough and a warm oven.

Tonight it means an omlet with Gruyere (thanks for the idea!) and chicken sausage and maybe a tomato if it hasn't gone bad yet.

Home cooking means friends and family sharing glasses of wine while looking on in the kitchen for hours worth of fresh baked focaccia. Home cooking means the best of the late seasons herbs and spices hanging from strings like ornaments along the kitchen. Home cooking means making a disaster and making a masterpiece. Most of all home cooking means local honey from a friend dribbled over caramelized garlic and onions and smoothed over some pungent creamy cheese and friends to share it with.

home cooking is sexy. Nothing sexier than baking bread with your husband on sunday mornings.

THE SEXY, COOKS.

I love this theme. Home cooking is the books of John Thorne, please feature them as a part of this, I have found them so inspirational.

Home cooking is the slow turnover of leftovers and bread starters and the cooking tools nurtured over time.

this fall home cooking means that it is cool enough for me to actually use my kitchen again! i'm dying to roast a pork tenderloin with acorn squash, rosemary, and hoisin. i can't wait to roast a chicken and use the leftovers to make chicken pot pies.
and while technically it begins next month, i'm really excited to start getting our first CSA shares in october. that will get me cooking even more seasonally and trying new things that i wouldn't otherwise pick up at the market.

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Every September, as school gets back in session (my husband and I are both teachers); home cooking to me means roasting chicken on a Sunday for sandwiches during the week. It means making applesauce, canning tomatoes, and baking LOTS of apple crisps and pies to consume. It also means enjoying our deck on a cool evening with a glass of wine, watching the neighbor farmers harvest their corn and soybeans as the sun goes down.

Home cooking means lazy Sunday pitch-in brunches with friends using veggies fresh-picked from the garden.

Is this a mission statement? Because if it is, I want to sign on. I'm just sitting down to catch up as I finish my first batch of homemade jam. Peach, and maybe pear tomorrow. It's a great reminder of how rewarding this stuff can be--homecooking not because it's cheaper or faster--it never is! But because it's nourishing in so many ways and so expressive of love. I look forward to the fall, my favorite season for food and otherwise, with you guys!

Every October I go apple picking and make everything possible with the apples. Apple walnut muffins, caramel apple pie, apple turnovers, apple crisp, etc. I am always looking for new apple recipes!
Every December, my mom and I make cookies for a cookie exchange that we do at each of our jobs. We spend the entire day making different varieties of cookies.
These home cooking traditions make me look forward to the fall and winter.

What a great theme for the month of September. A time when many of us get back into a routine after the more lacadasical months of summer and before the more harried and hectic holiday months ahead. To me, home cooking is making fresh tomato sauce that I'll stick in the freezer for the cooler months to come and fresh pesto that I'll also freeze to give us a burst of summer flavor when it is cold and dark outside. Home cooking is also making weekend breakfast with my husband: omelettes, pancakes, coffee cake or whatever strikes our fancy.

This is so timely for me! I grew up in a home where cooking was normal, but after I moved out on my own (over ten years ago), it became increasingly harder to maintain that. I'm just starting to realize now how important cooking at home is in reducing my carbon footprint, conserving natural resources, saving money and protecting my health, so I'm over 30 and trying to figure out how to do that for myself (I'm single and live alone) in a way that will make me want to do it forever.

To me, home cooking is cooking with my mom in her kitchen, going through all of her cookbooks, and sitting down to eat with my family.

To me, it's pancakes for breakfast with homemade syrup, labor-intensive dishes which are a big hit with my husband (like lasagna and chicken pulao), and making my own baked goods. In the summer, all of these things are really difficult because it's so hot, but it's a little easier once the weather mellows out.

It also means an awful lot of dirty dishes.

Home cooking is realizing that I can cook or bake something from scratch, and that it will be tastier than just about every box, jar, or frozen version I can find in the supermarket. So far, I've mastered brownies, bread pudding, mac and cheese, pad thai, and teriyaki.