Sunday Dinner & Fall Is In The Air...

It's Saturday afternoon and all my regular readers know what that means...Time for my Sunday Dinner meme. It's easy to participate--just leave a comment telling what your plans for Sunday Dinner include. Are you cooking? What's on the menu? Eating out? Where? What do you plan to order? Here in Arkansas, dinner is the noon meal, but tell me about whichever meal you prefer.


My plans? I'm going to bake a small ham, cook some pinto beans (like those to the left I cooked a little while back), and I think make some homemade macaroni and cheese and open up a couple of cans of corn. If something else takes my fancy I may add something else. Sometimes reading recipes on other blogs or your comments on here fling a cravin' on me and I have to change the menu. I may or may not make a sweet. Depends on what starts sounding good when I get in the pantry looking for the other stuff for Sunday Dinner.
It has been gloriously cooler here in Arkansas for the last week. Refreshingly cooler after the relentless heat of the Dog Days of August. Highs have been in the upper 70's and 80's, and lows in the 50's and 60's. The crushing humidity has been replaced with cooler, dryer air. I've had my windows open for several days now, but I think the windows will have to be shut and the air conditioning turned back on for the next few days. It's 89* right now and it's a little too warm for me, even with the dryer air. I'll have to cook shortly and it will be too hot without the AC on, plus it's supposed to be hotter tomorrow, then tornadoes and storms Sunday night, followed by much cooler weather again.

Fall is definitely in the air. I live in a very small rural town, about 1600 people, and farming is our lifeblood here. I live right in the center of town, less than a block away from the cotton gin. Through the open window I can hear the gin running, a sure sign that cotton picking time is not far off. This is a trial run to make sure the equipment is running properly, and some farmer may have already picked some of his cotton, trying to be the first to have that coveted first bale of cotton.

Already most gardens are about played out, with the exception of okra (or okree as we pronounce it around here) that is still producing, and pumpkins that are plump and orange, ready for fall decorating and making into pies and pumpkin bread, or fried pumpkin, an oldfashioned delicacy. Turnips, mustard greens, tender greens, spinach, collard greens and kale have been planted in place of the earlier produce in a lot of gardens and some are ready for picking now. My favorite is turnips and turnip greens, but in my opinion they're better after it frosts on them time or two. Frost is probably still several weeks away for us, but in the early mornings there's a chill in the air and you can almost smell frost in the air if you sniff just right. The air is pert' neart' crisp in the mornings now.

Another subtle sign that fall is not far away is all the flowers that have almost spent themselves blooming away all summer. My moss rose still has a few straggling flowers, but for the most part is done for the season. All those thousands of seeds they flung out with abandon this summer will snuggle down for the winter and pop up in some surprising places next spring. My fire engine red cannas have brown edges on the bright green leaves, foretelling the dull brown the first freeze will turn them. Formerly vivid green trees have touches of gold, orange, red and rust. Just a touch, but if you squint just right, fall is very near.

Just yesterday I got a faint whiff of something I hadn't smelled since last fall...burning leaves. Someone couldn't wait until they had a genuine PILE of leaves and had to burn a measly handful and jumpstart the season, I suppose. But leaf smoke is another sure sign of fall. Several people here in town have wood stoves and fireplaces and I can't wait until that first real cold snap and they light the first fires of the season. We had coal and wood heat all my life and oh! the sweet memories of home with Mama and Daddy that smell brings back....

Did you notice how my menus are changing with the weather? Lots of sandwiches and salads back during the hot weather, and now baked ham, mac and cheese and a big pot of pinto beans. Cooler weather just seems to call for warm comfort foods. Like chili, soups, stews, casseroles and one dish suppers. And I love hot dogs year round, but there's something special about a weinie roast in the fall. The smell of the wood smoke from the fire and that special smoky taste of the hot dogs, eaten outside in the fresh autumn air...Magic, I tell you! Not to mention the marshmallows, cooked just right. I say cooked, but what I mean is, toasty brown on the outside and gooey on the inside. And if it flames a little, so much the better. A perfect dessert for a weinie roast. Okay, now my mouth is literally watering for hot dogs and marshmallows and I still have to cook supper. Wait....I've got marshmallows and hot dogs both....there's tonight's menu, for sure!! Thanks for helping me decide, y'all. ;-)

Now I have to go get the ham out of the freezer, along with hot dog buns for the weinie roast, and it's almost 4 pm here. So, I'll wish everyone a great rest of the weekend. May you be blessed with all you need, and may you love and be loved.

Don't forget to leave me a comment with your plans for Sunday Dinner. :-)