At our country Inn in Vermont, we celebrated Columbus day weekend with our guests & autumn inspired meals .

Once the weather starts getting cooler my desire to get back into the kitchen emerges. I start thinking about baking up items that make the kitchen sweet with the scent of cinnamon & nutmeg. My entree choices become satisfying dishes like a home made pasta, roasted root veggies, cuts of beef or pork, braised or roasted, sweet potatoes & pots of soup to satisfy a fall palate. It is a time when the last of the garden herbs, like hearty sage , rosemary and thyme get a good pruning and make their way to our kitchen to be dried or made into herb oils .

The change of seasons is a time of transition from lazy evenings  out at the grill & freshly picked vegetables to days of visiting  road side farm stands for a variety of winter squashes & root veggies that will find there way to a stock pot or oven. There’s nothing better than a pot of stew or soup, comfort food we all love, when the winds turn chilly & a wood fire crackles with a woody scent.

If you were a guest of Abbott’s Glen this past weekend, you enjoyed

homemade pizza with toppings of roasted portabello mushrooms & spinach, with a base of fire roasted tomatoes & topped with a smoked mozzarella  from a local cheese maker.

A zucchini salad with grape tomatoes, a ceasar style dressing, & topped with grated parmesan cheese & toasted pine nuts was nice change of pace for a salad offering.

Dessert included a pumpkin chocolate chip brownie with a sweet chocolate ganache which we served over in the Carriage house aside a fire in the wood stove.

Part of our weekend menu included a harvest  dinner which began with a Spinach Salad chock full of fresh sliced Gala apples, toasted walnuts , a grating of Vermont cheddar cheese & tossed with a Cranberry pear Vinaigrette. A roasted Pork Tenderloin bathed in a sweet marinade of Maple, Dijon, garlic & fresh squeezed orange juice was complimented with a chunky mashed potatoes with a generous amount of butter, pesto & freshly ground pepper. I roasted up chunks of butternut squash until shiny, tender & lightly browned.

Every dinner must end with something memorable, preferably sweet but not too over the top.

I made an simple  maple mocha pudding topped  with a scoop of vanilla Hagan Das ice cream

Guests staying at Abbott’s Glen always look forward to breakfast They never know what the menu will provide, part of the fun! One morning a sausage & cinnamon baked  bread French toast lured guests from their rooms. Another morning a baked German pancake with sauteed pears had guests licking the last bit of maple syrup from a plate devoid of even a crumb. Truth be told, most folks do enjoy breakfast.