As fall settles in and winter quickly approaches we’ve been making some seasonal dishes. Many of our choices were made with our Thanksgiving celebration in mind, specifically dishes or ingredients we could prepare and freeze for that menu.

We mentioned before that we had some Roasted Pumpkin Soup the night we went to see Jethro Tull. In making that, we ended up with a bunch of extra prepared pumpkin and I worked to get through it in a variety of ways. Our Portuguese kitchens haven’t been the largest, so in Olhão we bought an immersion blender… that stopped working after about 2 years. We researched and bought a new one and I felt very confident in our decision, but when Michelle went to file the paperwork we realized it’s just a slightly better model of the same brand that stopped working. Hopefully we have better luck this time around.

I am a huge fan of having an immersion blender and we use it and the mini food processor attachment for all sorts of things. In the States we had a Kitchen Aid, a blender, and a food processor. We used all of them, but we don’t feel held back in the kitchen without them.

One interesting language note. In the States we use the word pumpkin to specify that very carvable type of orange squash, but here in Portugal it is usually just labelled squash (abóbora).

In addition to the soup, Michelle needed a bit more pureed pumpkin for some other recipes so I processed two and we had to find a good use for the leftover.

I love donuts and thought these Glazed Pumpkin Donut Holes would be good, leaving off the sugary glaze altogether, and mixing chopped pistachio into the batter. Unfortunately I either messed up the recipe or didn’t heat my oil enough because they were tummy ache inducing grease bombs. BUT we caught this early and pivoted, throwing the rest of the batter into some mini muffin tins. The muffins were actually pretty good!

I also made some Cream Cheese Pumpkin Bread which captured the fall flavor profile perfectly.

We went to a Halloween Party and in advance planned on making Pumpkin Snickerdoodles (that really is the last of the pumpkin puree other than what is still frozen for Thanksgiving treats) and a cheese ball covered in meat designed to look like a hand. A few days before the party (after buying all our ingredients) we learned that the hosts and many other guests were vegans. Ooops. Thankfully both recipes turned out and the non-vegans (and us) enjoyed the meat, cheese, and dairy filled options. As a snickerdoodle fan I will say I think these were fine cookies but were not very snickerdoodley.

I will say that we love Portuguese cheeses but haven’t transitioned to using them for most recipes, and cheddar can run a bit spendy comparatively.

We knew we wanted to make a nice warm aromatic filled Apple Cider for Thanksgiving, but you can’t just go to the store and buy a bottle of cider here. If you ask about getting cider you’ll be sent to the beer section to buy a hard cider I’m not a fan of most of the hard cider options here as they run sweet and definitely wouldn’t work for our purposes. I found a recipe and bought a bunch of apples. In the end we got plenty of homemade cider AND a big batch of applesauce.

I made Applesauce Muffins and Michelle made some tasty applesauce pancakes. We mixed the rest into our morning breakfast bowls of yogurt and muesli and it was healthy and delicious. I thought the muffins were OK, but not quite as flavorful as I’d prefer.

I had a hankering for Tollhouse Cookie Bars and made up a batch, they were fine but in retrospect I just want some gooey chocolate chip cookies instead. For our friends’ birthday party I made a batch of Birthday Party Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars with Chocolate and Sprinkles which were yummy and as always a big hit since it isn’t a common a recipe here in Portugal.

A few other standout recipes from the season include:

• Cheesy Bay Scallop Puff Pastry Shells – YUM. We used larger scallops and cut them into smaller bits. I would definitely have this recipe again.
• Japanese Fried Chicken – YUM. We don’t fry that often and this was a great use for that donut oil that I basically didn’t use.
• Florida Shrimp Pie – YUM. I made a basic pie crust for this (why wouldn’t you?) and it was lovely.
• Fast & Spicy Alaska Halibut – I didn’t execute this correctly and we lost a lot of the butter (I needed to cook out some of the water before adding the goodness). We have enough frozen halibut and homemade spice blend for a second round so hopefully I can pull it off next time!
• Chicken and Zucchini Casserole – YUM! We had Jorge over for lunch and all three of us loved it. We also learned the Portuguese word for casserole – “caçarola” which is pronounced just like casserole but pretend you are Mario.
• Creamy Chicken Toast – YUM!! Michelle found this recipe and wanted to make it because it reminded her of a Chipped Beef on Toast that her Mom made when she was young. How can you go wrong with that much cream? You can’t! It was warm and filling and perfect for chilly fall days.

If you have any questions about what our daily cooking is like, post in the comments. We can do more cooking and food posts if you (our amazing readers) are interested!