WEEKLY MENU 09.21.25
Fall arrives during the Weekly Menu 09.21.25 – and so does my birthday!
Our Weekly Menu 09.21.25 declares FALL IS HERE! On Monday, when it actually happens, all bets are off as far as pumpkin decor. But not until Monday, dammit! Did you know that the autumnal equinox doesn’t occur on the same day every year?
The first day of fall can change, but the window of possible dates is quite small. Most years, you can expect it to occur on September 22 or 23. Every now and then, it could happen on September 21 or 24 but the last time we had a September 21 fall equinox was over a thousand years ago! And don’t expect another September 24 date until 2303.
The Pioneer Woman
Fall is my favorite season of all. It’s been a great summer, but I’m ready to get away from summer foods and get into soups, stews and comfort food. Which is not to say we haven’t been doing any comfort eating, because we certainly have. But autumn is the official switch that I’ve been looking forward to. I’m a huge soup eater, and that just makes me sweat during the summer.
In the States, we say “fall” but across the pond, they call it “autumn” and feel pretty superior about it. Why? Because we are describing the leaves coming off the trees the way a preschooler would.
The names autumn and fall are both commonly used. Autumn is thought to be slightly older, appearing in the 1300s, with the word fall first appearing around the 1500s in reference to leaves falling off trees. An even earlier name for the season is harvest.
Dictionary.com
But England shouldn’t feel too superior. They didn’t invent the word or anything.
The word autumn comes from the French autompne, from the Latin autumnus, whose deeper roots are obscure. It’s first recorded in English as early as the late 1300s—notably, both Chaucer and Shakespeare used it in their works.
Dictionary.com
Doesn’t that make you feel better? Yeah, it doesn’t really matter a fig to me either. We’re bringing it in with some style, though, during the Weekly Menu 09.21.25. Because of where it hits, my birthday has always been celebrated with a slightly fall theme. I almost always get candles and some fall decor, both of which I adore. The only candles we use during the summer are the tiki torches. I go to bed too early to get a good burn on a candle when it doesn’t get dark until 9:30. I love all things orange and fall. I’m dying to bring the skeleton up from the basement, although I’ll try to hold out on that until October 1st.
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I’m ready to pull out all the pumpkins too.
Don’t even get me started on the candles.
Weekly Menu 09.21.25 includes…
An Italian feast with a family favorite pork chop. (I know – I can’t hardly believe it either!) I swear this time I’m going to record the whole thing so I can share it with you, because Pork Chops Italiano are a simple, satisfying, relatively good-for-you meal. It’s lightly seared pork chops that are then poached in a (low-sodium) tomato and pepper-based liquid. They are yummy and super tender.
We’re doing a little last gasp of summer with Mojo Chicken – Bert gets to take this one to the grill. The chicken breasts are soaked in an orange-lime juice marinade with a LOT of paprika. The sodium content on that one is easy to contain!
Did you know they sell “no-salt-added” beans? I use almost exclusively canned beans, and they are a little sodium-heavy, so subbing in low-so beans if you can find them helps a lot. Many of the essential nutrients are washed away when you rinse them, so I only drain them before using. The Beef and Black Bean Burritos are probably going to be “Beef and Red Bean Burritos” for a change. How awesome does that sound? And, of course, we have soup on the menu even though the temps in Erieland will probably be somewhere around 80 degrees on Friday night. The calendar may have changed to fall, but the weather sure hasn’t!
My immersion blender bit the dust (or shit the bed, as the mighty DOLD would have said) so I’m in the market for a new one. The one I had sparked, blew a fuse, and scared the bejeesus out of me enough that I immediately binned it. And the new ones got way more expensive! Thank God my birthday is coming up.
WEEKLY MENU 09.21.25
RECIPE LINKS
SWEET & SPICY POPCORN
BAKED FONTINA
CAESAR SALAD DRESSING
ALMOND BARS
MOJO CHICKEN
CRISSCROSS SPUDS
BEEF & BLACK BEAN BURRITOS
MEXICAN CHOPPED SALAD
SALMON, SWEET POTATO, PEPPER SHEET PAN DINNER
ZUPPA TOSCANA
CHICKEN CAESAR BAGUETTES
Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go.
WEEKLY MENU 09.21.25 EQUIPMENT AND MISCELLANEOUS
