Cranberry beans

Here are the shelled beans from the mess of magenta-specked pods I posted about earlier. Aren't they striking? I often imagine them to be tiny birds' eggs, some relative of the robin as these as lovely as are the Tiffany blue of Mr. Red Breast's eggshells. As I mentioned, they do turn an unfortunate, uniform shade of gray when cooked, but they hold up well and have a terrifically firm yet smooth and creamy texture.

The cranberry bean originated in Colombia, there known as the cargamanto. Italians bred a form of this, the borlotti, that has a thicker skin. Neato food history, eh?

Pumpkin cheesecakes

Isn't this darling? I've got 6 and will freeze them for later treats- swear this is the yummiest pumpkin cheesecake recipe ever! I'm now roasting beets for a lovely dinner salad of farro, farmers cheese and a clementine-brown butter dressing (my riff on the salad I enjoyed at The Publican). Overall, the kids are handling house-boundness well. Tomorrow might start to wear on us but at least things are still pretty calm outside and we still have power.

Double-grape compote made, mini-pumpkin cheesecakes on the horizon

Today has been such a good one for cooking. We made a fire and roasted marshmallows for s'mores, truly an excellent treat. I just used up all my Concord grapes in making another batch of grape-rosemary-pine nut compote which is now in the freezer just waiting for Thanksgiving, and presently, three bricks of cream cheese are coming to room temp on the counter as I intend to christen my set of mini springform pans with a batch of pumpkin cheesecakes (using my homemade pumpkin puree). Are you cooking too?