Autumn menu, step by step
Interactive lesson: how to cook from the harvest, cockerels and young stock from September to November, eat squash, beans and cabbage and get the stores ready for winter.
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The whole lesson as text
1. What autumn gives
Autumn is the only season when the homestead has a bit of everything.
- Autumn has everything — From September to November you cook from the harvest, poultry and young stock. The wood-burning range comes back into the kitchen, because the house needs heating again.
- Garden and field — In September tomatoes under cover, runner beans, sweetcorn and maincrop potatoes. In October squash, cabbage, roots and leeks, and beans for drying are picked.
- Fruit — Plums, damsons and blackberries in September, then apples, pears, quinces, walnuts and sweet chestnuts in October. In November apples and pears come from the store.
- Hen house and barn — Hens moult and lay few eggs. There is little milk, but it is rich: kajmak and butter. Cockerels, kids and old hens go to the kitchen.
Why: The last tomatoes are still ripening, the potatoes are lifted, the squash is curing, and the cockerels and young stock are ready for the kitchen. But whatever you don't eat or store now won't exist in winter.
- The table is for lowland UK and Ireland. In the mild west and south-west harvests run 2–4 weeks longer; in the uplands and Scotland the first frost can arrive in September.
- Eat what doesn't keep and store what does: tomatoes and peppers first, then squash and cabbage, while potatoes and apples wait for winter.
2. How much the family eats
The family's needs stay the same, but the autumn plate differs from the summer one.
- A family of 3.1 AE — The example is a family of 3.1 adult equivalents (AE). How to count AE: see H48-01 or H00-02.
- Vegetables, potatoes, fruit — Roughly 8 kg of vegetables, 5 kg (11 lb) of potatoes and 6 kg of fruit a week: plums, apples, pears, quinces, blackberries.
- Eggs and milk — The moult means only 8–10 eggs a week. Milk is 5–8 L: little, but rich, for kajmak and butter.
- Meat, beans, flour — 2.5 kg of meat, 0.5 kg of new beans (once or twice a week) and 5 kg of flour for pies, bread, pura and proja.
Why: There are fewer eggs, little milk and more meat, because in autumn you slaughter everything that won't be overwintered. Once you know the weekly quantities, you know how much you need to store for winter.
- By hand: AE × autumn factor. Vegetables 2.6 kg, potatoes 1.6 kg, fruit 2 kg and meat 0.8 kg per AE a week.
- Pulses are not a separate standard in the 4freelife plan; H00-02 counts roughly 6 kg of pulses per AE a year.
4. Squash, beans and cabbage · Locked
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5. One bird, three meals · Locked
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6. Sauerkraut and winter stores · Locked
Buy the Autumn menu module and you get the PDF to download and print, plus lifetime access to this interactive lesson: all 6 chapters, 24 steps.