I Love Fall, and Especially Apple Picking

There is something magical to me about Fall.  It's my all time favorite time of the year, the crisp air, the beautiful colors of the leaves changing, pumpkin spice latte, boot season, and let's be honest, much better hair weather than the Summer time! 

A few weeks ago the Gimpster and I went apple picking with a small group of friends.  The sad thing was - it ended up being 80 degrees and it was the second weekend of October!  Needless to say, I could not wear any of my cute boots, but we did get to go on a hayride.

The next weekend we were headed to Virginia for Gimpy's homecoming, so I had to figure out something to do with all of my apples aside from the required apple crisp that I made that afternoon.  I wanted to be able to use a lot of apples - I had 28 or so to cut up and cook - so I made two batches of apple cumble coffee cake.   



Apple Crumble Coffee Cake

For the cake:

1 stick unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup sour cream

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups peeled, cored, and chopped apples

For the crumble:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup flour

1 tsp cinnamon

4 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

Preheat the oven to 350. 

In your mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time until fully mixed in.  In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients.  Add to the wet ingredients a little at a time, alternating with the sour cream and vanilla until all are blended together.  Fold in the apples and pour into a buttered 13x9 baking dish. 

To make the topping, mix the dry ingredients in a new bowl and cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, or if you're like me and don't have one, two knives.  Pour the crumble over the cake and bake for 35-40 minutes. 

Once I made the coffee cake, I realized I still had a TON of apples left, and I didn't know what I could do with them all.  I don't have the freezer space right now to freeze whole pies or anything!  Luckily a co-worker told me that you can easily freeze apples.  I set off right away peeling, coring, and slicing the rest of my apples so that I now have about 6 baggies in my freezer each filled with 2-3 apples ready to be thawed and used in baked goods all winter long!

Acorn Squash Stuffed with Grains & Chicken Sausage

Last Week I wanted to introduce Gimpy to one of my favorite Fall vegetables - acorn squash.  I started with one acorn squash, cut in half, with the inside (seeds, strings) scraped out and baked in a 350 degree oven for 50 minutes.  When you put it in the oven, bake it with the cut size up.

In the meantime, I put 1 3/4 cup chicken stock in a sauce pan with 1 1/4 cup of mixed grains - wild rice, quinoa, and couscous.  Bring that to a boil and cook for 15 minutes until tender.  On another burner, melt 1 tablespoon of butter, and chop up 2 jalapeno mango chicken sausages and sauté.

Steam a cup of peas, and then mix the grains, sausage, and peas together.  Place them in the acorn squash and serve!  You can either have them just fill the cavity...

Or you could have it overflowing the edges and cascading down!  Gimpy loved it :)