Fall in New England welcomes the most gorgeous colors of orange and red to our foliage with cooler temperatures and the need to stay cozy with comfort food. From hearty lentil and vegetable soups to pumpkin muffins, bread, coffees, well pumpkin everything to apple pies and crumbles - Ooooh, I want it all! (Good thing, we have a spin bike in our basement and running shoes ready at the door!) I have been perusing cookbooks for inspiration to fill our growing boys’ growing appetites for all things Fall and delicious. As this past Sunday was a total wash-out and so was our 12-year-old’s State Cross Country Meet, it was the perfect day to get cooking/creating. Matt got an early start with a slow simmering meat stew. I wanted to make an apple pie with a salted caramel sauce, because every Sunday dinner needs a dessert, right?! However, we were running out of time as we were taking our boys to Jane Pickens Theater to see ‘To Kill a Mockingbird"‘. I was going to cheat…yup, you heard me, I was going to cut a corner and buy salted caramel ready to go, but I resisted the temptation for convenience and fear..more on that fear later and decided to make my own.
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“People who love to eat are the best people.”
Julia Child
Post Apple Picking Extravaganza….Apple Pie Bars!
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“And all at once Summer collapsed into Fall.”
Oscar Wilde
I am ready for…fall leaves, cooler nights, pumpkin patches…heck, pumpkin beer and most of all apple picking. When I was little, my parents would take my brother and I to an apple orchard in East Lyme, Connecticut. We would cruise along on the Merritt Parkway bopping along to my parent’s favorite 50’s music station watching the colors of the trees change the more north we drove. I remember arriving to the orchard with the smell of apple cider donuts wafting in the air and the promise of apple cider at the end of our apple picking. Annually, I would gorge myself on fresh picked apples. I loved to pluck a little red and golden yellow Cortland or Gala gem off the tree branch and bite into the crisp skin and discover juicy fall in that apple. A full bag of fresh picked apples promised to become an apple pie that my dad would later bake….his only claim to fame in the kitchen. He would bake a juicy apple pie and slice up cheddar cheese to place on top after it came out of the oven wafting the cinnamon and apple aroma throughout our home.
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