Two Great Apple Recipes

In the past couple days, we've made two apple recipes that are wonderful. The first, is a recipe I copied from my friend, Amy, and have been making for the past few years. Fall greens are so wonderful. After having them in the spring, getting our fill and then missing them during the hot weather months, they are such a welcome addition to our diet this time of year.

The second recipe, is a new one. We don't eat a lot of meat. In fact, we haven't had chicken in at least a month. We wouldn't have had it even then, but I had a craving, so we picked one up at our farmer's market. We are waiting to harvest our own chickens in a couple weeks. The other meat we occasionally buy from local farms is sausage. I love pairing apples and sausage. The warm sweet-mildly-spicy combination is perfect during these months. Ok. Enough talking about things, jot these ingredients down and head off to your garden or farmer's market and get busy!

Apple Salad over Greens

In a large salad bowl layer:

4 cups mixed greens
1/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled
2 cups chopped apples
1/4 cup dried cranberries

In a small bowl, whisk:

1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tbsp. honey
1 tsp. oil
dash salt
dash pepper

Pour dressing over salad right before serving and toss.


Apple and Sausage Pie (adapted slightly from simplyrecipes.com)

1 pie crust lining a 9 or 10 inch pie plate or an 8x8 baking dish
2 large, tart apples, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 tsp. sugar
3 tbsp. butter
1/2 lb. Italian bulk sausage
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups shredded fontina, provalone, and or asiago cheese
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup feta cheese
2 eggs, slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line the inside of the pie shell with heavy aluminum foil, pressing the dough against the sides. Bake for 8 minutes. Remove the foil, poke the bottom of the pie crust with the tines of a fork to create air vents. Return crust to oven, bake for an additional 4 minutes, or until the crust begins to brown. Remove from oven and let cool. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the apples, onions and sugar, cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 5 minutes. In the last 30 seconds or so, add the garlic and cook until fragrant. Transfer mixture to a bowl. Increase the heat to medium high and in the same skillet, brown the sausage. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the cheeses and beaten eggs.

Assemble the pie by laying the sausage in first (using a slotted spoon). Then, add the apple mixture over the sausage and lastly, the cheese mixture so it evenly covers the pie.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Our notes: We used 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese in place of the fontina/povalone/asiago and it was delicious. Also, our knife never came out "clean", even after baking 50 minutes. The cheese topping stays on the moist side- this is ok and delicious.

Enjoy!! Pin It