Fall

Last week I got a shipment of SweeTango apples to try. New varieties of apples appear up now and again and the SweeTango is a relatively new one that's harvested the end of August and beginning of September. It's a very pretty apple with a bright mix of golden green and bright red.

The SweeTango is a cross between a Honeycrisp and a Zestar apple. Honeycrisp is sweet and crisp and Zestar is juicy and zesty. The cross is a very good eating apple but you can use it for cooking too. It's a juicy apple so it doesn't need additional liquid and is best for recipes that are fairly quick cooking because it gets very soft when cooked.

The SweeTango is perfect for apple crisp, which is super easy to make, easier than pie or even a cobbler. It's the kind of thing that takes only minutes to prepare, then you can pop it in the oven after or even during dinner. The smell of apples, butter and cinnamon might be the best thing about autumn.

Sometimes the story behind a given dish is complicated. This is one of those recipes, though the recipe is is easy as can be. I'm particularly proud of it because it's rather original and I got a number of compliments on it and even a couple of requests for the recipe.

It's spicy fennel flavored Italian sausages roasted with vinegar-marinated pears and onions. The resulting dish has spicy, savory and sweet flavors and can be made for as many or as few people as you like. It's a perfect dish for Fall.

It represents my favorite type of recipe because it takes very little time, few ingredients and techniques but yields something absolutely delicious. I think you could call it foolproof. It can also be varied pretty easily – add other fruit, seasonings, vegetables, or different kinds of sausages.

I'm pretending it's a crisp Fall day and I'm sitting in the sunlight enjoying a warming bowl of this creamy soup. The truth be told...I have the air conditioning turned down to 70 and I am enjoying this soup while wearing shorts and flip-flops. It's a little hot outside.

But the heat, did not stop me from making a spicy soup, in fact, I feel like it nudged me into doing it. We do love Sriracha around here. If you still haven't tried it, it's time!

And this soup is absolutely easy to throw together. Using pumpkin puree makes this an absolute time saver and there is no need for a blender to cream the soup. It couldn't be any more simplistic.

I have had a prolific sage garden this year. It has been growing like crazy. I need to get to work and dry some for the winter months. If you have never had fried sage leaves before, you are in for a treat. They are crispy, little, salty bites of goodness. The perfect addition to a creamy soup.

Despite the warm weather we’ve been enjoying in Southern California, a recent trip to my local grocery store reminded me that fall is here – pyramid-like mounds of pumpkins filled the entrance, flanked by bins of apples of every variety.

Although apples are available all year, they are particularly sweet and delicious this time of year. I generally mark apple picking season with a home-baked double crust pie, but some people still find it a daunting task. If you’re one of them, make apple crisp your signature fall dish.

This is one of my favorite recipes because it produces a thicker layer of “crisp” – which frankly is the best part. The chewy, buttery, caramel flavored brown sugar oatmeal laced layer compliments the apples perfectly. Choose a variety of apples from your local growers – and try to choose organic.

The average conventionally grown apple has more pesticide residue on it than any other fruit or vegetable. According to the Environmental Working Group‘s analysis of USDA data, “pesticides showed up on 98 percent of the more than 700 apple samples tested (yes, they were washed).”