When we bought a house in the burbs two years ago, I REALLY REALLY missed living in San Francisco. It was extremely hard to not have access to all of the awesome restaurants, museums, shops, markets, and of course–my friends! It also was hard getting used to the fact that everything around here closes so damn early.

One of the many pros of living in the ‘burbs is that I have a neighbor who spends most of her day tending to her garden. She grows TONS of veggies & fruits and leaves us bags of her latest harvest in our side yard.

Yesterday I found a large bag filled with apples just waiting for me to pillage! What perfect timing…I was just pining over autumnal dessert recipes while resting on the couch!!!!

So last night I made an apple crisp for this week’s Project Runway get together!

I started with a recipe from The Joy of Cooking cookbook…then decided to add a oatmeal and walnuts to make it a little more hearty. The good part is that adding those ingredients made more topping- which to me is the BEST part 😉

Apple Crisp:
serves about 8 or 4 REALLY pregnant women

-8 large apples (peeled & chopped into 1 inch pieces)
-10 tablespoons unsalted butter (cut into small cubes)
-1/2 cup rolled oats
-1/2 cup chopped walnuts
-3/4 cup flour
-3/4 cup sugar (lessen amount if the apples are sweet)
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1 teaspoon cinnamon
-1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wash, peel & chop apples.
Line the bottom of an oven proof baking dish with them.

2. Mix all of the dry ingredients together. Add cubes of butter and with a pastry cutter (two knives will work if you don’t have one), cut the butter into the flour mixture until you have chunky crumbs. Add the walnuts and coat them thoroughly with the mixture.

3. Spread crumb mixture on top of apples. Put in the lower 1/3 of your oven and bake 50-55 minutes until crisp is brown and the apples are bubbling.

Take the crisp out of oven and let it rest for a bit. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream. Oh HOLY YUM!!

I even had some for breakfast this morning!

Now get up and make some! You won’t regret it!

I parked myself on the couch this morning and watched some quality Food Network TV. I NEEDED to make myself a Turkey Meatloaf sandwich STAT.

The Turkey Meatloaf sandwich with onions, lettuce, ketchup & mustard I dreamed of came to fruition!
Food Fantasy actualized in above picture! Damn that feels good.

So at this point…baby room is about 99% done.

Freezer contains:
-Cornbread
-4 bean burritos
-Turkey Meatloaf
-Chili
-a Loaf of Sourdough Bread

I hope to add:
-Sausage Soup
-Curry Zucchini Soup
-Green Curry with Shrimp
-Banana Bread (or zucchini if I don’t get around to the soup part)

perhaps by the end of the week?

Thanks for the food suggestions!

I’m around…but I’m nesting! Here’s a little snippet from the bebe room. This goes over his crib 😉
Contemplating all the meals I should make ahead & freeze. Got any ideas?