A palooza’s defined as the art of throwing an extravagant, bawdy party with a bunch of friends. It’s been a fabulous year for apples in Northern Michigan–everywhere you turn there’s a roadside stand groaning under their weight.
So I’ve put together a palooza of some of my favorite recipes which incorporate apples–the recipe links may be found beneath the photos.
Baked Apples stuffed with Orange-Scented Sweet Potatoes • Apple Cider Glazed Chicken Breasts with Apples and Pears • Turkey Cutlets with Apple Cider Sauce • Beer-Braised Brats with Apple Kraut • Gingered Three Apple Salad Harvest Chili • Southwest Butternut Squash and Apple Soup • Pork Chops with Apples and Chutney • Buttermilk Pancakes with Apples
Tahquamenon Falls, Paradise, Michigan
October’s also about Fall colors and, ugh, the election. I, and several of my cohorts, have developed a pre-election media disorder. After tuning into the latest, our symptoms vary. Some of us become nauseous, others develop a migraine. My neck breaks out in hives. But I can’t resist another peek–a big distraction when I’m trying to work. So Richard and I took a road trip to the Upper Peninsula to soak up the color and get off the grid.
Jack’s cabin and sauna.
Last week we stated in a friend’s cabin, south of the Cranberry Bog on the Black River. No electricity or running water, a wood-burning stove heated the cabin and fueled the heat for the sauna. The main attraction: There’s no phone service and it’s a forty-five minute drive away from the first WIFI bar. No excuses, I could focus on the synopsis for my third novel. (Book 2 is now in review with my publisher.)
Recipe on the back of a box of Trisket.
Of course, there are always distractions, this time a noisy mouse and the Seafood Tartlet recipe on the back of a box of dill-spiced Triscuits.
I like Triscuits–and these dill and olive oil crackers were fine for munching. It got me thinking about the rich smoked trout and salmon to be had in these parts. I’ve perfected a Smoked Fish Spread that is divine. Perfect, I had imagined, for stuffing into the recipe for the Triscuit tartlet shells. On the way back to civilization, I picked up a smoked trout, the size of child’s tennis raquet.
I made the Triscuit cups according to the recipe on the back of the box, but to my palate, they were not good. The joy to be had with a Triscuit is in the texture and crunch–both lost resulting from the egg wash soak and bake.
The Triscuit “tartlet” looks nice, but….
We ended up enjoying the Smoked Fish Spread with crunchy baguette slices, instead. It would also be yummy served in cucumber shells or phyllo cups, the ones that you’d find in the freezer case at a good grocery store. Or the dill-spiced Triscuits, uninterrupted.
Upon returning to the world of Wifi, I leapt into the latest news ravenously, as a dog would pounce upon a slab of bacon.
