Fall Day Ends With Stuffing and Pie

Today was Fall Day. Thank you Rachel for making this event! It was so much fun. We went apple picking. Yes I went apple picking again, you don't own me. This time Noel and I did not buy a bag but Mikey bought three so we helped him fill a bag. We went to Shelburne Farm just down the road from Honey Pot. It was a really a nice place, small and the trees weren't big enough to climb but it did have a bouncy house and a llama. What's better than a llama?? The trees were very full and there was a lot of fruit close to the ground so the lazy people of the group, and I will confuse I was in that group, we were able to quickly fill our bags. After we got our fill of apple picking, apple donuts, pumpkins and the llama we went back to John and Mikey's house and had an apple party. We played apples to apples, there were fresh apple juice, apple cocktails, Rachel made an amazing double butter apples pie, John made a Brown Betty that sadly I didn't have room to try and I made a corn bread, apple, sausage stuffing thing.

Before we meet up with everyone Noel and I had to go grocery shopping. We hadn't done a Russo's trip in two weeks, and we weren't sure by morning what we wanted to cook for the apple party. As we strolled through Russo's our dish slowly came together. We saw red onion and we just knew that was important. We thought we might wanna use a yellow pepper, but in the end we didn't use it. Noel was very adamant that we use celery, and of course we already had apples from when we went apple picking last month. By the time we got to Shaws we were arguing how we we going to put it all together. We settled on Jimmy Dean's Premium Pork Hot Sausage, and corn bread, not pre-made cornbread but a mix to make our own. When I started to make this I still wasn't totally convinced it was going to taste any good. Boy was I wrong, Noel and I are now planning on making this as our stuffing Thanksgiving Day!!! Get ready Dad and Katie it's going to blow your mind!!

What You Need 
1 red onion
1 stock celery
1 package Jimmy Deans pork hot sausage
1 apples peeled and cut into small slices
1 small block of cheddar cheese cut into cubes
1 package cornbread mix
1 table spoon canola oil

On the stove top under medium heat add table spoon of oil to a dutch oven. Cook the onion and celery for about five minutes. You'll know when it's ready, the smell will be intoxicating. Add the sausage and cook until browned. By this time make the batter for the cornbread. Just before the sausage is cooked add the apples and cook until the sausage is done. Take off the heat and add the batter and cheese making sure to mix it all up so every part has touched the batter. Follow the baking instructions for the corn bread, mine was 400 F for 18 minutes. When it's done take it out and let it sit at least five minutes to cool, plus you want the oils get to get soaked up by the cornbread. I took a small amount and tried it worried that I had just made a gross mess, but WOW, Noel and I came up with an instant hit!! It's good enough to be a meal but will also make a great stuffing.

The Drinks
Mikey came up with an apple cocktail that was out of this world. I have just got over a nasty flu cold thing so I only had a sip of Noel's but boy was it goooood. He better make these at his awesome Halloween party. He made fresh apple juice in his juicer. In a glass that had a sugar/cinnamon mixture on the rim he added fresh apple juice, bourbon, caramel vodka and ginger liqueur. They were.... AMAZING!!