Art, Crafts, Food, Nature, Recipes, Thoughts to Ponder, travel

🥒Comfort Recipes with Zucchini and Apples🍎, a Simple Art Project🎨 and Fall Beauty in New England🍁🍂

🥒

You can use zucchini with pumpkins and gourds for a

fall table centerpiece …

And then you can make this recipe for a dinner side dish!! These are the ingredients to make Baked Parmesan Zucchini!

INGREDIENTS:

  • 4 zucchini, halved lengthwise
  • 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
  • 1 teaspoon dried Italian Seasoning
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley leaves


DIRECTIONS:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a baking sheet with nonstick spray; set aside.
  2. In a small bowl, combine Parmesan, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt and pepper, to taste.
  3. Place zucchini onto prepared baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with Parmesan mixture. Place into oven and bake until tender, about 15 minutes. Then broil for 2-3 minutes, or until crisp and golden brown.
  4. Serve immediately, garnished with parsley, if desired.

Finished Baked Parmesan Zucchini!

I served this side dish with baked cod and a garden salad…this is my dish, Victor got a lot more on his dish🤣

🍎

Now for dessert…there is nothing so good as warm Apple Crisp on a cold fall night, perhaps after you have taken a drive to view a beautiful landscape of foliage!!!

I enjoy making desserts in a small iron skillet, I’ve made a Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie before, it has a rustic feeling about it! These are the ingredients for Skillet Apple Crisp…

Ingredients

For the apple filling: 

  • 4 granny smith or gala apples, cored and thinly sliced
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  • pinch of sea salt
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the topping: 

  • 3/4 cup rolled oats
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
  • 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
  • 5 tablespoons cold butter, cut into cubes
  • 1/2 cup of vanilla gelato or ice cream
  • caramel sauce
  • or I used Sea Salt Caramel Truffle Ice Cream, instead of vanilla ice cream and
  • caramel sauce

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
  2. Melt the butter in a small iron skillet.  Add the apples and cook for 5 minutes until the apples begin to soften.
  3. Remove from heat and add the lemon juice, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla.  Stir until the apples are well coated. 
  4. Combine the oats, flour, brown sugar and sea salt in a large mixing bowl.  Stir to combine.  Add the butter and use a pastry cutter or a fork to mix everything together until a coarse meal forms. 
  5. Add the topping to the apple mixture in skillet.  Bake for 35 – 40 minutes until the topping is golden brown.
  6. Remove from oven and let cook slightly. Top with gelato and caramel sauce before serving.

Ready to put in the oven…

Finished warm Apple Crisp with Truffle Ice Cream…

The chocolate truffles melt into the ice cream and topping, so yummy…

If you have been following my blog, you know that Victor benefits from my recipes…once again he enjoys the outcome🤣

🖌🎨👩🏽‍🎨

Many of my friends who have recently retired, have expressed to me that they are bored…mostly because of Covid 19, it has us stuck inside, social distancing from our friends and families…So through this blog, I will suggest some things we can do to keep busy…

I found this craft through my friend Penny, who is very creative…It is a paint by numbers painting for adults!!!

I bought this one from Amazon! It comes with a 16X20″ printed canvas, 24 small containers of acrylic pain, 3 paint brushes and a photo of the finished painting. Although it looks a lot more finely finished in the photo then actual painting that I am doing, it is not bad at all for the price of $11.99, I might even frame it!!

This is my painting that I am in the middle of finishing!! I am trying to blend the background so it doesn’t look so fragmented, not too sure of how it will look!! I will certainly post it when I’m finished!! I have to say, it is so much fun to do, no stress, very easy, all the paint is there for you and the colors are decided for you!!! I move from room to room and house to house with it, I paint while watching TV or listening to podcasts!! A fun easy craft!!

🍂🍁🍂

We are lucky that we live in New England and can look out our window or drive a short distant to see these beautiful views, a wonderful safe way to spend an afternoon!! Ordinarily we would go out to eat while going for a ride, but because we are limiting going to public places due of Covid, during this trip we called ahead to Bertucci’s and picked up a pizza, on our way home!!!

So, this drive was a short distance to Dover Massachusetts, a lovely rural town just a half hour away from us and the homes and scenery are exquisite!!!

This is The Charles River in Dover which winds through several towns around Boston…

Love the way this stark branch frames the colorful trees…

We are living in the most unprecedented times, it will be interesting to see how history writes it!! But right now, we are living in the middle of it and it’s hard to get perspective of it!!! It’s understandable how we can be stressed and feel like we have “come to the end of our rope, in so many different ways!!”

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on!!

Franklin D. Roosevelt

When you feel like you’ve come to the end of your rope, “tie a knot” by doing some easy artwork or take a ride to look at earth’s beautiful nature and take a breath💛🍂🍁

22 thoughts on “🥒Comfort Recipes with Zucchini and Apples🍎, a Simple Art Project🎨 and Fall Beauty in New England🍁🍂”

  3. Your recipes look so inviting, especially the apple crisp! I had a chuckle when you showed your dinner and saying Victor had more on his plate. Is that how you stay so slim, but just eating a little? I swear, I gained 5 lbs, just reading your recipes, but of course, I’ll print them out and now that Art is my resident cook since retirement, I know he’ll want to make both items. As it is, since the “quarantine” we both have put on way too much weight and it needs to come off!

    Looks like Fall has come to New England. We won’t see our leaves change till around Thanksgiving, but that’s okay, seeing I don’t like the cold weather.

    Take care, my friend, and keep up with your wonderful blog. I look forward to reading about what you’re up to! God bless.

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    1. P.S. I just copied your recipes, but for the Apple Crisp, you only listed the ingredients not the rest of the information. Can you post that too, PLEASE!!!!!??? I’m salivating here wanting to make this!

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      1. OMG, Nancy, my editor missed that🤣 That’s Victor, we both feel bad, thank you for bringing that to our attention, I fixed it!! Let me know how you like the recipes, hope Art does a good job!! Victor, enjoys cooking meat, so I let him take over on that😉 And oh, we have gained weight too, my doctor says that everyone has, so don’t worry!!
        Hey, I’ll take warmer weather and a later foliage season any day!!! Bet it’s beautiful around Thanksgiving!! I think we’ll be eating Thanksgiving dinner outside this year, so you’d be all set!!!
        Thank you for being such a faithful reader of my blog❤️ And take care of yourselves, enjoy your fall💛🍁🍂

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  5. Thanks much for adding the rest of your recipe!!! Though I don’t really need this delicious-looking treat!!!!

    Art loves to cook, bake, and you name it. He has claimed the kitchen as HIS!!!! After so many years of me doing the cooking, I don’t mind. He even cleans up afterward! Can’t beat that!

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    1. Yes, things are going well!! However, when Victor and I retired, we thought we could travel and be with friends, we just have to get used to the new normal, for a while!! Hope you and your family are well!! Thank you for checking in, miss you too🧡

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  8. HI Carol,
    Loved your autumn blog. The arrangement with pumpkins and gords, your table arrangement, with dinner, and the beautiful pictures of fall foliage. You really are so talented. The dinner looks great. I ‘m not a fan of zucchini, but will share the recipe with my sister . Victor looks as though he is really enjoying his meal. If I was a cook I would try your apple crisp. However, f I made it , it probably would not be edible. Love the pictures of fall in Dover, especially the one by the Charles .They look so professional. The entire blog could be in a magazine. Hope all is well with you,Victor and your family. Take good care, enjoy the autumn weather, be well, and stay safe.
    Love,
    Lucille

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    1. Thank you, Lucille, it’s always wonderful to hear from you🧡 I’m glad you enjoyed this post, it was so nice to get out into the country to see the foliage and take photos for my friends to see on my blog!! And of course, I love cooking and bringing you all the recipes!! Maybe Dee will make apple crisp for you🤗
      We are getting ready to spend Halloween and Thanksgiving with Gina and family, although everything will have to be outside because of the kids being in school!! Can’t wait for things to go back to “normal!!”
      I hope you are staying healthy, sending you our love💕

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  9. Ms. Carol!!! I have to talk about everything in this blog because it is all worthy of a huge smile. But then again, I can say this about any of your posts! The zucchini looks like something that even I can do, and that’s exciting. I was wondering about the Apple dish… I don’t have a cast iron skillet, so I was wondering if an aluminum pan like you would make brownies in, would do the trick. It’s the kind of dish I know my husband would adore, and he’s pretty picky about his desserts.
    I was triple excited to see your progress on the painting! It looks like you put a bit of your own spin on the “negative space“ in the background. Did you blend some colors? It really looks lovely, and I’m so glad you’re having fun with it. I literally have about seven spaces left on mine but have no numbers on them! So I’m going to have to refer to the picture and figure it out. I did buy another one for when the weather gets cold and I really feel stuck in the house.
    I was also extremely excited to see your pictures of the Charles River going into Dover, as this is exactly where I live!! It is a very beautiful view, and The water goes directly under the street to the other side and makes a pond. I have only seen one once before, but this weekend we saw an entire flock of wood ducks! If you don’t know what they look like, Google them. I swear they look like there’s something that came in from the orient. It was such a beautiful find, and I’m so glad you were in the neighborhood even though you were social distanced from me 😩 I truly miss you and your Spirit’s wonderful energy 💓

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    1. Oh Penny, you are so sweet to comment on everything in this post, I’m so glad you liked it!!! You can absolutely make Apple Crisp in any kind of pan, aluminum, glass or cast iron!! It’s so easy, you can’t make it bad unless you just burn it🤣
      And my painting, thank you so much for encouraging me to paint by numbers!!! I just finished the painting today and ordered another one to paint in Virginia and hang in our master bedroom, it’s large white cabbage roses, I can’t wait to start it. The background was tricky, I’m not totally happy with the way it came out, I need more practice on backgrounds🎨😂
      I had no idea you lived near The Charles in Dover, it is so lovely, lucky you!!! Had I known where you live, we would have at least beeped when we drove by!! I’m sure the wood ducks are stunning, but when I looked them up, they showed actual wooden ducks, I have to do more research on them!! Thank you commenting on my blog, hopefully I’ll see you soon, for I miss your kindred spirit too❤️🙏🏽🙌🏾

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