Howja like them apples?

I made a lot of different dishes with apples this weekend. A lot. And the whole time I was peeling and chopping, slicing and dicing, I kept hearing Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting in my head; the scene where he bangs on the window to get the attention of an obnoxious college student in a bar who was (also) hitting on Minnie Driver and he says "You like apples? Yeah? I got har numba. Howja like them apples?" Note that this is said with a plummy Boston accent, which I've cleverly related using 'har' for 'her', 'numba' for 'number' and 'howja' for 'how do you'. None of which is relevant to any of the cooking I did, although when I finally stepped out of the kitchen Sunday and sat down at the computer I discovered Matt Damon and his wife had a baby this past Wednesday. Coincidence? Yup, pretty much.

So. Apples. On Wednesday I had a library book due back at the public library, so I dropped it in on my way home from work. As is my practice I scanned the cookbook section to see if anything inspiring was on the shelves. I went away with Lucy Waverman's A Year in Lucy's Kitchen. I'm familiar with Waverman's work, having noticed her recipes in the LCBO Food & Drink magazine and The Globe and Mail. What made me pick up AYILK was the premise - it's a recipe book made up of menus. I love cookbooks that give you menus. I'm not sure I've ever made an entire menu from a cookbook but I love the possibility that I might. Or even that I could. If I wanted to.

Lucy sets up her book by season, so I flipped to Fall and found a Halloween menu that sounded promising. In particular I decided to make Braised Chicken with Apples and Sausage along with the suggested side of Spiced Sweet Potato Fries. Lucy's menu rounds out this dinner with a pumpkin soup; I recently made a delightful pumpkin soup but was more in the mood for squash soup. In particular, a squash apple soup caught my eye in another book I brought home from the library: get cooking, by Mollie Katzen.

If I'm being honest, none of these recipes really wowed me. The squash soup was good, but the granny smith apple it included added a sweetness that I didn't care for, and the addition of lemon juice didn't save the flavour. The chicken was super moist and the apples that cooked along with it were a lovely accompaniment to the meat, but I think I prefer roast chicken. The sweet potato fries were good (P. nearly ate a whole wedge!). But just good. Period. So the meal wasn't bad, it was just a little....unremarkable.

I'll definitely need to aim for remarkable next Sunday since it's Halloween. When I was a kid, we had cheese and bacon buns every Halloween. They were orange (cheese whiz orange...mmmm) and if you were creative with your bacon, you could make your dinner look like a jack o' lantern. We aren't huge on Halloween around here, but we make an effort. Some of us more than others. This is the first year I've gotten the 'mom please let me just buy a costume' speech from my son, after my years of attempting unique homemade creations. So next Sunday will be an homage to Halloween. Here's a preview of the preparations we've done around our house to be suitably festive.

Inspiration

I've noticed that a lot of my recipes tend to come from online sources these days. I do, however, have a fairly small but well thumbed recipe book collection. I find myself reaching for a handful of the dozen or so cookbooks that I own whenever I find myself needing to answer the age old question, "What's for dinner?".

One of the most reliable cookbooks in my collection is The New Canadian Basics Cookbook. This is a great book. I received it as a gift many years ago and it shows signs of frequent use. Some pages are stained (I'm not a neat cook) and some are falling out; many are dog-eared. I've written notes in the margins of some recipes: cut carrots smaller, better w orange zest v. lemon, or, my husbands favourite of my recipe short-hand: v. good. Occasionally, if I'm feeling generous, v.v. good. Crack that code, it you can.

If you ever get your hands on a copy of New Canadian Basics here are some recipes you can rely on:

Hot Artichoke Dip
Turkey Parmigiana Panini
Leek and Potato Soup
Layered Taco Dip
Make-Ahead Coleslaw
Herb-Roasted Chicken Breasts with Garlic, Potatoes and Carrots
Banana Bread
Chocolate Snacking Cake
Double Ginger Crackle Cookies
Four Fruit Punch

Obviously don't attempt or serve all of these in one sitting - not a menu, just a road map. I'm still struggling with my copyright issues or I'd reprint some of the above recipes in their entirety for you here.