H’s Swap: 10-12, Our Traditional Fall Supper

I’ve been making some variation of this meal at least once every fall since I moved out of my parents’ house… and my mom made some variation of it every fall while I was still living there! There is nothing like grilled/roasted pork with homemade applesauce – a favorite of mine when I was a child, and now a favorite of all three J-M kids. (Braydon loves it too!) Heavenly fall. But because Shalinee’s family doesn’t eat pork, this time for the swap I did something I’ve never done before: two different meats for the two different families, but both with the same marinade/dry rub and both to be prepared the same way. I don’t have recipes for any of these dishes; I just make ’em up as I go along. But if someone is desperate for a recipe, I’ll try to conjure one up if need be. This dinner was loved at our house (I knew it would be!).

• Chicken Breasts for Shalinee’s family; Pork Loin for the J-Ms. Both prepared the same way—with a dry rub that I put on Monday night. They were ready to be thrown on the grill.
• Acorn Squash with Butter & Brown Sugar. The acorn squash is cut in half, seeded, and roasted until tender, with butter and brown sugar. We eat it with a spoon, right out of the squash “bowl.”
• Smashed Baby Red Potatoes. Made with lots of sour cream, salt, and pepper. Autumn comfort food to the hilt.
• Homemade Chunky Applesauce. We have a beautiful apple/pear/peach orchard right up the street from us. I bought apples there on my way home from work Monday. They had just been picked that day! And I made the applesauce that night. Nothing in it but the apples, some sugar, and a whole bunch of cinnamon.

Shalinee’s dinner the next night was a big hit with everyone except Meera (who spent the first half of dinner throwing couscous all over the floor. and saying, “yuck!” to the shrimp. lovely.). About halfway through dinner we gave up on her and gave her a big bowl of blueberry yogurt. (sometimes it just has to be done, right?). But K & O really liked this dinner… especially the soup. They went crazy for it; each having thirds of it. Kyle loved putting the croutons in it (and insisted on shredded parmesan too). Owen really got into this meal, mixing the couscous and the shrimp into his soup. I think he ate at least two dozen shrimp that night. No joke. And, of course, Braydon and I loved this meal. How could we not?

As a sidenote (sidenote 1 of 3), I’m glad that Shalinee and I finally broke the seafood barrier this week (with the shrimp). Somehow we had developed some sort of aversion to including seafood in the swap (even though both families eat it a lot). I think it stemmed from our fear of seafood not holding up well in the coolers all day and/or for re-heating. But this Shalinee’s shrimp turned out great. I am inspired now to come up with other creative ways to include fish and shellfish in the swap.

Sidenote 2 of 3: With all the extra mid-week time and energy that results from the swap, this week we were able to pull of something that would have been unimaginable pre-swap. On Tuesday, before dinner, Owen and I made pumpkin muffins/cupcakes while Braydon, Kyle, and Meera played outside. Kyle absolutely loves anything pumpkin flavored, particularly pumpkin bread, so we were making this in large part for him. But I wanted to put icing on it for Owen (our frosting/cake/cupcake lover). I used new recipes and… seriously?!… the best pumpkin muffins ever with the best frosting ever (which, much to the bambinos delight, turned them into decadent cupcakes)! Here are the recipes:  Pumpkin Bread (I didn’t make the topping; I just used this delicious batter to make muffins/cupcakes instead of loaves) & The Best Frosting Ever (truly, this is the most amazing frosting! Even Kyle, who doesn’t usually care for icing, loved this! It will be my go-to frosting forevermore from here on out).

Sidenote 3 of 3: Tonight I made Shalinee’s “Basic Udon with Vegetables.” I added bok choy to her recipe, and also threw in the leftover grilled pork from our swap dinner earlier in the week. This was, seriously, a Top 10 Meal for the bambinos. They – all three – devoured it like you would not believe. This is definitely a keeper for us and will, for sure, be made again soon!