Beef stew and apple crisp- Fall tastiness, personified.

Earlier this week, I found myself with a few veggies left from our CSA- we had yellow and orange carrots, a mismatched pair of potatoes (one red-skinned, the other Yukon gold), a bunch of parsley and a big old green pepper.  I decided that the best way to bring these together would be a hearty beef stew.  I was venturing near a Whole Foods, so I thought I'd make a rare visit as we don't really have a Whole Foods close to us in JP.  I have to say, in the end, I wish I hadn't.  Now, it's not at all lost on me that it sounds totally obnoxious to complain about the quality of stew beef at Whole Foods of all places.  However, I just have to.  The beef was awfully grisly and in the end, I really missed the local Hardwick or Stillman's beef that I would usually use.  The stew beef was on sale for $3.99 a pound and in the end I couldn't resist a good deal.   I guess I've been spoiled by our local grass-fed beef.  Lesson learned.  I'll shut up now about the meat.  

So... to start, I seasoned the meat with sea salt and cracked pepper and then dredged it in flour to thicken that puppy up in the end. After rendering some non-local bacon (it was $1.99 at Whole Foods... again, I'll stop) I caramelized the beef, then got up all the tasty bits with some roughly chopped onion, green pepper, garlic, and carrot chunks. After adding a healthy portion of exquisite Three-Buck-Chuck, I used my favorite pantry item, (canned tomatoes) added the beef back and as well as some potato chunks, cooked for a few hours until the meat was tender and added the parley at the last minute. It was good, but not as good as it could have been. Really, I'm going to stop now.

We also had an abundance of apples left from the CSA.  While I've already made three crisps (one peach and two apple) this season (not to mention eating more than my fair share of Carrie's at our harvest dinner) I decided to make another.  Fortunately, Andy and I are trying to build up our fat jackets for what I can only imagine is going to be a long Winter after a first snow in October, so the apple crisp works right into our plan.  My mom made me this great recipe book when I first went away to college in which she copied our favorite recipes from various sources and wrote little notes on them.  My favorite crisp recipe is in there, (taken from the "Boca Raton Cookbook") and it goes as follows:
-4 cups peeled, sliced apples
-1 Tbsp lemon juice (I skipped this because I didn't have it...turned out ok though...)
-1/3 cup sifted flour (I don't sift.)
-1 cup old fashioned Quaker oats (I'm thinking someone was in bed with the Quaker folks to specify the brand...  use the oatmeal of your choosing prn.)
-1/2 cup light brown sugar
-1/2 tsp. salt
-1 tsp. cinnamon
-1/3 cup melted sugar

To paraphrase the instructions, preheat oven to 375F.  Mix apples with lemon juice (ideally) and combine the rest of the ingredients separately.  Then pile the apples in a pan (I used 12"x12" square) and pack the crumbly topping on top.  Bake for 30 minutes or until slightly browned on top.  Serve with tasty vanilla ice cream.
*A couple of notes on this recipe.  For the best outcome, mix apples with a tablespoon or so of flour, about a half cup of sugar and a teaspoon-ish of cinnamon before piling in the pan.  Also, the topping amounts must have been written by a stingy bastard.  I doubled them.
The crisp makes for a great dessert, breakfast meal, and snack food, particularly if you're trying to plump up for the cold weather.  Enjoy!