Nana’s Kitchen: Apples and Sausage

Greetings, home cooks, welcome to Nana’s Kitchen,

With fall upon us local farmers markets and apple orchards are presenting a variety of tasty apples for your eating and cooking adventures. Eaten raw or baked in pies, cobblers, meat dishes, applesauce, or other ways, who does not enjoy apples? Resources tell me that the apple pie is America’s favorite pie. Apples are versatile as well as healthy and portable.

Apples are available from late June through early November depending on the variety. There are 7,500 varieties of apples throughout the world! In the U.S. 2,500 varieties are grown. In the U.S. the crab apple is the only apple native to North America.

Opinions do vary, but the more popular American apples are noted as follows. Not in any particular order:

Gala- A good snack apple and in salads. Mild sweet flavor.
Red Delicious- Sweet, mild, juicy, and can have a tough skin. Good for applesauce and hand eating.
Granny Smith- Tart. Good for pies, tarts, pancakes, soups, stuffing, and salads. Pairs well with cheese.
Fuji- Sweet, juicy. A dense apple that holds up well for cooking. Good for crisps, strudels, baking, and roasting.
Honeycrisp- Has sweet and tart elements, keeps sweetness when cooked. Good for pies, crisps, slaw, salads, and snacking.
McIntosh- These apples break down easily and make good applesauce. Good for cider and hand eating.
Golden Delicious- super versatile, salads,pies, juice,dried, and for preserves.
Braeburn- Sweetness mellows with cooking. Holds shape well when cooked. Good in pies, cakes, baking, and with pork chops.
Pink Lady- Makes pink applesauce. Pairs well with cheese such as Gorgonzola, Monterey Jack, and Swiss. Works well in baking, salads, and snacking.

Sausage and Apples – A warm, simple but satisfying dish. Good for breakfast or evening meal with cornbread, slaw, or other favorite dishes. Great as a side to any meal.
Serves 6.

Ingredients:
1 package sausage links.
5 tablespoons sugar or maple syrup.
8 tart apples, diced or sliced. Use Granny Smith or any other apple you like.

Peel core and slice or dice apples.
Brown sausage- do not over cook as they will continue to cook in the apples. Remove from skillet,drain on appear towel. Cut up sausage in half or thirds or leave whole. However you like.
If excess fat in skillet pour off.
Place apples and sausage in pan.
Cook until apples are tender.
Add sugar or syrup on low heat for a few minutes.
Serve hot.
Enjoy!

Hints:
I use golden delicious apples for this recipe. They taste good.
I think you could use any apple and it would be good.
The sausage I used had so little fat there was nothing to drain and I did not drain the sausages. The little bit of grease adds flavor.
I have made this, not peeling the apples and it was just as good as the peeled ones. Not everyone likes cooked peeling. I prefer the apples sliced. Up to you, though.
To help cook the apples, added a few tablespoons of water for moisture. Cook on a medium to medium high heat to prevent burning. Stir occasionally.
Cooked the apples with a lid on till they started the cooking process and then removed the lid.

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away!”