How did this October fly by so very fast, so incredibly quickly?
This beautiful blue-sky month of October’s earliest days always comes and goes much too soon, always moving on much too fast, way too soon. We never want to wave goodbye to this most beautiful month.
The good news, however, is that another equally nice new month, November, now is knocking on our doors again to claim its time-in-the-limelight. November rolled around again on the calendar so incredibly fast, as
always.
Year 2015’s next-to-last-month’s official arrival is scheduled for this coming Sunday, only a day or two away now. We’ll be turning our calendar pages to the start of November 2015 and this calendar year’s last nine weeks.
Florida’s wonderful cooler-than-summer-but-not-too-cold fall season is back again!
That signals that it is time again for packing our well-iced coolers with picnic edibles and dining outdoors again at least a couple more times this year before at least somewhat cooler weather’s arrival invites back inside our warm homes for the annual return to our warm dining room’s steaming soups and other hot meals suitable for our coming Florida-style winter.
Enjoy the passage of nature’s seasons and autumn’s invitation to come on out and enjoy some fine seasonal outdoor dining in our great outdoors again now that Mom Nature hopefully will be serving us some deliciously cooler days now and then.
Whether it’s via a nice autumn-day ride to somewhere else, maybe a nearby park or lakeside or just a cool and breezy evening’s dining out at your own backyard picnic table, enjoy celebrating this new autumn season’s arrival with your Apopka-area neighbors’ best recipes reprinted here from some of the Apopka area’s so many community cookbooks.
Enjoy dining at a nice picnic table outdoors while October’s beautiful blue-sky days of autumn 2015 last!
FRAN O’NEAL’SÂ
GRAPEFRUIT SALAD
Recipe from Zellwood United
Methodist Church Friendship
Circle’s Cooking With Friends II
3 grapefruit (juice and pulp)
1 cup sugar
1 (8-ounce) cream cheese
1/4 cup cold water
3 plain Knox gelatin
1 cup boiling water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup pecans
Dissolve the sugar in the grapefruit juice. Soften cream cheese with some grapefruit juice. Pour the cold water over gelatin and let stand. Add boiling water and stir well. Add to grapefruit juice and sugar mixture. Congeal half of this and then spread layer of cream cheese. Add chopped nuts and let stand until cream cheese hardens and firms. Add remaining grapefruit juice and gelatin mixture and refrigerate.
DEANNA DAWN WILLIAMS’ CHEEZY BROCCOLI CASSEROLE
Recipe fromÂ
Fran Carlton Seniors Cookbook
2 packages frozen broccoli
1-1/4 cup Minute Rice
8 ounces Cheez Whiz
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 small onion, chopped
Cook the broccoli and rice as directed on package. Add the Cheez Whiz to rice. Add soup to broccoli. Saute in olive oil chopped onion. Mix all together in a casserole dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
JOAN WILSON’SÂ
FRESH VEGETABLE PIE
Recipe from Carol Arthurs’
Older Americans Cookbook
2 cups sliced onion
1 medium eggplant, peeled and sliced
2 or 3 sliced tomatoes
2 cups fresh torn spinach
Lemon powder and dry Italian seasoning, amounts to your liking
Saute the onions in two tablespoons olive oil and put it into an eleven-to-twelve inch round pie pan. Layer the eggplant, tomatoes and spinach. Sprinkle each layer with lemon pepper, garlic powder and dry Italian seasoning. Repeat the layers. Drizzle about two tablespoons olive oil on top of vegetables. Cover with crust.
Crust:
2 cups flour (or 1-3/4 cups flour and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup Crisco
1 egg
1 tablespoon white vinegar
3 tablespoons dry Italian seasoning
To make the crust to top and cover the pie, mix together the flour and other dry ingredients. Cut in the butter and Crisco. Beat the egg and vinegar together and add that mixture to the dry mixture. Add Italian seasoning. Roll out the dough and cover the vegetables with it. Pierce top of the crust twice with a fork. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. Recipe serves eight to ten.
BETTY LAND’S
STRAWBERRY FRUIT SALAD
Recipe from First Presbyterian Church of Apopka’s
Treasures and Pleasures
2 packages strawberry gelatin
1-1/2 cups boiling water
1 large can crushed pineapple
1 cup mashed bananas
1 cup chopped pecans
2 (1-1/2 pints) packages frozen strawberries
1 (8-ounce) carton sour cream
Thaw the frozen strawberries. Dissolve the gelatin in water and let it cool. Add pineapple, bananas, pecans and strawberries. Put half of mixture in a 9- by 13-inch glass dish or pan to congeal slightly. Then spread sour cream on top. Add other half of the gelatin mixture and refrigerate.
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY’S
HOLIDAY PUMPKIN BREAD
Recipe from Habitat for Humanity’s Partners In The Kitchen
1-2/3 cups flour
1-1/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup chopped candied cherries
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Combine oil, eggs and pumpkin. Mix well. Stir in dry ingredients. Fold in cherries and pecans. Spoon mixture into a greased five-by-nine-inch loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour or until loaf tests done. Remove to wire rack to cool.
PUMPKIN PIE BREAD
Recipe from Habitat for Humanity’s Partners In The Kitchen
3-1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
2-3/4 cups sugar
1 cup shortening
3 eggs
2 cups mashed pumpkin
3/4 cup chopped pecans
Combine first seven ingredients. Cream together the sugar, shortening and eggs in a mixer bowl. Add pumpkin and mix well. Stir in the flour mixture. Fold in pecans. Spoon into three nonstick five-by-nine-inch loaf pans. Bake at 315 degrees for 75 minutes or until loaves test done. Remove to wire rack to cool.
DEBBIE MILLS’ BUTTERMILK PIE
Recipe from Episcopal
Church of the Holy Spirit’s
Favorites for all Seasons
1 (nine-inch) pie crust
1/2 cup butter or margarine
2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons flour
3 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. After placing crust in pan and crimping edges, place in oven for five minutes, then remove and set aside while preparing filling.
Increase oven temperature to 400 degrees. Cream the butter and sugar. Add flour and beat mixture until smooth. Beat in the eggs. Add buttermilk and vanilla. Mix well. Pour into pie shell and bake for five minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 45 minutes longer. This pie is done when knife inserted in center comes out clean. Recipe makes eight serving-sized pieces of pie.
