Apples, Apples, Apples and Some Football

It is almost officially fall.  It doesn't feel like fall here with it still being at least 90 degrees every day, but I keep reminding myself that, yes, it is September, yes, school has started again, and yes, college and high school football have begun in the States.  All those things mean fall.

When I think about September and food, apples often come to mind.  Thankfully, it is also apple season here!  There are apples everywhere.  I really didn't know, prior to a month or so ago, that South Asians enjoyed, ate, and grew apples.  They had always been so expensive the rest of the year—perhaps because apples really don't grow well in 115 degree weather.

Every other Monday, several of my American friends gather to enjoy a meal together and then study the Word.  In honor of it being September, we decided to do an apple themed dinner.  My mom makes a casserole with apple pie apples, pork loin, and Stove Top stuffing layered together.  I had been hankering this casserole for a couple of weeks, so I decided to give it a go and try to make it.

It isn’t quite as easy to make here as America.

Let’s start with the apples.  No apple pie filling here.  That means peeling the apples, slicing the apples, and then figuring out how to spice them up correctly.

Then there is the pork loin.  I had some notion that I had seen pork loin here before in the past.  I think I was only day-dreaming.  So, as per suggestion of my mom, I used chicken breast with a piece of bacon on the top.

And finally, the Stove Top stuffing.  Yep, you guess it.  Stove Top hasn’t found its way to South Asia (at least this country) yet.  Okay, so I need to make my own stuffing.  Question is:  how much?  I decided to make a double batch of cornbread because cornbread stuffing is my favorite.  However, there isn’t cornmeal here either.  I used something called Suji that I think is made from wheat.  I suppose I also could have used grits, but I love my grits may to much to put them in cornbread. J  Once the cornbread was made, I used a pretty basic stuffing recipe and mixed it up.  I did have to use one American product in the stuffing—dried celery.  I couldn’t find celery here, and even if I could, it would have cost my arm and leg to buy it. 

After all that, I assembled the casseroles and realized I had way, way, way too much stuffing.  Into the freezer the rest of it went for a day when stuffing sounds good—or Thanksgiving, whichever day comes first.

During this time I was also wishing for a 9 x 13 pan and an American sized oven.  But, alas, TINA (this is not America), so it all got divided into three small dishes and I had to cook one by itself and then the other two.

I was skeptical at best about how it would all turn out.  However, my friends all said it was good, and, not to toot my own horn, it really was pretty good.  I won’t say it was as good as Mom’s, but it tasted pretty similar.

Here it is!

In addition to my dish, we had some other really yummy apples dishes at our fellowship.  An Indian apple and chicken dish, an apple, walnut, and raisin salad, okra (I know, that isn’t apple anything—but still good and worth mentioning), apple pie, and apple crisp.  Yum, yummy!

Okay, after my nod to apples, I need to give a small nod to football.

Most of my American friends here are from the South.  They started talking about their college teams and how well they did.  One family, in particular, is huge Georgia Bulldog fans.  This generally is not a problem, expect for this week.  At one point both rooms of people were talking about the Bulldogs and how they had beaten the Missouri Tigers.  For a moment, everyone forgot my home state, but then at my expression, remembered—I am a Missouri Tiger fan.  Needless to say, I was at the end of some football fan ribbing for a while.