Two nice fall recipes

Photo from Taste of Home

Doesn't fall weather just rekindle your interest in cooking and baking?  It sure does that with me!  I just don't have as much time to bake as I would like.  I've promised to bake some muffins, coffeecake and granola for my daughter's freezer (she's expecting their fourth child in a few weeks), so that will give me a good excuse.  Now, to carve out the time for baking!

Meanwhile, I've been trying the occasional new recipe for supper.  Last night, I tried not one, but two.  Both were similar to recipes I've made in the past, but differed slightly, so I thought I would share the links.

First of all, the main course: Polish Sausage with Veggies.  This cooks all in one skillet, and is so easy.  I used smoked sausage because that's what I had on hand.  Also, I did not peel the potatoes but just scrubbed them well before cutting in cubes.I found that it worked best to cover the skillet, although the recipe didn't specify that.  A similar recipe I've made calls for cabbage, and I wanted to add cabbage to this one, too, since I had a bag of coleslaw mix that needed to be used.  So I did things just a little differently than the recipe.  I started by cooking the potatoes, sausage (which I cut in much smaller pieces), and onion in the covered skillet for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Then I added the peppers (I used frozen pepper strips) and the bag of coleslaw mix and the Cajun seasoning, covered the skillet and cooked for another 10 minutes, again stirring occasionally.  This is a delicious main dish for fall!

Then, I wanted an easy side dish.  I was browsing through an older Simple & Delicious magazine and came across this recipe: Brown Sugar Squash. 

Photo by Taste of Home

I've made a similar squash recipe for years, but always in the regular oven.  I had no idea it could be successfully done in a microwave!  So I varied this one a little bit, too.  I used a buttercup squash because that's what I had on hand, and we greatly prefer it to acorn.  I only used one squash and cooked it in the microwave for 12 minutes as specified.  I think 10 minutes might have been enough.  Then, I turned the halves over, sprinkled with salt and  pepper, added a dab of butter and a couple teaspoons of brown sugar to each, and cooked them for another minute.  I didn't measure anything and didn't use honey as the recipe calls for.  This turned out really well and I will definitely be cooking squash this way again.

What are you cooking and baking this fall?