Red leaves and a recipe

Recent rain and wind have really done a number on most of the fall colors and foliage here in our area.  The red leaves, in particular, are among the missing.

( This morning, though, I had occasion to drive about a half hour south of here and saw that the foliage there is actually still pretty nice.  There are even some glorious red and red-orange trees!)

At the edge of our driveway stands a tree with a few red and yellow leaves still clinging to it.  As they fall, I occasionally see one that is worth scanning to save and share.  The one at top is like that.  Yes, there's a hole in it, but I just liked the way the red and the yellow blended together.

And here's another one, below.  I really liked the sort of square, or diamond-shaped, yellow area at the bottom center of the leaf.  It's amazing (at least to me, but then I amaze easily) how the yellow area has such straight edges on three sides.  And in the bottom right part of the yellow part, look -- it's a heart shape!

I also have a good new-to-me recipe to share.  As I've mentioned, we eat very little red meat these days for health reasons.  We will occasionally get a burger when we eat out, but it's seldom.  We do love meat loaf, though, and so for quite awhile I've been making my regular meat loaf recipe with ground turkey.   It's very good, but recently I saw a recipe for Savory Turkey Loaf that I wanted to try.  So I made this on Monday and we enjoyed it with baked potatoes and baked buttercup squash -- a perfect oven meal for autumn!

SAVORY TURKEY LOAF
2 pounds ground turkey
3/4 cup quick oats
1/2 cup applesauce
4 teaspoons instant minced onion
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 egg, lightly beaten
Barbecue sauce for top of loaf

Heat oven to 350º or 375º depending upon what else you may be baking in the oven at the same time.

Mix all ingredients except barbecue sauce in a large bowl.  Mix lightly but thoroughly.  I found that a large mixing spoon worked well.  Form into an oval loaf in a 13x9-inch baking dish.  Spread barbecue sauce over the top of the loaf. 

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes.

I adapted this quite a bit from a recipe in Gooseberry Patch's Slow Cooking All Year 'Round.  It was intended to be cooked in a slow cooker,  so you can do that if you prefer, for 5 to 6 hours on Low.

I wasn't sure about the applesauce, but I had about a half cup left after making applesauce muffins, so used it in the loaf.  It added a nice touch, and so did the garlic.  I think I'm going to keep those single-serve applesauce cups on hand for easy use in this recipe.  We liked this a lot and will be making it again and again, I'm sure.

I think you'll enjoy this recipe (and the entire oven meal!) if you try it.  A blessed autumn to you!