More often than not, our dinners involve sauteing some meats and veggies on the stove with olive oil, salt and pepper. I call these “scrambles.” I also call scrambled egg dishes scrambles, but this one didn’t involve eggs. It was just a mishmash of ingredients.

For this week’s “theme eating,” we’re enjoying apples. All sorts of apples. I found several different recipes (here, here and here) via Pinterest and last night we tried out our first one.

This Autumn Apple Sausage Couscous looked good and piqued my interest.

The inspiration for our dinner

I love couscous, but it didn’t seem right for this dish. I opted for faro instead. (It was a good move on my part!)

The recipe called for chicken sausage with Gouda, which I couldn’t find at the Trader Joe’s I was shopping at. (Plus Brandon doesn’t like cheese, so that would’ve been a no-go for him. Yes, he’s crazy for not liking cheese!) Instead I bought the Sweet Apple chicken sausages, which had some brown sugar and maple flavoring. I also picked up some reduced fat Gouda for my portions. All of the ingredients for this dish came from Trader Joe’s. I love grocery shopping and visiting lots of stores, but I also love one-stop shopping.

Here’s the ingredient list: 

• (1) chopped Granny Smith apple (I could’ve used two)
• (1) package of sliced Sweet Apple chicken sausage
• (1) package of 10 minute quick-cooking farro (or couscous, or quinoa, or whatever!)
• 1/2 chopped red onion
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup whole pecans, lightly toasted
• Salt, pepper to taste

And the instructions: 

1. Brown the sausage with a light drizzle of olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
2. Cook the farro according to the package instructions. (We use the “boil” technique listed on the side of the package.)
3. Add the chopped apple and chopped onion to the frying pan. Continue heating over medium heat. Stir occasionally, for about 10-15 minutes. Add cranberries and pecans to pan, with about 2-5 minutes remaining.
4. Add cheese if you’d like and voila! Dinner is served!

Our dinner

It totally slipped my mind but I was going to add my favorite apple cider vinegar and shallot dressing (reprinted from FitSugar) to this dish (below). This is a delicious recipe with or without the dressing and would make an excellent Thanksgiving side dish!