4 small turnips, peeled with ends removed
4 maple sausages
1/4 cup dried currants or cranberries
4 cups water
salt and pepper

1. Fry sausage in a skillet until cooked; drain of excess fat.
2. While frying sausage, boil turnips in water until tender. Drain and allow to cool until they can be handled.
3. Scoop out inner core of turnip and discard.
4. Cut sausage into bite-sized pieces and add the dried fruit to it. Mix well, season with salt and pepper.
5. Fill hollow turnips with stuffing mixture.
6. Finish turnips in oven until top just starts to brown.

Makes 4 servings

2 cups pumpkin puree
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup peanuts
1/4 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon honey
salt and pepper

1. Combine pumpkin puree, butter, brown sugar, salt and pepper in a sauce pan, stirring until hot.
2. Cover peanuts in vegetable oil and let warm in 300 degree oven.
3. Garnish pumpkin puree with peanuts and drizzle with honey before serving.

Makes 4 servings

4 six ounce pork chops
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 small green apples, cored and sliced into rings
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
salt and pepper

1. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add oiled pork chops.
2. Cook pork chops until done and keep warm in the oven.
3. In a small bowl combine brown sugar, salt, pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg.
4. Melt butter in skillet then stir in brown sugar mixture and apples. Cover and cook until just tender.
5. Remove apples and place on top of pork chops. Return pork chops to the oven.
6. Continue cooking leftover sauce until it thickens slightly.
7. Spoon sauce over pork chops and apples before serving.

Makes 4 servings

Apple glazed pork chops are a tried and true recipe. When I found a recipe entitled Caramel Apple Pork Chops, I knew I had another theme dinner going. I went through combinations of carnival and circus phrases with various seasonal vegetables and decided on two: Big Top Turnips and Circus Peanuts Pumpkin.

The pork chops are really easy to make, but I have a word of caution: pay attention to the sauce when you're reducing it. I filled the entire apartment with smoke in a minute after turning my back on it. Sugar burns. Let that be a lesson to you! Don't make the same mistake I did. There was enough sauce coating the apples to give the chops some extra flavor, but it would've been a lot better with some extra glaze.

Turnips are cheap right now, but they're not exactly a tasty vegetable. Even filled with a tasty sausage and currant stuffing, we still pretty much only ate the stuffing itself. The only way I've ever liked turnips is mashed with carrots, but that's not going to stop me from trying new ways. This didn't do it for me, but if you like turnips this is probably quite tasty. If you don't, the stuffing could easily be transferable to maybe a baked apple or some squash.

Shannon absolutely loved the pumpkin. She said whatever I did to it made it amazing. She must really love pumpkin since the recipe is very simple with hardly any other ingredients. I didn't particularly like it that much, so the leftovers are all hers. It was mostly a textural thing, so I probably would have liked it more had it been baked or something. Pumpkin is incredibly filling, which is something I wasn't expecting. I didn't have room to finish my pork chop!