Happy Halloween!

What's in a name

So one of my little boys gets on the bus today, looks up at me and says:
"It's not Timothy* anymore, it's just Flash. Flash the kid."
'Nuff said.


*Names changed to protect the innocent, of course.

I know you're probably sick of them, but hey look, more apples!

At the risk of driving you all nuts with too many apple related posts, I found a really nifty and delicious recipe for applesauce.

My mom and I wanted to use up the leftovers from our pie-making session, so we made applesauce about a week ago. It turned out so well that I needed to make another, bigger batch because the kids and I went through our half in about two days.

Our version of the is recipe is adapted from Ina Garten's baked applesauce recipe.

The original called for the zest and juice of two oranges, but with very few exceptions I've found that I just can't stand orange in recipes, so we left that out. Also, after the original batch, I decided to tone down the allspice and the cinnamon just a tad. The cinnamon was okay in the first one, but it was waaaaay too allspicy. Is that a word? Anyway, so yeah, scaled that down by half. The end result was yummy, and dead easy to make. Also, after tasting this batch I would scale back the cooking time a bit too, it turned out sort of dry, which is interesting because I didn't know that applesauce could be dry.

Anyway, here's the recipe:

Dead Easy Baked Applesauce

- 6 lbs of baking apples (I used Jonagold both times)

- 4 TBSP of butter 
- The zest and juice of one lemon
- 1/2 c. brown sugar, packed
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground allspice


Preheat your oven to 350 degrees (which I always forget to do.) 

Peel, core, and slice your apples. This step becomes really easy and fun (especially if you make the kids do it) when you have one of these. I love mine. Intensely. The first time I made apple pie I didn't have one. It was a sad, sad day.


Throw all of your apples and the rest of the ingredients into a dutch oven or enameled cast iron pot. Give it all a good stir and pop it in the oven. 

Now, go read a book or something for about an hour. 

I opened the pot periodically just to mix everything together. This also had the side benefit of making the house smell ridiculously good. 

Check it after an hour. The apples should be extremely soft and the mixture should be somewhat juicy (this is where I overcooked mine.) 

If you like your applesauce lumpy like we do, all you need to do when it comes out of the oven is give it a good stir. If you like it smooth, just whisk it really well until all of the apples are broken up.

Tada!

Ummm...

My car has sporadically started not starting. Help!

Wait, did that make sense? Started not starting...

Anyway, when the kids and I went to leave from Alex's Taekwondo class tonight, Bob (yes, we've dubbed our car Bob, it stands for Bucket of bolts) wouldn't start. Ack!

Well, Bob finally started, but now I'm freaking out.

I know the battery is good because I just put a new one in, and my neighbor helped me replace the starter motor just a few months ago. What worries me is that this is exactly what happened when the starter motor went out.

Crap.

Grateful

I am blessed beyond measure by the people that I'm surrounded with at work. 

Things have been hard recently, well, not that they're ever not hard, but lately things have been incredibly difficult. 

The kids and I are living on the raggedy edge right now, and every. single. day. has been a struggle.  

To put food on the table.

To keep a roof over our head. 

To keep the lights on. 

To put gas in the car.

To pay for daycare. 

And in the midst of all this I have seen the most amazing outpouring of love and care and concern from several of the people that I work with. Some are dear, close friends, and some I only know as acquaintances, but all of them have touched my heart recently. 

We all had our hours cut at work, we are all struggling, but despite all of that they have still reached out to the kids and I and blessed us by bringing over groceries, by giving me money and not taking my 'no' for an answer, by giving me hand-me-downs for the kids, by giving me a hug when I need it, and by simply being there for me. 

These wonderful, sweet people have been God's love letter to me over the past two months and I am filled with nothing but gratitude.  

The Lord's Day

" We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love."

- Romans 5:3-5

Sorry it's been quiet...

We had a garage sale today.

Pity me.

I hate doing garage sales. You get up at the butt crack o' dawn, spend countless hours beforehand getting all the stuff ready and schlepping it down out of the attic,  and then to add insult to injury you mark your stuff down to ridiculously low prices only to have people look at you like you're crazy when they ask you how much it is, after which they proceed to try and haggle you down. 'You want one dollar for that very nice, clean, almost brand new coat? How about twenty-five cents?'

Sigh.

I made about $30 all told. Oh well, at least it was enough to cover the gap to pay the portion of my electricity bill that will keep them from shutting off our power (which was the goal anyway).

Excuse me while I go collapse.

The Great Gummy Bear Saga of 2011

If you ever get the urge to buy your kid a giant gummy bear, do yourself a favor. Don't.

Now while this might seem like common sense to most people, it apparently wasn't to me.

I was in World Market at some point during the summer and saw these huge gummy bears. I'm telling you these suckers were at least five and a half inches tall and three inches wide. Stupid me thinks, 'Oh, cool, Alex loves gummy bears. He'll totally flip when I bring home this giant one. How fun will that be?'

Bad idea.

Well, the reaction was what I wanted. He loved it, and I felt like super-mom until super-mom got the bright idea to take said giant gummy bear over to grandma's house the next day to show her. Now I have to point out that it was high summer in our neck of the woods, and at this point temperatures were reaching the mid if not the high nineties every day.

Back to the gummy bear.

Alex showed grandma, who thought it was cool (if a bit weird) and then he promptly forgot it in the car that night. Sigh.

Sometime the next afternoon we were heading back over to my mom's house and I opened the car door to a horrific sight.

Alex had left the gummy bear in its plastic case in the front seat.

The gummy bear melted in the ninety plus degree heat, oozed out of the packaging and left an enormous puddle of red, sticky goo all over the front car seat.

Words cannot express.

Have you ever tried pulling up a melted, giant, gummy bear off of your car seat? No, I bet you haven't because you are probably a sensible, sane human being that doesn't buy the stupid giant gummy bear in the first place. It was like pulling up tar, it was like pulling silly putty out of the carpet (yep, done that too), it was like trying to get gum out of hair (haven't actually had to do that one. yet). Oh. My. Gosh. 

The good news is that, with ALOT of hot water and soap, my car seat is surprisingly no worse for the wear.

I never. ever. want to have to do anything like that again. But, knowing myself, and unfortunately I know myself pretty well, I'm sure that something ridiculous like this will happen again in the near future.

I'm overdue you see, it's just how my life works.

The Lord's Day

"Do not be afraid, 
for I have ransomed you. 

I have called you by name; 
you are mine. 

When you go through deep waters, 
I will be with you.

When you go through rivers of difficulty, 
you will not drown."
 
Isaiah 43: 1b - 2a

Oh my, apple pie.

Whew! I am officially worn out.

The kids and I went over to my mom's house at around 10:30 this morning, and we just got home at around 5:45. No, we didn't spend all of the day actively working on the pies, but it did take most of the day. We stopped for lunch and we also ended up going to this really neat little folk art fair on the spur of the moment with some friends of my parents. I'll post about that later.

Back to the pie.

First of all this is my absolute favorite apple pie recipe. Ever. I got the recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Pie and Pastry Bible, and it is amazing. What makes the flavor of the pie so incredible is that you slice and mix your apples with sugar, cinnamon, lemon juice, nutmeg, and salt and let them macerate on the counter at room temperature for three hours. This allows the juices to gather in the bottom of the bowl. Now here comes the really wicked part. You strain out all of this juice and boil on the stove with butter to make this syrupy, carmely, deliciousness which keeps the pie from being too wet really concentrates the apple flavor that you get in the pie. Yum.

Here's aaaaaallll of the stuff that I schlepped over to my mom's house.

 

These are my mom's counters, not mine, aren't they nice? Unfortunately you saw mine a couple of posts ago, sorry about that.

Here's all of our apples including my moms. Hmmm, It looks like I underestimated the amount of apples that we had. I think we lost some to attrition and, um, eating.... Mostly eating....

 Apple slicing in progress:

Here's what the apples were mixed in: granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, and salt. Yummy.

 Lots and lots of pie crust.

And, here's the finished product. Tada!

Aren't they pretty? I think they turned out really well, I can't wait to taste them. Oh, we also made a quick little tart with some of the leftover pastry and apple mixture, but I forgot to take a picture of it. We threw it in the oven at my mom's house, but it wasn't quite ready when the kids and I left. Before I even got in the door at home, my phone rings.

It was my mom telling me how awesome it turned out and that I probably wouldn't be getting my half of it. 

Baking

Well you know that pie crust recipe that I tested well it turned out really really good. Damnit. Pillsbury was so easy....

So, today I'm hauling two kids, two refrigerator drawers full of apples, an apple corer, assorted ingredients, and a partridge in a pear tree over to my mom's house who is also in possession of two refrigerator drawersful of apples to have a marathon apple pie baking session.

Whew, it makes me tired just saying that. So last night after hauling my sorry carcass home from work (I've been sick all week, so I'm a pretty pathetic sight right now) I made two batches of pie crust and stuck it in the freezer.

If I don't forget my camera, and I don't forget to take pictures, I'll have another post for you later.

Also, I don't know what you're doing this today, but if you live in North Carolina the weather is absolutely gorgeous. Get yourself outside and enjoy this lovely Fall day. After piemaggedon I'll be taking Alex and Sarah to the park so that we can enjoy it too.

On a totally random note...

It's amazing just how dirty your house gets when you're sick for three days. Sigh.

P.S. I would also like to take a minute to sing the praises of the schedule function on blogger without which there would not have been any posts this week. Thank you.