Happy Halloween!

Also, happy 28th birthday to my hubby!

Apples, still. (Includes a yummy recipe.)

Remember my 20 pounds of apples? I'm still trying to find ways to use them before they start getting mushy spots. I found this recipe while looking through my very unorganized recipe binder. Papa (grandpa) typed it up for me a few years ago - it is "his favorite" apple crisp recipe from my grandmother. It is very delicious, and easy to make. I even had all the ingredients which usually never happens when I want to bake something on the spur of the moment.





Omi's Apple Crisp

4 cups sliced tart apples (I used 4 largeish apples to get this amount - but I would use more next time)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/3 cup butter, softened

Heat oven to 375 degrees and grease an 8x8x2" pan. Place apple slices in pan. Mix remaining ingredients thoroughly and sprinkle over apples. Bake 30 min, or until the topping is golden brown. Serve warm. Preferably with vanilla ice cream. =)

Enjoy!

Finished: Pixie Flora Hat

I love this hat. It is one of Woolly Wormhead's sideways knit hats, from her extensive collection of free patterns. I was amazed to find that I was only the third person to enter this hat into Ravelry. Come on people; it's a great hat AND it's a free pattern!





I finished it in one night and used about a half a skein of Manos del Uruguay left over from my Must Have Cardigan. (Finished before I moved my blog to Wordpress...I still haven't been able to transfer 5 years of archives from Blogger over here. I need to figure something out so I don't lose all that history.)


If you read Woolly Wormhead's blog, you know that she has been having troubles with the printer of her self-published books. She is basically going to have to discontinue the full color hard copy of Going Straight for now. I have wanted to buy it for myself since it came out, but never managed to scrap up the money. I mentioned it to my mom and she told me they'd order it for me as a Christmas present. I need to check and make sure they order it before the October 25th cutoff!

No Longer Contagious.

Today was the first day in a week and a half that I was able to function like a normal human being after the cold to end all colds knocked me out. I washed and dried my hair this morning and wore something besides an old sweatshirt to work. I also cooked dinner tonight, if you count boiling hot dogs and microwaving broccoli cooking.

I haven’t been this sick (or sick at all) in a long time. My hubby said “did you really think you’d never get another cold again?”. I have to admit I sort of did. Silly me.

Part of the problem was that I couldn’t afford to take any time off work and had commitments in the evenings and over the weekend that I couldn’t miss. Nothing like not getting enough rest to extend a cold. Of course, I was in a horrible fog at work – doing the bare minimum to get by and staring blearily at people who were attempting to carry on a conversation with me.

Not to worry – I didn’t infect any one.

I picked up my knitting for the first time in almost a week tonight. (I also looked around at the mess in the kitchen and the piles of laundry… ugh, not feeling up to that yet!)

I have a bunch of photos I need to take and up load to Ravelry. About a month ago I photographed about a dozen scarves and hats to add to my projects and then lost the files. Seriously. I think I must have deleted them off the memory card thinking I had already transferred them to my computer, but never actually did. Which is a pain in the butt since they were good photos , and scarves are not the easiest things to get good photos off.

Wish me good light tomorrow afternoon!

Apples Everywhere.

Last weekend we did an official "fall is here" thing and went apple picking.

We went to a new place this year, Apple Holler in Sturtevant, WI. Their orchard is nice a big so even though it was crowded we rarely ran into other people. They also have pear and Asian pear picking in season which I will definitely have to remember for next year.





I came away with almost 30 pounds (yes, you read that correctly) of Macintosh (my fav), Golden Delicious, Ida Red, and maybe a few other types that I can't remember.


I didn't think to take a photo of the stuffed-full bag. Too bad.

One of the first things I did the next day was make applesauce. I love homemade applesauce, to the point where i can't eat the watery stuff that comes in a jar. Here is my very easy applesauce "recipe":

Core and chop up enough apples to fill your Crockpot. I used 14 of various types but mostly Macintosh and I left the peels on.



Cook on high for four hours, or until apples are soft and mushy. Strange as it sounds, the apples will actually appear to expand in the crockpot instead of sinking lower as you might expect. Make sure they don't bubble out of the lid. (Ask me how I know...)

When done, scoop into a food processor and blend to a consistancy of your liking. This batch was smooth with just a few small chunks. Add sugar to taste. My favorite is a little bit of "Sugar in the Raw" Turbinado sugar. Yummy! This make about 10 cups of applesauce. (It freezes well, just in case you don't think you can eat 10 cups in a reasonable time span.)





Enjoy!

Seasons collide?

I had to stop at the grocery store on my way home from work last night to pick up a few things for dinner. (Which was taco soup. I’ll have to give you the recipe some time since it is one of our favorite meals, and one of the only meat-free things my husband will eat happily.) I broke down and bought a bag of Halloween candy which I swear is going to be the only bag I buy this year. I have a bad habit of buying a few different kinds and eating it myself since my husband will eat one piece and then forget all about it.

I love lollipops and hard candy ‘cause the give a little more bang for the caloric buck than chocolate. My current favorites are Carmel Apple Pops from Tootsie Roll. These seem to be something people either love or hate. The outside is sweet and sticky caramel and the lollipop part is sour green apple. Yum.

When I turned on the car radio as I was leaving Jewel I heard “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”. Seriously. I was a more than a little incredulous that someone would be playing Christmas music already. It usually doesn't start until the day after Thanksgiving. The station wasn’t coming in clearly since it was on the frequency I use for my iPod FM transmitter (and not usually a broadcast station at all).

But then the next song up was “Horse with No Name” by America.

Very bizarre.