Apple Pie Goodness

Homemade apple pie from my Dad's apples.


Life is really busy lately and in between my weekly or every other week trips down to see my parents (5.5 hours away) my free time has been spent in the kitchen trying to use up a TON of apples and pears from my dad's orchard. So far i have:

Frozen:

• 6 big ziplocks each of pears and apples
• 2 pear crisps
• 1 apple filling (froze apples in pie plate so I can just pop them in when I make the crust
• More applesauce than I can remember
• 3 bags of grated garden carrots for carrot cake
• 3 gallon ziplocks garden tomatoes for salsa

Dried

• 2 big jars of apples (gone)
• 3 big jars of pears (half gone)
• 5 big trays of fruit rolls (gone)

Canned ~there is no way I am going and counting all of the jars~

• Pear butter
• Apple butter
• Pear sauce
• Apple sauce
• Sliced apples
• Sliced Pears
• Blackberry jam

That's it for now. I am down to one big bowl stacked full of pears and two vegetable bins in the refrigerator of apple and pears. My house is FULL of fruit flies. Yuk. I really want to get some more blackberries to make blackberry jam but I have to leave for a week next week so that's not happening. Now let's get this straight. I do not like canning. I learned to can last year, mom gave me her old stuff (thanks mom) but I can't stand doing it. There is a great satisfaction at the end hearing the lids popping like popcorn I do admit. The end product is rewarding. Now let's get this straight. I hate canning. Will I continue to do? Well, of course I will. I am a gluten for punishment. :)

I would like to introduce you to my pig. His name is Riley and he is 7 years old. He is a garbage disposal, sometimes snorts, a great cuddler, loveable and great a keeping a pig stye for a room.

The room:

I found stuff everywhere. I was well aware of the fact I was taking my life into my own hands when i turned the closet door knobs. Buried in toys... but this mom made it out alive 5 HOURS later. He is a stuffer. I was a stuffer. My mom made me clean my room. My son has to clean his room. Let's just say "The Pit" was driving me crazy when he was at school. Now, if he doesn't clean up his toys at night they are headed to someone who will appreciate them!

I love blogs with pictures. Not sure why I am posting this but here is a pic of downtown Eureka on the 101. That's about it for the traffic around here. Eureka is about 20 minutes from my town.

Salsa

I made some spicy salsa from my garden tomatoes. It was good. Next time I will go down on the peppers so kids can enjoy. Dh and I arent too fond of onions in salsa so this was perfect. This was the first time I have made cooked salsa and I will do it over and over again now. Didnt have time to can it so I froze it. Made 3 cups.

I roasted at 425 degrees till the skins split.
1 red bell pepper
3 jalepenos (2 with seeds one without)
8 cloves of garlic
2 lbs of my garden tomatoes

Stuck it in the crockpot with juice of two limes, splash of vinegar, salt and 1/2-1 cup of cilantro for 1 hour. Let it cool and then blended up in my blender. Made 3 cups.

My nephew has arrived

My baby sister gave birth to the sweetest baby ever...Caleb. 8lbs 1 oz. She was amazing during labor. Wow. I have a new found admiration for my lil sis. I have a new found love for a baby I have only held for 2 minutes. I hate living so far away. I get to see him this week though, yah! Now I must get busy finishing up that sling!

Once a month Cooking

Bought this book yesterday "Once a Month Cooking"

I have done OAMC on and off for 5 years now. I always love life when I can just pull something out the freezer and just prepare a salad and fresh fruit. Right now life is crazy so I want to simplify it once again. I dont have the time to gather my recipes so I thought this book would be a great way to get me back out of the kitchen and have more time to breathe. :) I bought it yesterday and really there are only a couple of meals I will have to cut out. I will make the rest work, kiddos will have to learn once again that they dont rule dinners....lol. I cant do it til October 1st because I am going out of town this week and dh will be out of town the following two weeks. I will report back with a review first week in October.