Apple Picking Time

We are very lucky to have a few orchards around our neck of the woods. We visit one in particular about three times in the fall to gather and devour our fair share of their wonderful crop, apples. This past weekend we took advantage of some time in between football and baseball games to make our first visit. We picked and tasted and picked and tasted and tasted and tasted and picked......


Now that we are home and the apples are all washed, it is time to get to work. Here is what I did with 1/2 bushel which is about 75 apples of the small to medium size.

Apple Pie:
I always make an apple pie with the apples. It is usually the first thing I do when we get home :).




Apple Pie Filling:
In order to ensure we have some little part of summer in the middle of winter or at our Thanksgiving table, I make a few bags of apple pie filling. Basically, you just make the filling like you were going to dump it into a pie shell, just DON'T dump it in. Dump it into a ziploc bag. Try to get out as much of the air as you can. Label it and throw it in the freezer for a nice surprise in the dead of winter.


Applesauce:
We go through jars and jars of applesauce every month. Between the kiddos eating it for snack or lunch and me using it in place of oil in alot of my bread recipes, we need it :). So with majority of the apples we made applesauce. This is a great way to get the kids involved. Let them throw the apple slices in the pot, dump in the other ingredients, and with your help of course, they could help stir. There are TONS of recipes out there for applesauce so there is no excuse for not giving it a try!


After all of that we still have about 25 apples left. I will leave them out for us to snack on and they are a great addition to my lunch shakes. These are just a few ideas for what you can do with apples. I think my favorite apple cake will be in the works later this week! I hope everyone had a great weekend!!

Fun and EASY

Here is a delicious and super easy afterschool snack. Pop a few bags of popcorn.....back up.....I haven't told you about making your own microwave popcorn have I? Let's start with that....

I saw this on , you guessed it, pinterest a couple weeks ago. With our goal to eat less processed foods, popcorn was the first out the window. Have you seen what is all in that stuff?! No thank you. One night I was craving some popcorn so I looked up how to cook it. Found out it was so super easy.

Here's all you need:
* paper lunch sack
* 1/4 cup popcorn kernals
* microwave

Throw the kernals in the bag. Fold the top down a few times. Sit it in the microwave, folded side up or you can even put it on its side. Pop for about a minute and a half. My microwave took 1:35. Then its done. YAY! Yummy fresh popcorn and I can reuse the bag!

Back to our original snack. I popped 3 bags of popcorn, since there are 3 kiddos that eat snack. I spread each bag of popcorn on a cookie sheet that I lined with parchment paper (or you could use wax paper). Then I drizzled some caramel and hot fudge over top. Then I sprinkled it with sea salt, because my kids have sophisticated tastes. Just kidding, it was for me. I have to say this is a delicious little snack. Salty and sweet.


Combine the fact that you are eating just plain ole' popcorn and you can control how much caramel/chocolate you put on, it is a win/win in this house!! It is a bit messy which makes it fun to eat. My kiddos were licking the parchment paper when the corn was all gone. Ok, so maybe that was me, but who can let homemade caramel sauce go to waste. Happy Snacking today!!

Fast Yummy Dinner

Tonight it the only night we have ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NOTHING NADA ZILCH to do or to be at. No football practice. No parent meetings for school. No parent meetings for sports. No playdates. NOTHING!! Oh how I miss these days and how I can't wait to get them back after football. Anywho, tonight for dinner I wanted to make something fun and yet still fast. I don't want to spend forever in the kitchen, I want to be with the family.

I found this great looking dip on pinterest, Pizza Dip, and decided it would be super easy to make individual portions. Here is how I did it:

In each of your ramekins, place a few spoonfuls of ricotta cheese.


Then spread a layer of pizza sauce. Homemade is always better :) but canned is quick.


Sprinkle on some italian blend shredded cheese.


Top with some turkey pepperoni's that have been diced up. You could use italian sausage as well. You could also top with some olives, yummo!!


I covered mine with foil for the first 15 minutes of baking them at 350. Then uncovered them until they were nice and bubbly. This was about 15 more minutes. So a total bake time of 30 minutes.


I stuck them on a plate (when they were cool enough) with some homemade naan or flatbread and that my friends was dinner.


Throw in a salad and we were all happy!


Kid approved!
This would be a good dip at parties because you really have to use a spoon to get some dip out and spread it on your dipping device. Which means no double dipping, yay!

Speaking of naan. If you haven't tried this Indian flatbread, you must.

It is super easy to make at home. It takes about 3 hours from start to finish, but majority of that time is letting it rise. It is not hard, I promise. Plus, it is fun to make it have all those yummy bubbles!! Here are a few recipes I like. Budget Bytes has a great recipe that uses greek yogurt, these little beauties are SUPER soft and so yummy! Today I used AllRecipes recipe. It doesn't use yogurt and these were still really good.

Happy Wednesday....I hear my patio chair calling :)

Back to our regularly scheduled programming....

Discussing what frustrates me helps me to put it all in perspective. This is precisely what happened last night, all night. As much as I hate to say I was awake most of the night, I feel a little more clear headed. I feel most comfortable to be myself. If my craftiness or yummyness is needed, then I am more than happy to oblige. If it isn't, I am not going to draw attention to it. With Ella starting kindy, I am trying hard to provide her with a great friend base that she will have for the rest of her life. This includes us moms trying to be friends. I want this to happen. So the way to achieve this is with my decision. Did you hear it? The sigh of relief? Yep, that was me.

Alright who is ready for some yummyness.



I have some great homemade pumpkin puree that I want to use so what better to make than pumpkin donuts for breakfast!! I found a recipe here at Blue Eyed Bakers. This was a great recipe with nothing too crazy in it. The donuts turned out great. They were super moist and flavor"full" of fall!! Here are few tips after making a few batches:

* using homemade pumpkin puree gives the donuts a more spice flavor, not so much pumpkin flavor. Using canned pumpkin will give these more of a pumpkin flavor.

* I used 1 1/2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice instead of all of the spices

* This recipe made 6 regular sized donuts (I don't have a mini donut pan, but I will, oh yes, I will!) so I made another batch. This way I can freeze some for another morning when I don't have the brain capacity to make breakfast. Which is a lot these days!

* I used shortening to grease my pan instead of butter. The donuts still took a little finagling to get out but none broke or tore. Just be patient and coax them out.

* I am already planning on using this same recipe for some apple donuts after our trip to the apple orchard tomorrow. Instead of pumpkin, I will use some homemade apple sauce with some big chunks. Should be super delicious with some of those lovely winesaps I plan on picking!!



Here is my new find that I just adore, King Arthur's White Whole Wheat Flour. It bakes up just like white flour. And here is something I have found in my kitchen. This flour is not that expensive but more expensive than the white flour at Aldi's. This bag runs me $4.35 at my grocery store. I have found that when I spend that money on this flour, I don't bake near as much. Whatever I do make, is a real treat.


Here is Tuesday's Tip
I love my donut pan but filling it is a little crazy. You could put your batter in a old ketchup bottle but that always causes more of a mess for me. I fill a ziploc bag, usually a freezer one which are more substantial, with my batter. Cut a pretty big piece off of one corner. Then just squeeze it in. But that isn't really my tip. As I said earlier, I made one batch of donuts only to realize I was going to need to make another. I didn't want to waste another ziploc bag so here is what I did....


I squeezed a little of the batter back away from the tip and then put a chip clip on the tip so it wouldn't come out. Then opened up my bag on my favorite pitcher and refilled it with the new batch of batter. This worked like a gem!! I know its not rocket science but it made me happy that I didn't end up mopping up my entire floor!

Happy Baking Readers!!

Hard....

Disclaimer: this is a serious post and one that has been coming for a while. There is not one specific person or episode that has sent me "over the edge" but a culmination of things my whole life. I am allowed to be frustrated.

For most of my life I have been an over achiever when it came to doing things. When I was in high school, I can remember thinking and doing all I could with each project to make sure that it looked its very best. I also remember that in high school, I did all I could to make my friends and my boyfriend happy. And when college came around, over acheiverness continued to follow me. I found a way to make every lesson spectacular and every worksheet super cute. I organized my music portfolio in a way that my professor had never seen before, but it just made sense to me to have it all in one place. And when I became a certified teacher in a real school with real kids, I killed myself trying to recreate the wheel in ALL avenues. I was on so many committees in hopes to make a true difference not only in my students lives, but in my district as well. I wanted to be the best and like I said this wore me down faster than anything else in my career. And even if my career and this over achiever that lives inside me kept me going in some of the darkest days , I am learning to hate it.

Ever since my divorce and my life was flipped upside down with no one to blame but myself, I vowed to rebuild. Rebuild me. From the ground up. And I did. I vowed that I was to change for no one. You either liked what you got or there wasn't room for you in my life. I was tired of being someone for people instead of being me. After a few years teaching in that first real school, I learned that over achievers get asked to do alot and are expected to volunteer for everything since we are "good" at it. We make it look easy, my all time favorite saying. So I started to shut down that over achiever. I let it come out every once and a while but most of it stayed hidden from view.  I was rebuilding a new me, one with less responsibilities at work.

When I started working at a different district with a different set of kiddos, this over acheiverness was welcomed and somewhat expected. I had found a place where my abilities could be put to good use. And boy did I. Between committees on the district level to committees on the school level, I tried it all. Then doing all I could to improve my actual teaching and classroom management, it was all so fun. And all so hard. I got tired. Then after having my second baby, I got exhausted. I got angry that my family was making me choose them over this dream job, where my over achiever could run free. And boy did I love my job and man oh man did I love my kiddos at school. It was like a drug to me. It made me feel good. It made me feel wanted and appreciated. It made me feel one of a kind. It made me quit.

Yep, quit. Said goodbye to the whole shabang. I realized that my family was more important than this drug, than this job that I was good at. My kids at home were suffering from my lack of patience at home because I had used it all at school on my 25 other kids. So I quit. Here I was. At home. With two kiddo's and one on the way. Then she came along. With me still here, at home. That over achiever  was hidden at first but it soon came out in little ways like cooking and baking. Then it came out in sewing. And now it is just busting forth with just about everything you can imagine. Pinterest is my playground where I play at recess and man oh man do I LOVE recess :).

I hear you asking, "if you are so passionate about this stuff and seem to love it, why did you say you hated it". I hate it for the same reason I mentioned above. I am tired of being judged because of it. I am tired of women HATING me because I can. And I hate that I am making women feel so bad because they can't.

I do all of this stuff so that I don't lose my mind with my kids. I do all of this to save my sanity. I do all of this to feel pride in myself because things I have done in my life or have had done to me in my life haven't always been peachy. I do this stuff not because I want you to feel bad or stupid, but because I love you, the receivers. I am learning that women don't want to know you can do something they can't. They don't want help and feel immediately threatened when they find out. I don't come off cocky, maybe here I am, but in everyday situations I am not. I want women to feel better about themselves and maybe these things might.  I don't know how many times I have heard "I can't be friends with you anymore because you are just too good" or "Is there anything you can't do".  I know they are all little jokes but they sting. Because you aren't really saying good job or wow you did good. You are threatened and I never meant for anyone to feel that way. And yes, there are lots of things I can't do. I am frustrated and mad that I am always looked down because I can do some things.

I love the gifts and talents that God has blessed me with and the fact that he provided me with a brain so that I can learn those talents I don't already have. I love that I have a family and kiddos and kiddo's teachers to spoil rotten. I love who I am and how much I want to share this feeling of accomplishment with other women.

I hate not having a single friend/women to share it with, without it making them feel bad in some way. I hate being ostracized because I can and I do. I hate being used.  My soul has taken all the damage it can and words/tears can no longer stay hidden. Jaded doesn't even begin to describe this feeling.  Why must life be so hard?!