Irish Apple Pie

I'm a big fan of autumn, especially all the food-centered holidays. And the warm, spice flavors, and the hearty produce. I love sweater weather. And yes, pumpkins. But one of my favorite fall flavors is apple.

Since I was a kid, we've gone apple picking in the fall, gorging ourselves on apples right off of the tree and cider donuts and hot apple cider from the farmstand. It's something I enjoy doing with our kids too, and they look forward to it every year as much as I do. One of the small drawbacks about having food-conscious kiddos is that they are fully aware of what can be done with delicious fresh produce, so they have a tendency to go overboard and pick ALL THE THINGS. Long story short, every fall, we have plenty of apples. For a small army of hungry fruit addicts.

This recipe for Irish Apple Pie has been one of my favorites since I started cooking. It's really simple to put together, using a food processor to do the hard work. The ingredients are straightforward, and I'm guessing you probably already have everything you need in your kitchen. And the taste is delightful. One of those magical moments where the simplest of things are elevated when put together in the right way to make something so satisfying that you can't help but sigh as you taste it.

Cookie Making Day!

It's been a hectic month.  Year, for that matter.  And that all seems to culminate in December.  To top that, the weather here has been dreary for the last month or more, which zaps motivation and makes it much harder to get good lighting for pretty pictures.  So posts have been sparse lately, and I'm sorry about that.  Anyways, this weekend, we actually ended up with no plans except for that we are scheduled to teach Sunday School on Sunday morning.  NO plans.  The weekend before Christmas.

At first, the hubs and I discussed heading downtown to see the store windows and lights and visit the market...but honestly, I didn't want to deal with the crowds.  And when I asked the kids, they didn't seem that into it at all either.  So then we changed our plan  to maybe go to a more local Christmas market.  But the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to drag everyone out of the house.  Then, my brilliant husband had a fantastic idea:

Family Cookie Day.

Turkey Gumbo

Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and my friends are already teasing me, because I've been stocking up on turkeys.  Right now, I baked one last week, have one thawing in my fridge, and have 4 more in the garage freezer.  Crazy about turkey?  Meh.  More like crazy about turkey gumbo!

Cranberry Apple Cinnamon Vodka

You know what makes a great gift for the holidays?

Homemade booze.

Beet Blondies

Are you guys sick of blondies yet?  Am I throwing too many out there?  Sorry, but I'm not sorry.  Blondies are dead simple to make, endlessly adaptable, and fricking delicious.  So I'm going to wrap this week of vegetables with a veggie blondie.  Beet Blondies with White Chocolate, to be specific.

King Cake

Mardi Gras is awesome.

Let's face it, even the name rhymes with "party claw".  Forget that it's just "Fat Tuesday" in French...you have no choice but to celebrate on a day named Mardi Gras.

My father-in-law's family is from Louisiana, so our ties to this celebration run to the core.  Ask any of my kids.  The family's favorite dinner?  Gumbo, hands down.  Party beads have been a regular part of the dress-up bins since before the girls were walking.  We may even bleed green, purple, and gold.  But, the Mardi Gras culinary tradition that has our heart in it's sweet, sweet grip is that of the king cake.

King cake has many different forms, and is found in many different countries.  When I was younger, I loved reading a book about a French orphan girl, and was enthralled with her description of finding the bean in her "galette des rois", and getting to wear a paper crown and call the shots all day.  In Mardi Gras terms, it's the last indulgence before Lent comes and spoils the fun by reminding us of sacrifice and restraint.

A Cookie You Won't Forget

I'm sure that almost everyone out there has a go-to recipe for cookies that they pull out around the holidays.  You know the one I'm talking about...it's the one that if, for some reason, you don't make one year, you never hear the end of it.  "Mom, where are the _____?"  "Why aren't there any ______?"  "Thanks for the cookie plate, but I really missed those ______ you make."  In my house, there are a handful of these.  both the hubby and I come from some cookie-loving heritages, so we have been handed down some darn good recipes.

One of my family's recipes is always a hit with family, friends, neighbors, and so on.  My mom calls them "forgotten cookies", because you leave them in the oven and "forget" them overnight.  My kids call them "those white cloud cookies".  They're basically a meringue cookie, very fancy to serve, but deceptively so, because they are pretty darn easy to make.

Catching the Gingerbread Man

It snowed here yesterday.  Enough to pile up and stick.  The kids immediately put out the bowl for snow caramel, and I immediately took beef out of the freezer to slow roast into a delicious stew.  We had a Christmas pageant at church that all 3 kids were in, and then we drove around on our annual tradition of seeing some holiday light shows.  By the time we got home, Chinese take-out in hand, it was a bit late for us to send the kiddos out into the snow, and everyone was pretty wiped out anyway.

Today, the kids all were excited about the snow.  The girls left to their bus stop 5 minutes early for the "annual traditional" first snow snowball fight.  Little man was upset that I had to drive to drop him off this morning because I screwed up my foot last week, so he settled with knocking snow off of everything he could get his hands on before I told him to get in the car, and a promise from me that he could have some snow time after school.

Merry Widows - A Quick Halloween Craft

It's been 9 months since I started this blog.  Which seems crazy to me.  9 months, 53 posts, over 5000 pageviews...I think that for what it is, it's going pretty well.

But I haven't done a craft yet.

Which may not seem all that strange to people.  I mean, there are a ton of recipes on here, right?  And some insight on parenting, and some fun places to check out.  And not everyone who blog crafts, right?

But I do.  And people who really know me know that I have a lot of fun with it.  And some of them have wondered out loud to me why I haven't posted a craft yet.

This one's for them.