The You-Must-Make-This Apple Pie

As promised, the recipe for "the" apple pie follows. I found it on Clary's website - I frequent her blog because I really like her photography and one day, she posted her own recipe for apple pie. I modified it only by adding cloves because I am obsessed with them. (Do it. Trust me.)

If you make this pie, please let me know! It is seriously amazing.

You'll need these ingredients for the crust:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon KOSHER salt
5-6 tablespoons iced water

For the filling:

1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 teaspoon KOSHER salt
7 apples THINLY sliced (if the apples are really small like mine were, use 8)

For the crumb topping:

1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup quick-cooking rolled oats
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Recipe

For crust: In a bowl stir together flour and salt. Using a fork or pastry blender, cut in 6 tablespoons of butter until pieces are pea-sized. Add one tablespoon of cold water at a time (for a total of 6 tablespoons). Toss with a fork after each tablespoon until dough is moistened. (If you have festive crust cutters like mine, save the rest of the dough!)

*I confess that I ALWAYS buy crusts at the store, but for this I do make my own. I think it's the overwhelming domesticity brought on by picking the apples that does it to me every time.*

For filling: In a large mixing bowl stir together the granulated sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, the cinnamon, cloves and salt. Add apple slices and gently toss until coated.

Transfer apple mixture to the pastry-lined pie plate.

For crumb topping: Stir together brown sugar, 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, and the oats. Using a pastry blender, cut in butter or margarine until the topping mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Sprinkle Crumb Topping over apple mixture. To prevent overbrowning, cover edge of pie with foil. (Or don't, if you have crust cut-outs - this is the time to place them around the edge of the pie and squeal at the cuteness!)

Bake in a 375 degree F oven for 20 minutes. Remove foil and sprinkle walnuts. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes more or until top is golden. Remove from oven and let it cool for about an hour.

How to Have the Perfect Fall Day.

Wake up early and make pumpkin muffins for the road.

Have an extra cup of coffee because you can.

Go to the orchard.

Have a husband who knows to wear corduroy without you even having to ask.

Go on a hayride.

Find a cool bug.

Pick apples.

Climb a tree (kind of).

Pose.

Obtain Esmerelda the fairytale pumpkin (as well as other pumpkins and gourds).

Pose again.

Find a cool tree and snap a picture from the car.

Go to the state fair.

Eat.

See fun animals.

Eat again.

Go home and put those freshly picked apples to use.

The recipe will follow in my next post! Until then...

Obligatory Fall Post!

I'm willing to bet that if I walked up to every single person I know and asked them what their favorite season is, at least 90% of them would say fall. It's just so magical to all of us. Yes, the temperature gets cooler, the colors are beautiful, cozy time with family is anticipated, and yummy things are cooking...but I think the overall "something" about fall is impossible to describe, which I love because that's what makes it slightly mysterious.

Here are some ways that I've decked my home for autumn.

I love this adorable pumpkin candy dish!

I saw this candelabra in a magazine last fall and I've been drooling over it ever since. I got it this year and am in LOVE!

I love the burnt orange placemats, too. They make the table feel cozier!

Here is a look at my whole table (before we painted the kitchen):

I filled these cute little candy buckets with peanut M&Ms and Reese's. They are mine and Ryan's respective downfalls. (There were more Reese's in the bag than M&Ms. lol)

I found this guy at Ross. Did you know that they really do have AMAZING home decor (sometimes)? And so inexpensive!

I love these cute little throw pillows on my couch!

What's the Halloween season without a little spookiness?

I made this guy by peeling the label off of a jar, gluing on the eyes, wrapping it in gauze, and securing the gauze with glue. Then I painted the lid black. Easy as pie!

These are probably my favorite touches. I got the idea from Martha's mag. I found some cool branches and placed them in vases with cute fillers.

And here is my mantle in its entirety:

What are some of your favorite things about fall?

Yemma Update

I realized it's been quite awhile since I've updated about Yemma!

We've had some ups and downs, but "sometimes ups outnumber the downs," and that's our case. Good thing we're not in Nottingham.

Anyway.

Over this past weekend, Yemma had an unscheduled hospital admission. She'd been feeling extremely weak and sick to her stomach, so they admitted her and ran tests. Her blood counts were low again, so they transfused her. She has had a lot of transfusions over the course of her treatment, but they help a lot. The minor bump in the road is that because of this incident, her doctor has pushed back her next round of chemo to next week.

However, the good news is....it will be her LAST CHEMO! I can't believe how far we've come, and it seems like the time has flown by. Only one more round of chemo for Yemma, and then she will undergo some tests in the weeks following to make sure that the cancer has gotten outta town for good. I really hope and pray that we can just put this all behind us and that Yemma won't have to deal with it anymore. Her tumor marker is all the way down to 31, which is an extra helping of good news.

Thanks so much, as always, for your thoughts and prayers.

Sick.

It is no fun being sick. As kids, so many of us thought, "Wouldn't it be awesome if I got sick?! Then I wouldn't have to go to school!" (I say "many of us" instead of "all of us" because my best friend since seventh grade actually HATED missing school. What a weirdo.) However, once we actually caught whatever illness was going around, we realized that it wasn't all fun and games. I really think we take our bodies for granted until they're on the fritz.

I've had a raging sinus infection since last Thursday. I went to work because I thought it was just a really bad allergy day, but my temp started to rise so I went home in the afternoon. I only got worse from there, so I stayed home the next day, too, and went to the doctor. Being the slight hypochondriac that I am, I mentioned that there have been multiple cases of swine flu at all of my elementary schools. However, my doctor pointed out correctly that she could cut off my head and I'd feel better. None of my symptoms were below my neck.

So I've been on antibiotics and sinus washes since Friday morning. She told me I'd be feeling better by day three of the antibiotics. Well, it's day five and I feel the same as I did last Thursday afternoon when I went home from work. Fevers, sore throat, stuffy nose (that has now been "rinsed out" a total of NINE TIMES...HOW MUCH could be in there?! Sorry; that was gross), and sneezes that register on the Richter Scale plague my day-to-day activities.

I went to work yesterday to help out my boss, who was out of state, but I was surprised to find out that I had a 100-degree temperature sitting at that desk. I toughed it out the rest of the day, but I'm home again today. Hopefully some more R&R will get me back into work tomorrow. I hate the thought of letting my co-workers down, and one of them has flu in her family right now, too. When it rains, it pours!

Hopefully this will shape up to be just an EARLY sick season instead of a ridiculously long one.

Boring to Botanical: The Transformation of a Desk

Some time ago, I inherited a desk from Ryan's grandmother. When our office got way too crowded for it, we moved it out into the living room. However, I rarely used it since I had a laptop - I admit it; I would just veg on the cough with my laptop...well, on my lap.

Getting my iMac, and therefore needing to use the desk again, inspired me to give it a makeover. So I did! I got the idea from Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts - a book that I still do not own but through which I frequently browse in Barnes & Noble. (Was it stealing to see this idea in the book and benefit from it? I hope not.)

I might have mentioned before that I'm slowly incorporating a fresh yellow, white and green look to my living room. I transformed my desk with this new theme in mind.

Before:

This is the book that I bought and...gulp....cut pictures out of for decoupaging. It caused me physical pain to cut up a book, but it helped a little bit that I knew its purpose when I bought it. Kind of like my friend who bought two lambs knowing she and her family were going to slaughter and gobble them.

(Sorry for the price tag - I tried to peel it off but it wanted to take the cover with it, and I couldn't degrade my poor book any more than necessary. Besides, now you can see that it was on sale!)

I painted my desk - FOUR coats - and coated it with some polyacrylicdoodlealltheday that the dudes at Lowe's told me would work (it did).

I chose pictures that matched my color scheme, painted them with Mod Podge, let it dry, and cut them out.

Then I Mod Podged them to the desk and voila!

My desk is now fun, girly, and matchy-matchy with the living room! (At least, how the living room WILL look when we paint it.)

I'm quite happy with it :)