Richele Makes Apple Sauce

When I was a youngster I remember my mom making apple sauce only twice: once with a foley mill and then once with this magical thing called a Squeezo (the Squeezo truly is magical because you don't have to peel or core the apples). What I recall most, though, was how wonderful the fresh, tart apple sauce tasted. If you've never had homemade apple sauce, you're missing out. The stuff you buy at the stores doesn't even come close to real apple sauce.

I was at Orr's Farm Market a few weeks ago and was super excited to see that they had Lodi apples. I guess you can use pretty much any variety of apple, but I think Lodi are the best for apple sauce since they're nice and tart. Anywho, I bought a bushel, but there was just one problem....where was the squeezo?! Fret not, we found it buried deep in storage just waiting to churn out some sauce.

There's a children's book or something that says "rain makes apple sauce." I don't know about rain, but here's how Richele makes apple sauce:

1. Wash the apples and cut into quarters

2. Fill a large pot about 2/3 full and place a running over 1/2 cup of water in the pot
3. Cook on Medium-High until things start to soften up, then turn back to Medium-Low until all apples are smushy 4. Load up the Squeezo 5. Crank Away! 6. Add sugar to taste


7. Enjoy or Freeze*+!!!!

*Freezing Tip: place a piece of wax paper on top of sauce before putting the lid on; this prevents crystals from forming on sauce

+P.S. I am kind of obsessed with the new Ball freezing containers

My First Attempt at Pound Cake (an absolute must with fresh strawberries!)

One of my favorite produces to get fresh from the fields, are strawberries. Fortunately in West Virginia by May/June, strawberries are abundant at all local farmer's markets: Butler's, Orr's, Ridgefield's, are some of my local faves.

Last weekend I stopped by Butler's to pick up some strawberries and only strawberries. Needless to say, that turned into a full-blown produce spree, and I obviously couldn't leave without a bottle of their homemade strawberry daiquiri mix (I opted for making strawberry margaritas instead and they were a-mazing). I also found a strawberry that kind of looked like a poodle: what do you think?

Anywho, after I got home I decided that I really wanted strawberry shortcake, which in my family simply translates to pound cake, strawberries, and whipped cream. Now, I have to confess: this family favorite usually involves both Sara Lee and Cool Whip. Being the baker that I am, though, I decided to do everything from scratch. The whipped cream part was a breeze, but I needed to find the perfect pound cake recipe (and by perfect I mean one I actually had the ingredients for). When I moved into Spring Maples, my mother gave me most of her cookbooks, so I decided to scour through them to find the recipe. In a 1970's book compiled by the Campus Crusades for Christ, called Delectable Collectibles, I found my recipe:

I only made one small adjustment: I'd seen another recipe for a "crusty pound cake" that advised turning the oven up to 350°F for the last 30 minutes: I gave it a whirl and was quite please with the outcome!

One of My Garden Projects

When I took Schatze Page (my 5 month old Bernese Mountain Dog) outside this morning, the garden outside my backdoor looked so refreshing after all the rain, that I couldn't help but take some pictures!

The area between the back door and swimming pool is one of my favorite parts of the property. On both sides of the walkway my grandparent's always kept things very "natural" and a grape arbor covers most of the path. Needless to say, I can't wait to make wine and jelly this fall!
Lately, I've been trying to clean things up a bit, but I think I'm leaving the may apples. They remind me of going hunting for morel mushrooms; if only I had some of those growing amidst the may apples! I've also divvied up some hostas I had growing around the side of my house and transplanted them along the walkway to the pool.

Then there's this bush:

It's a very nice, leafy plant, but no one seems to have any clue what it is: do you?

Mini Kitchen Makeover=New Ceiling Fan and Pink Cabinets

I don't quite have the funds yet to totally overhaul my kitchen, but I figured there had to be SOMETHING I could do in the interim do spruce things up.

As I sat staring at the orangish-brown cabinets, I remembered that I still had 3/4 of a can of "cherry blossom" aka pink stain left from an earlier project. Hmmmmm...I had always planned on painting the walls an apple green, and my Kitchen Aid appliances are all pink, so why not go all out with the pink and green kitchen concept and have pink cabinets too?!

I immediately got to work:

Taking it all apart

I took all the doors off and removed all hardware, placing the hardware in Ziploc baggies for safe keeping. Then came the sanding, and sanding, and sanding some more. Whatever had been on those cabinets was an absolute nightmare to remove!

Sanding

After almost wearing out my sander and about 5 million sheets of sandpaper later, I decided to try a varnish remover on the doors (obvi this part was done outside). At first I followed the instructions: dabbing a cloth, rubbing in circles, blah blah blah, it's supposed to come right off--yeah right. I decided that just pouring the remover on was a much better method. I poured some on, sat back ,and watched the varnish bubble up. After that I just took a scraper and removed the "skin" but don't worry, there was still MORE sanding to do ever after that.

***I dont recommend this project to anyone who doesn't like sanding***

Staining

Old socks work great for applying stain! You'll definitely want to wear rubber gloves for this, or else you'll end up with a lovely stain covering your hands (I still have pink stain under my fingernails). I ended up doing 3 coats of stain and then 2 coats of the semi-gloss clear coat: oh yeah and make sure everything has dried before your next coat. Also note, that "drying time" varys with temperature and humidity.

Putting it all together

I decided on one of my 50 trips to Home Depot for sandpaper, that I wanted new hardware--easy enough right? One problem, the holes for my old handles were slightly off from my new handles. Luckily my grandfather was on hand to help with the rather tedious task of measuring and drilling new holes. Putting the actual cabinet doors on, was also a bit more difficult than I'd estimated. Since the cabinets are old (early 1900's) and handmade, things don't exactly fit as nicely as you'd like them to. I had to unscrew several doors, and drill new holes just to get everything back to how it had been.

Et Voila!

(that wallpaper is on the list, for the next phase of the kitchen makeover)

Let's not forget my new fan!

Ceiling fans are actually very easy to install if where you're putting is already wired for a fan. Note, that I highly recommend buying a fan without a light and doing your own light kit: you have SO many more options, and they're much better than the ones that come with most fans.

I must admit that for awhile, this whole kitchen project was reminiscent of Humpty Dumpty; I thought I was going to need all the kings horses and definitley all of his men. However, once I realized that things weren't going to happen overnight, I took my time, did it all (almost) by myself, and I couldn't be happier with my pink cabinets!

P.S. I love colored stain, and I've learned that a $14 can of stain can last you, a washstand, 3 picture frames, your kitchen cabinets, and you'll still have some left over!!!

Lesson Learned 2: Wellies are not actual "work boots"

After spending the past couple of months nurturing my seedlings, it's finally time to start getting things in the ground! I have around 400 heirloom tomato plants alone, so needless to say my garden is going to be a tad bigger than last year. I decided to fence off part of my horse's pasture for my plot; it needs re-seeding, so I don't have much of a sod battle, it's in a nice and sunny spot, and it's already fertilized (thank Dan).

So, last weekend, I was all set to get started: I went to Tractor Supply, loaded up the Mini with 25 metal posts, 100 yards of snow fence, and a straw cowboy hat. As I headed out to the field clad in Orange Wellies, cut-off shorts, a wifebeater, and my new hat, I was ready for some serious farming, right?

Silly silly me, figured that an effective method for starting the posts was to jump up on them a few times--think jumping on a pogo stick--until they were stuck in the ground. This worked out well for the first post. On the second post, however, my foot slipped, the "T" part of the post sliced through my Wellies, and about 3 layers of skin. My first reaction was obviously "OMG I cut my Wellies!" and then I was like "oh wait, my foot hurts" which was followed by "Mom, I think my boot's filling up with blood!"

One week, 20 bandages, yards of surgical tape, and copious amount of bourbon later--still can only wear Havaianas, and my foot still feels like it's going to fall off.

Needless to say, I think my next shoe purchase is going to be a pair of real work boots. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

P.S. my dear little brother and one of his friends put all the posts in, in less than 20 minutes...

Home Renovation: Where to begin?

So I recently became a homeowner; I bought my grandparent's house in West Virginia! I hope to have some pics of the actual house up soon. I'm super excited about the house, but there's a whole lot of work to be done. I hope to do a lot of it myself, which should prove entertaining to say the least. Obvi, I'll document this renovation project so y'all can learn some tips and laugh at my mistakes.

Also, the purchase of this new house means I can have a real garden!!!

Anywho, before I get to start the "fun" stuff like painting and decorating, all the wiring needs to be updated. Don't you agree?

Crab Cakes a la Paxson

Last week I spent the whole week in the Outer Banks, NC on vacay. Fret not, though, my dear friend Katie stepped up to the challenge of not only watering my plants, but of fending off Rocky as well! I must say I was ecstatic to come home to find all of my green tomatoes still in one piece. I think she may have to come over and work her voodoo on Rocky more often!

Anywho, the beach was fun, I'm really tan, but most importantly I have a new recipe to share! One of the best parts of going to the beach is eating lots and lots of seafood. And let's be honest, what's a vacation without crab cakes?!

Luckily my friend Ashley was with me, and she happens to have the best crab cake recipe, courtesy of her dad. I've shared the recipe below (as quoted by Ashley) along with some visual aids.

Crab Cakes a la Paxson

1 can crab meat (use backfin, not claw)

1 piece of bread, torn into little pieces

1-2 eggs (2 makes them more cake like, whereas 1 is more flaky I guess is a good way to put it.)

2 tablespoons mayo

1 tablespoon mustard (these 2 are rough measurements, I normally eyeball it until it looks right, it is a trial and error thing)

**onions and peppers optional

That is the basic recipe. For the ones I made at the beach I sautéed onions and peppers in butter and added it to the recipe. You can get creative, add whatever you want. Oh, and Old Bay, you cannot make crab cakes without Old Bay, it is like against the will of God.To cook them, heat a skillet with olive oil. Form the mixture into cakes, making sure they are about the same size so they cook evenly. About 7 mintues on each side should do it, but this depends on their size.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

Exhibit D:

Exhibit E:

Exhibit F:
(frozen Capri Sun's make handy ice packs for cooking injuries!)

Et Voilà!