Apple Pie

My little friends Edee (ID) & Posey came over and helped harvest apples and make a pie yesterday. We used a basic pie crust recipe, but added 2 table spoons of ground almonds and a bit of honey. This is the first time I made a woven top. here is a video on how to do it.
http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/Making-a-Lattice-Top-Pie-Video/Detail.aspx.
The girls enjoyed eating the dough more than any other part and I even caught them eating flour.

bulletin board

This Bulletin board came with the house and had hippie fabric covering it. We had to remove it, but never got around to re-covering it. I got some fabric from Stone Mountain & Daughter and stapled it on. Easy and looks much better.

Balance

This summer while in downstate Illinois, we stayed with Karen's good friend Lorelei. She is an amazing blacksmith ( www.blacksmithchic.com) and a cool gal. She made this piece especially for me & I knew I had to put it above my desk. There is some debate ( karen vs. me) about whether or not to center on the wall or to center above the desk, and whether or not to hang it so the word or the leaves are balanced. There's a lot of pressure with the word balance to have it well -balanced. Since it is mine I have it as I think it looks & feels best. Here are the before & after photos, I painted a rectangle to frame the art.

Applesauce

We harvested apples from our back yard and I made applesauce. I have fond memories of my dad doing this in the fall with apples from our orchard. Never the less - I needed a website to help ( www.pickyourown.org/applesaucewomill.htm). The process was basically lots of apple peeling and coring followed by simmering the apples in water ( or in one batch pineapple juice -yum) and then making a puree in the cuisinart and then canning. I made three batches - one with nothing added, one with cinnamon, and the last with the pineapple juice. In general It was successful, I think it ended up a bit thick and may need to be watered down . Adding a bit of apple juice would be good before serving. Elynn plans to try it with pork chops made with Haeley's home raised pig this weekend. I hope they enjoy it !

Garden growth

We like watching the garden grow daily, but it is especially cool to see big changes. The before photo was taken in May and the after in August. It is a good year for the sunflowers the ones on the fence are an Italian white. The tomatoes are also ripening and the favorite so far is " bell star" a small heirloom with amazing flavor. All the plants came from the edible school yard plant sale. Watch for the sale every April or May at MLK Middle school in Berkeley.

Canning tomatoes

My sister & I canned 34 lbs of tomatoes this weekend and ended up with 19 pints and 2 gallons. We skinned the tomatoes de-seeded them and chopped them briefly in the Cuisinart. After filling the jars we boiled them in the big pot for 25 minutes. The idea is to have amazing pasta sauce all year round by just adding fresh garlic, onions and herbs.

Kitchen spice rack project

This was one of those satisfying projects. We needed to do something about the empty space between the cabinets in the kitchen. One afternoon, Karen & I put in a shelf, stained to match, and painted the background. it is so much better now ( although the spices don't have labels and we have to identify them by smelling- maybe a future project).