Happy Halloween!

Tom and I celebrated the holiday by attending a party at a friends house. This is the second year they have hosted Halloween and it is quickly becoming a tradition. As you can see, Tom and I dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, we were quite a hit. You can't quite see it in the picture, but I brought a picnic basket full of cookies for grandma. Those were quite a hit too. It was a low key type of party, the kind I prefer. There was alcohol available for those that could drink it, I enjoyed apple cider and cranberry juice. We played a couple of groups games and ending the evening in the basement playing pool and darts. 

Last weekend, Tom and I carved our pumpkins. We are the nerdy type, so we like to go all geeky. I decided to carve Boo, from Super Mario Brothers. He's a ghost, so it works, right?

We also watched a couple of scary movies throughout the week. I am not one for horror movies, especially ones that have a lot of pops. I end up spending the majority of the movie hidden under a blanket. Seriously, my family picks on me because I cannot get through Garfield's Halloween Special. This year I did good, Tom introduced me to Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I made it through both movies without screaming. I actually enjoyed them. It is nice to finally be able to watch a couple of big kid Halloween movies. We also watch The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, because, let's face it, it's not Halloween without Linus sitting out there in the pumpkin patch.

My Little Red Riding Hood costume made a reprise at work. We were having a costume contest, and I decided to go for it. I got third place, and a $10 gas card, score!

I hope everyone else is having, or had a safe and happy Halloween!

Fryeburg Fair

In New England, fall is fair season. As a kid, I remember my mom used to call us out of school just so that we could go down to New Hampshire and go to the fair with my grandparents. I have vivid childhood memories of the rides, carnival food, exhibition halls, and the animals. This is a tradition that Tom and I intend to continue with our future children.

For the last two years, we have been visiting the Fryeburg Fair, which is one of the biggest fairs in the state of Maine. I actually think it is the biggest, but I'm not 100% on that. Regardless, it's a fair, it's fall, and it's awesome.

Tom and I tried a different fair strategy this year. Rather than getting up early to get to the fair right when the gates open, we opted to go in the evening. We left our apartment around 2ish and got to the fair around 3. For any Maine locals, this is the way to do it. We saw very little traffic going in, and if Tom didn't make a wrong turn at the fair grounds, we would not have gotten stuck in traffic at all. We picked a sunny day to go, which was definitely a good thing because it rained the rest of the week. In fact, we overheard several people talking about how the fair was "mobbed" that morning because it had rained the two previous days. Another reason to go later in the day. There were crowds, but not so bad that we felt over crowded or unable to see everything.

Our primary purpose behind going to the fair is to indulge in carnival food. We have our usual things that we always get, like fried dough and veggie tempura. This year, Tom convinced me to share a turkey leg with me. I am very happy we shared one, there was enough protein on that thing to keep me full for the rest of the day.

This year, the fair introduced a specialty foods exposition hall. Tom and I were intrigued, so we went in and enjoyed samples of various locally made goodies; hot sauce, honey, jams, jellies, popcorn, and barbeque sauce. We discovered blueberry pepper jelly and absolutely fell in love. It starts out sweet with a spicy chili finish. We loved it on the crackers the vendor provided, but then the vendor told us about how he likes to cook with it as well as a marinade. Needless to say, a jar of that came home with us. We also have their website and will be ordering more.

After eating and checking out some agricultural exhibits and the crafters hall, we wandered over to see the animals. My grandparents have a dairy farm, so I grew up around cows. I love seeing all the animals, like the pigs with their pile of piglets, the sheep that feel like walking sweaters, the bunnies with their motor noses, and the poultry exhibit, where it takes all of my self-control not to crow like a rooster to make all the chickens twitch... okay, I'm weird.... but it's funny. Take my word on this one and try it some time.

We also stopped to watch a bit of a horse pull. In my many years of fair going, I have never really gone to any of the agricultural events, except for the occasional pig scramble. It was really impressive to see horses pulling over 7000 lbs of weight. Tom helped me put it into perspective by saying the horses were pulling 2-3 of our cars. I was impressed.

The one the we did not check out was the mid-way. Tom and I have outgrown it, and last year the carnival games were not that great. I honestly did not even miss it. When I was a kid, I used to try to rush through everything to get maximum time on the rides. I'm sure that thrill will return once we have a little one or two to take on the rides.

All in all, it was a perfect fall day.

Apple Cranberry Pie

I like apples, and I like cranberries. They seem to get along well in juice, so I figured, why not pie? I consulted the almighty Google, and sure enough, I found a plethora of apple cranberry pie recipes. I less than impressed with most of the recipes, so I sort of combined two recipes. The end result was quite delightful, apples that are perfectly cooked, cranberries on the verge of exploding so they just burst with flavor in your mouth. It's a very good thing.

You will also notice the crumb crust. Depending on what part of the country you are in, an apple pie with a crumb crust may be referred to as "French apple pie" or "Dutch apple pie." My opinion is someone just got lazy one day and opted to throw apple crisp topping on top of the pie instead of taking the time to make a top crust. Regardless, crumb crusts are love in my book.

In terms of the recipe, I based my filling off of this recipe, because it uses real cranberries. For the crumb topping, I altered the crisp off of my apple crisp recipe. I tweaked the cooking time a little bit because I used McIntosh apples instead of gaias and I wanted pie, not apple sauce. Without further ado:

Ingredients:

Crust:
Pastry crust for a 9" pie, you can use grandma's recipe if you want, or you can just pie the ones that come rolled up in a box. That's what I do, I admit it, I have no shame.

Filling:
5 medium McIntosh apples, cored, peeled, and thinly sliced
3/4 of a bag of fresh cranberries
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

Topping:
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup oats, from the canister
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees

2. Grease a 9" pie plate, line it with the pastry crust.

3. Put all the filling ingredients into a large mixing bowl and toss. I used a large serving fork. Be gentle, you don't want to break the cranberries.

4. Dump the filling into the pie plate.

5. Place the pie plate into the oven to bake for about ten minutes while you make the topping.

6. Combine the topping ingredients in a mixing bowl. I use a pastry blender to cut the butter into the dry ingredients. The goal is a consistent mixture with the texture of sand that can hold it's shape if you squeeze it together.

7. Pull the pie out of the oven, drop the temperature down to 375 degrees. Dump the topping on top of the filling, smooth out to look pretty and cover all of the apple goodness.

8. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the apples are tender and the topping is crisp.

Give this pie a good 45 minutes to an hour before you cut into it. Cranberries have a lot of naturally occurring pectin, so as the pie cools it gels together quite nicely. I wish I had taken a picture of the pie right out of the oven before people started stealing slices, but pie really does not last that long in this household. This recipe is definitely a winner, and will likely be showing up again around Christmas time.

Apple Crisp

Apple crisp is one of those things that is a fall staple, especially after apple picking. Simple slice up a pile of apples, mix together a few ingredients to form the crisp, and pop it in the oven. Within half an hour the house smells of apple cinnamon awesomeness and you are risking third degree burns for a bite of awesome.

I grew up with my mom making apple crisp every September; however, surprisingly, we do not have a tried and true family recipe. So I opted to consult the ultimate cookbook, I Googled it. My one requirement was that the crisp needed to have oatmeal in it, otherwise, it just doesn't get crispy enough. As a geeky sidenote, Kindle Fire has a really nifty app that lets you save all of the recipes you find online in one big electronic cookbook. Just in case I didn't need another reason to love my Kindle. Anyways, on with the recipe.

I decided to use a Betty Crocker recipe because let's face it, good ol' Betty taught me how to bake back when I was in fifth grade and she has never done me wrong.

Ingredients:
Enough sliced apples to measure 4 cups, I used about 5 McIntosh apples
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup oats, from the canister, not the instant kind
1/3 cup butter, softened but not melted
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg

I almost got a picture before the first piece was stolen

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees

2. Spray an 8 inch baking dish with cooking spray, I used a round casserole dish for variety

3. Dump the apples into the baking dish/ casserole

4. In a mixing bowl, combine the remaining ingredients. I use a pastry blender. The goal is to cut the flour into the dry ingredients until you end up with a mix with the texture of sand that holds its shape... like wet sand.

5. Dump the butter mixture on top of the apples.

6. Place the baking/casserole dish into the oven, and wait for 30 minutes.

7. Allow apple crisp to cool, at least for half an hour, or risk burning your mouth. I know, I know, it smells awesome, give it time, it's worth it, I promise.

It's Apple Season!

I noticed that our recipe section is looking a bit empty. Never to fear, Tom and I made our annual trip to the apple orchard yesterday and picked a bushel of McIntosh apples. I even made a caramel pie to share with you as a recipe but it turned into an awesome breakfast disappeared during the overnight hours. I have an apple crisp in the oven now, which I will try to snap a couple of pictures of before the vultures my husband finds it so that I can share the recipe. Don't worry, I'll be making another apple caramel pie too, and apple fritters, and applesauce, oh yeah don't forget apple butter. I'm sensing a theme here.