Apples

The last week or two we have been really busy-me with my new job and trying to get in to a routine and John with an upcoming deadline for work that has him working really long days (and nights!).  So when the weekend rolled around we were ready to catch up on sleep and just have some time to relax.  By Sunday I was restless and feeling like we should have an activity, so we decided to go apple picking.  There are a lot of pick-your-own farms and places like that in the area and we missed most of the harvests, but we made it in time for the end of apple season.  Anyway, the place we went is called Berlin Orchards and we paid for our bag and took a wagon ride out to the orchard and we were able to fill our bag with a variety of apples.  It was a beautiful day and it turned out to be a lot of fun.

John and the ponies

John picking apples

his pick

cheesy, I know :-)

my tasty apple

our driver kept us entertained with his apple-balancing skills

So now we have a lot of apples so we have been trying to use them.  My mom makes a great Dutch apple pie so I thought that would be a good way to use a bunch of our freshly picked apples.  Last night I put the pie together and into the paper bag where it is supposed to be baked (I know it sounds a little crazy but it works and it's how my mom has always done it, and I've done it before too) and then I realized I didn't have a stapler to close up the bag and that my oven is kind of small.  So I took out one rack and was really careful to make sure the bag wasn't going to touch the heat coils and it looked like it was going to be fine.  Well, about 10 minutes later I started to smell smoke.  The bag had started on fire (not huge flames or anything though) so it was a crazy minute when the smoke detector was blaring and I was trying to get a window open and the pie out of the bag and the burning paper bag into to sink.  I had to yell to John to help me (while he was on a work call) and he did and everything was fine.  Well I had used a small sauce pan to keep the bag closed and I had set it on the stove but it was right on the edge so I went to move it over, forgetting that I needed a hot pad because the handles that don't get hot on the stove get very hot while in the oven.  So I burned my hand on top of everything else that was happening.  I kind of feel like a failure of a wife when it comes to baking tasty desserts for my husband.  Good thing he doesn't care about my baking skills and he loves me anyway. :-)  

Well I wasn't about to waste all those good apples so we decided to just bake it anyway and covered it in foil instead hoping it would be good enough (and the baking was delayed a little further because I forgot to turn the oven back on after the fire was out).  Anyway, the pie was still really tasty just maybe not as crisp of a topping as it is when it's cooked in the bag.

yeah, it turned out all right

So for now I'm going to let John do the baking, which is what he likes, and I will stick to cooking dinner for us.  Our next apple-inspired meal is going to be pork chops with an apple chutney...hopefully it's a lot more simple than the pie!