apple ciders and horses, no riders

 It's almost time!

The house is decorated and we've watched 16 scary movies...15 to go.  The house is decorated, and I finally got around to decorating the porch.  It's pretty grim.  Our pumpkin harvest this year was abysmal...I'm just not sure what happened!

Compared to last year...sigh.  Next year I'll plant my pumpkin seeds in plastic cells, instead of directly into the ground, to ensure 100% germination.  

2022 pumpkin display

At least we have basically enough to go around...sparingly!

I got several ears of glass gem corn...

...but wasn't quite sure what to do with it.  I probably should've left the husks on, but stripped back, so that they could be tied together and hung.  Next time!  

We're starting to get some chilly days, and more leaves changing.

...and we hike every...single...day.  Either with friends...

...or alone...rain or shine.

Although...it's nice to have other pups around.

It's also the perfect weather for baking.

apple cider caramels from Smitten Kitchen

pumpkin pie pop tarts from Joy the Baker

half cookie cake for Todd's half birthday on 10/15 from Desserts For Two

classic apple pie from Smitten Kitchen

These dark, rainy days are perfect for puzzles...

2000 pieces, completed last week

...knitting...

a "keyhole" scarf, which fits snugly against the neck and keeps the cold out, knitted for a friend's birthday...but I think I'm going to knit one for myself, too.  I don't like baggy cowls so this is perfect!

...and cat naps.

We finally set trail cams up around the property and have caught quite a few visitors!

large coyote

raccoon

white-tailed deer

Looking forward to spotting all sorts of wildlife as the season changes!  Meanwhile, enjoying the creatures that we see every day.

horses across the road

Have a great week!

praying (mantis) for fall...

 Green leaves, bright sun, A/C at full blast - is this October?

Flowers are still going strong...

 ...and even my temperamental ferns are putting up new fronds.

I'm determined to move forward with fall, even if the weather isn't cooperating.  Another autumn wreath completed, this one with flowers from my Little Lime hydrangea.

Todd was out of town for a couple of days, so I surprised him with his favorite (a fall staple around here):  homemade apple pie, made with 4 1/2 pounds of apples from our tree!  I tried a braiding technique for the crust, which I'm fairly pleased with for a first try!

I used a mandolin to slice the apples uniformly, and a new technique for softening them: maceration. Since you're using so many apples, it's hard for them all to be fully cooked in the allotted time.  So, slicing your apples thinly and letting them sit at room temperature for 4 hours does a bit of pre-softening. They're delightfully droopy by the time you load them into your pie. No lemon, no butter, light sugar, and it's the best apple pie I've ever had!  Oh, for some ice cream!

Because the weather has been so forgiving, there are still plenty of insects around.  Our front porch lights draw plenty of moths and small insects, and so hunters like katydids...

...and praying mantises...

...are always hanging around.  Unfortunately, it's the time of year for GIANT BLACK SPIDERS with impossibly large leg spans.  Thick, hairy man-eaters who cling to our screen door and make it extraordinarily difficult to go outside in the dark to feed Claudia.  They have made their way into our barn, and I work cautiously in order not to have a traumatizing connection with one.

Little web spinners, however, are welcomed neighbors.  They're busy in the garden...

...and our extreme humidity/heavy dews make wonderful early-morning works of art.

It's crazy to look back at this day in 2019...

heavy frost on my verbena

...and 2020...

trees deep into their color change, Eagle Creek Park

...and consider that it's going to be 85 degrees this October 11th!  No frost, no real color change, no autumn crispness in the air.  Strange...but it's going to be coming soon.

Have a great week!

machine keen

We've had some beautiful sunrises and sunsets lately...

...but still, I am DONE with summer.  I don't think we've had over 15 minutes of rain in the past 5 or 6 weeks, and September has been August-hot.  The forecast today is 92.  Tomorrow, 92.  Wednesday, 92.  It's pretty miserable, but I'm trying to console myself with assurances of the inevitable cool-down coming up.  I ordered a dump truck-load of compost last week...

...that I will use to improve existing flower beds and carve out some new beds along a walking path to the driveway - once the weather cools.  The weather has also brought about the early maturing (and in some cases, over-maturation) of the apples on our tree.  A friend came over last week with an apple picker and helped me gather them all up.  I think we got, from just one tree, between 30 - 50 pounds of apples!

There's just one thing to make when you have an overabundance of apples, and that's pie.  I've got a few recipes...the overindulgent one, which involves sauteeing the diced apples in half a stick of butter...the 'healthy' one that relies on the natural sweetness of the apples to carry the flavor...open face, rustic galette, crumb-topped...the list goes on.  But I'm really pleased with the new recipe I tried, which was Smitten Kitchen's Even More Perfect Apple Pie.  I used her extra-flaky crust recipe instead of my old standby and we were blown away by the result!  There are nearly FIVE POUNDS of apples in this one pie.  Needless to say, it was fairly tall.

But it baked up beautifully.

The only thing I might do differently is sautee the apples beforehand to soften them up.  Some of these still had a little 'bite' to them, and I prefer a totally mushy apple.  It was a great way to celebrate the season, even if it was 90 degrees when I baked it!

Other signs of the advancing season - the front of our house is wreathed in spider webs daily.  I usually sweep them off, but they're back the next day.  We also have quite a few katydids on our windows and siding.

It's a bit of a mystery.  They mainly eat leaves/grass, and only rarely small insects like aphids.  I can understand why spiders build their nests around our porch lights, but it's unlikely that the katydids are interested in the moths and other small insects that are drawn there.  I like seeing them, though, so I don't mind if they come around for a visit!

Claudia continues to bring minor drama to the front porch, too, with her vole deliveries.  Sometimes they are alive, and drag their lifeless legs behind them in an effort to escape her batting and teasing.

It's a little disconcerting.  Over a two-day period last week, she brought in FIVE voles, all alive, albeit briefly.  I appreciate her generosity, but I'd rather not see this portion of her meal!

In other news, I managed to finish the top of a table runner.  It's summer-themed, and uses some of my favorite fabric colors - turquoise, red, white, and navy.  Here's a picture of it, taken before I evened up the edges. 

It was a frustrating project, because I had to fight so much with my sewing machine to get nice 1/4" seams.  It struggled over more than two layers of fabric and distorted the join.  I finally broke down and bought a Janome 8200.  My old sewing machine had a few inches of "throat space," the space to the right of the needle where the quilt is pushed through while you work.  The new machine has 11", which was the maximum I could find with a mid-price machine.

It's got 250 stitch patterns (including an alphabet!), automatic thread-cutter, some kind of auto-feed, and a fancy computer screen.  I've slowly begun the arduous task of going through the manual and learning the details.  I haven't really quilted in almost 2 years, so I'm really excited to get going.  I think the cats are going to be upset to learn that their various nap spots are going to be utilized for a different purpose, though.

Have a great week!

The Day of SIX Pies

I was going to title this post "The Day the Music Pie-d", but figured that was too ridiculous, even for me.  Whichever heading you like, it's still going to be all...about...the...pies.  (All photos courtesy of my husband's terrible camera.  I really need a new lens for mine!)

It all started when I bought a mini pie pan.  I don't mind a cluttered cabinet and I can never have too many random kitchen gadgets.  I have all sorts of molds and pans that rarely get used, but I keep them - just in case.  Besides, I had plans for the mini pie pan.  Could I not also bake cake rounds and make a tiny 6-layer cake?  What about giant cookies for ice cream sandwiches?  Clearly, this item was an absolute kitchen necessity.

I was intrigued by its original purpose, though.  Six tiny pies?  What if I could make six different kinds of pies?  Would that take the entire day?  What if I pulled all ingredients and assembly-lined the process?  Did I currently have the ingredients for six different kinds of pies?!?  Yes.  I had bags of frozen cherries and mixed fruit in the freezer, and I'd frozen 3/4 cup pumpkin puree AND sweetened condensed milk, so I wouldn't need to open a can.  I could make homemade chocolate pudding for a pie filling, and I had fresh apples and peaches...and that was it.  Even though I had piles and piles of work to do, I decided to devote the afternoon to pie baking...mini pie baking, that is. 

Time to make the pie dough:  10 minutes
Time to chill pie dough:  1 hour
Time to cut out pie circles with a cereal bowl:  10 minutes

I put the rounds in the basins and refrigerated the pan.

Time to pull out ingredients:  5 minutes
Time to mix ingredients for each pie:  10 minutes

Putting all the ingredients on the counters really sped things up.  After all, the fruit pies all needed the same basic ingredients - corn starch, sugar, salt, and spices.  It only took about 10 minutes to do the entire process!

Then I pulled the chilled pan from the refrigerator and put in the fillings, then crimped 'rustic' tops.

Total time:  7 minutes.

The lower left corner pie was blind-baked.  That is, I baked it with weights inside (rice) to help it keep its shape and then filled it with chocolate pudding later. 

The amount of filling I'd made (1/4 of a full-size pie recipe) was too much for these basins, but that meant I had plenty left over to make more mini pies.  Into the freezer!

Cooking time:  45 minutes

While the pies baked, I made homemade chocolate pudding in the microwave (5 minutes) and cleaned up the kitchen (significantly longer).

The mini pies turned out just as I'd hoped.  There was only one accident...the bottom crust on the peach pie was too thin, so one wall collapsed and leaked filling.  No big deal.

 
The final tally?  One peach, one apple, one three berry, one cherry, one chocolate, and one pumpkin pie.  And oh, so good.  Really, it didn't take long at all.  Not much longer than making one single pie.  And I am completely charmed by these little pies.  Now that I understand the thickness of the dough needed, and the amount of filling that each basin holds (about a cup), I can make these any time!  I quartered the pies for easy sampling that night and made a "pie buffet", which was really fun.  Todd loved the flavors but thought the filling to crust-ratio was a little off, and I agreed.  Next time I'll make lattice tops or leave them open-faced. 

It's nice that my recipes make exactly enough filling for two batches of mini-pies, so the next time I make them will be even easier!  Although it was already pretty easy.  Twenty minutes to mix and shape dough (not counting fridge rest time) and about twenty minutes to pull ingredients, mix, and fill the pies. 

I jotted down the recipes for my personal cookbook, so I'll paste them in here in case anyone is interested in making them.  Hope you give them a try.  Have a great week! 

 Mini Pie Pan PIES

Apple Pie ¼ recipe

2 Granny Smith apples, sliced/diced

1 ½ teaspoons white sugar

1 TB brown sugar

1 teaspoon flour

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon cardamom

¾ teaspoon lemon juice

butter to dot top of pie before sealing

Three Berry Pie ¼ recipe

1.5 cups berries

3 TB sugar

1 TB cornstarch

Peach Pie 1/4 recipe

2 peaches, peeled and sliced

3 TB sugar

1 ½ teaspoon flour

3/4 teaspoon cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon cardamom

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Cherry Pie 1/4 recipe

1.5 cups cherries

1 TB sugar 

pinch salt

pinch cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon lemon juice

drop of almond extract

1 TB cornstarch

Pumpkin Pie 1/4 recipe

3 ounces canned pumpkin

3 ounces sweetened condensed milk

1/2 egg

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 - 3 TB brown sugar

Chocolate Pie 1/4 recipe

3 TB sugar

2 TB cocoa

1 ½ TB cornstarch

pinch of salt

1 cup milk

½ teaspoon vanilla

Directions for ALL Pies (except chocolate pie)

Freeze crust for 30 minutes.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a large bowl, mix all but butter together.  Pour into crust.  Cover with remaining crust and place on baking sheet.  Bake 20 minutes.  Reduce heat to 375 degrees and bake an additional 25 – 30 minutes.

Directions for Chocolate Pie

Combine first 4 ingredients, then stir in milk.  Microwave, uncovered, for 2 minutes.  Stir.  Continue to microwave in one minute increments.  When thick, stir in vanilla and refrigerate. 

Blind bake crust:  Put dough in pie pan with pie beads/weights.  After 20 minutes, remove pie beads.  Bake another 5 or so minutes, until whole crust is golden.