Apple Crumb Pie

This is Adam Apple Mouth. This is what happens when you are a little brother and you've been expected to entertain yourself while all the grownups are watching football or cooking. All day long. And then your sister tries to make an apple pie and your mom sliced up the apples, which was awesome of her, but your sister isn't quite ready to assemble the pie yet and there are apples sliced up and sitting on the counter and one of your favorite foods is apples.

After a very long two days of painting and cooking, everything else was in the oven or on the counter ready to go for dinner and I was making this pie to go in the oven while we ate. Adam likes apples. And there were plenty left for the pie. And the pie was a complete success. I even suggested tweaking something for if I make it again and Sam said something about how I couldn't ruin the best pie ever. So, apparently, it's the best pie ever.

Adam Apple Mouth

Pie after being sliced into

Also, I love this blog I've been reading Hyperbole and a Half. Everyone else has probably already heard of it, but I just discovered it. Allie's posts about depression (post one and post two) are hilariously insightful and her post on procrastination and guilt seems like it was written directly to me. Please read it, it's wonderful! (There are some curse words though, just so you know)

Pie before crumble topping

Onto pie. The recipe came from My Sweet Vegan by Emily Mainquist. This is an awesome book that has so many recipes I want to try and came to me courtesy of Trina from Your Vegan Mom. The pie was super easy and quick to put together, but I did have to bake it for about an hour longer than stated. It was all good though, we were playing Yahtzee and not ready for pie yet. I added some lemon juice and apple butter to the filling and used about 1/3 cup sugar instead of 3/4. Other than that, I followed the recipe exactly so I don't want to publish it here -- go buy the book! Seriously, it's great.

Action shot

The tempting bowl of apples

Pie crust, apples, and look at our green dining room!

More to come on green bean casserole, dining room before and after, roast squash, cranberry sauce, eating (some) garlic and onions again, and actual recipes!

Thanksgiving 2013

This year was a doozie. My  mom and I cooked for what seemed like (and almost was) two days straight, and my hubby and I decided it's be the perfect time to re-do the dining room right before the big day. There was still painting going on Thursday morning. All in all, I'd say it was a success, we had lots of fun and lots of food! Sam was a fantastic photographer for the day, and there are many more pictures and recipes to come in the next few days!

Home Sweet Home

This is our house! We finally did it! We found a house, bought it, moved in, and have been living here for almost two weeks. I didn't want to spill the beans while in the process because it was so stressful and I didn't want to have to post about it falling through-- and our first house did fall through, so I was kinda right. But I'm so happy we got this one instead! I've missed the blog so much and I have so much to share now that things are more settled! When we moved to the Dallas area, we stayed with my parents in Azle for two months while we looked for houses-- thank you, mom for driving me to a million of them while Sam was at work! We are so appreciative of them for everything they did for us during that time, and are continuing to do-- Ikea trip tomorrow! But Sam had a crazy commute and with four adults, five dogs, two cats, two little brothers under the age of eight, and a high-school senior my parents took in so she could finish school, it was a bit crazy there. We are so happy to be in our own place! Sam sometimes feels that the new house is too big, but we haven't fully moved in yet and that's just fine with me after our tiny rental-- and we have a pool!

 

There's me learning about all of the chemicals and skimming the leaves out last weekend. Yes, that means we're swimming in October. I always don't want to get in and it's so cold, but then 10 minutes after I'm in, it's so worth it. The animals love it too-- the two bigger dogs (Amy and Osgood) love love their yard and just walk around smiling and jumping on each other. The little dog, Yosemite loves his perfect-Yosemite-size dog door-- the other two can't get through so he can just come in whenever he wants and play fetch with his stuffed animals inside-- his favorite thing to do.

 

And the cats are living mostly in what will be our office/sewing space and they're pretty excited about that too-- as excited as cats get, anyway. 

 

They have a brand-new scratchy-tower thing and three windows with perfect kitty-sized sills to sit on and tons of room to chase their spring toys-- although it's really just Pascal that likes that, Little Cat gets super annoyed when Pascal runs into him en route to the spring. We've got tons of projects to do (I'm looking at you, popcorn ceilings and taupe walls), which I'll be posting about here. I'll also be posting some phone pics of the last couple of months of food and hopefully get some new recipes out too! I'm so excited to be back!

Ohmygoodnes You Guys

I know I haven't posted in sooo long. I don't have any awesome recipes or pictures even now, because guess what? We're moving! Or we've moved? I don't know how to put it. May and June were completely crazy and July is shaping up to be worse....better? I got a job, and then Sam got a crazy awesome-er job in Dallas, so I put in my two weeks, we packed up 3 dogs, 2 cats, 2 people, and enough stuff for a week in the Jeep and moved to my parent's guest bedroom/little brothers' playroom for now. Sam drives a looong way to and from work, and we have to go back every weekend to finish packing but other than that, things are going really well. Oh, and we're trying to buy a house... do we sound crazy yet? Does anyone know how much fun that is? Ok, it is a little bit fun, but whoa, how does anyone buy a house and have a job? I'm on the phone, online looking up houses, or out looking at houses all the time. It's crazy. Basically life is crazy right now. I miss the blog, and I'll return when things settle down, but right now, trying to find time to eat is interesting some days. I miss you! And I'll be back!