Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Best Apple Pie Recipe


One of the things I love about fall is picking apples. We visited the orchard on Saturday and got about a bushel of apples. Those apples will be applesauce, pies, crisps, fried apples and I'm hoping some apple butter. My grandson,who is 19 months, was so excited about this apple tree made of wood with holes cut out for their faces. How funny is that?

I am going to give you all the best apple pie recipe. It is from my 30 year old Pillsbury Kitchens Family Cookbook and it's the best recipe I've ever used. So here goes. Just to let you know, I usually use the streusel topping on my pies instead of a top crust but you can do it either way. And of course, it's always better if you use homemade crust but you can use an already made one. I also personally prefer butter to margarine for baking.

Ingredients
9" pie crust
6 cups peeled, sliced apples
3/4 to 1 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons flour
1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Dash of salt
1 Tablespoon of butter or margarine

Heat oven to 425*F. Prepare pastry. In large bowl, combine apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt; toss lightly to mix. Turn into pastry-lined pie pan. Dot with margarine or butter. Cover with top crust (cut slits for escape of steam); seal and flute edge. Bake at 425*F for 40 to 45 minutes or until juice begins to bubble through slits in crust.
(If you are using the streusel topping leave out the 1 Tablespoon of butter)

Streusel Topping
3/4 cup Flour
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup butter or margarine

In small bowl, combine all ingredients until crumbly. Sprinkle over fruit filling. Bake as directed with the recipe. Cover topping with foil last 10 minutes of baking time if the top browns too quickly.

Here is my pie.

Enjoy your pies. See ya next time.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Naturally Comfy News

What's the latest at Naturally Comfy? I have been trying to improve things in my Etsy shop. Things like pictures, tags, etc. I have also been working on some sleeping masks for the shop.
I am also working on some more small rag quilts. And I will be adding some fall and winter items soon.
I am also signing willing victims up for my Naturally Comfy newsletter. There's a link on the right column up at the top. I will be sending out monthly newsletters that will let you know about sales, (some will be exclusive, newsletter subscriber sales). I will also let you know what's new and what will be coming soon. Included will also be contest and giveaway information.

So, that's what's going on. I will be posting soon about my venture with making some CPSIA tracking labels for my kid's stuff. So, stick around for that, it should be interesting. See you soon.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Homeschool Thursday

Well, we started school this week. We have started out slow, only doing a couple of subjects. Next week we will get more going on. This week though we took our first field trip of the new school year. We went to the zoo. It was a great day, sunny but not too hot. We had a nice time and got some cute pictures. We were able to get a look at the 3 week old giraffe outside with the other giraffes. See the baby over there?

Here's the daddy. Isn't he cute?

We visited the dog shark area, where you can touch the sharks. The kids love that!

The polar bear is one of our favorites too.

We also took in the dolphin show, but I can never get good pictures in there.
We didn't get to all the animals this trip. Next time I guess. I think our next field trip will be the beginning of October. Stay tuned, I'll be posting about it.