Marni's Grandma's Apple Pie Supreme

Marni's apple pie is actually her grandmother, Mildred Mead's recipe and it is by far my favorite apple pie.  I also think it was one of the first pies I learned how to make.  I was craving it over the past couple of weeks so I emailed Marni (a very close family friend) for the recipe and she was kind enough to send it to me.  It is so simple to make and delicious so I thought I'd share it.

Ingredients:
1/2 c. softened butter
1/2 c. light brown sugar
1 c. all purpose flour

8-10 McIntosh Apples
1/2 c. white sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350º.  Butter a 9in. pie pan and set aside (I use the wrapping from the butter used in the topping)

Mix together the white sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a small bowl

Peel and thinly slice your apples and layer them into your pie pan, between each layer sprinkle generously some of your sugar mixture until you have a heaping pile of apples and no more sugar.

 

Cream butter and brown sugar together, gradually add flour.

 

Take small amounts of mixture and pat into thin circles (approx. 3 in.) layer the circles over your apples until completely covered.

Bake at 350º for 40 minutes, then enjoy!  Since there is no true crust on this pie, I recommend placing a baking sheet under your pie to catch any drips.

 

What's been going on?

Not too much has been going on around here, so I thought I would give a general update on what's going on in our life (that's the point of this whole thing right?).

I got a job!  I am so excited to say that I will finally be a working girl again.  Even better is the fact that this is the job I wanted to get.  My official title will be research support specialist, and as the title indicates, it is a research position in the psychiatry department at SUNY Upstate (which is the hospital where Kevin works).  I am very excited to get started, and I will keep everyone updated on how it goes!

Kevin is finishing up his SICU rotation, and is continuing to work hard and long hours.  He did have both Saturday and Sunday off this past weekend, which was really nice!

My mom came to visit this weekend and we had a fabulous time eating out, antiquing, walking along the lake and shopping.  We had dinner on Saturday night at Kabuki, a sushi restaurant in Skaneateles and it was amazing.  I highly recommend it if you are looking for good sushi with wonderful views of the lake! 

That's about all that is happening right now.  I will be back with a delicious apple pie recipe and some pumpkin carving!  For now here's a dose of doggie cuteness ... they are ready for halloween! (for the record, Baxter LOVES having his costume on ... it doesn't bother him a bit.  Emily is a totally different story)

Bedroom Re-Design II

I came up with another mood board for our bedroom, maybe I'll present them to Kevin and see which one he likes better.  It's always good to have options!  Check it out .... the numbers correspond to the same items as the first mood board, and I would use the same rug.

Here's the other one just for a side by side top-bottom comparison

Bedroom Re-Design

Sorry I have been off the radar this week, it is not because I have been busy, but more like because I have had nothing to do!  I have been pretty bored this week, just doing yard work and basic stuff, so I am really ready to start a job ... or something!  So keep those fingers crossed, because I have not heard anything yet about the job I am hoping to get.  Sitting around not doing much, I have been thinking about house projects that I want to do, and the room at the top of my list is our bedroom.  I have never really liked it, and I would like to make it feel like a cohesive room, that adults live in ... not college students.  However, we do not have the budget to complete everything that I want to at the moment, so it will be a slow process.  I did come up with a mood board to visualize what I would like to accomplish, so I thought I would share it.  The main things on my list are to:

- Build a DIY headboard ... I debated about just waiting until we can afford an actual bed but came across some inspiration headboards on pinterest and realized that we could build a headboard for a very reasonable cost, which would keep me satisfied until we can buy the bed of our my dreams.  It involves plywood, foam and fabric ... So visualize something like this:

Instructions found here: Tufted headboard
and in this fabric:

- Make new curtains; I am thinking just standard panels that close all the way (will help keep our room warm), but I want to hang them floor to ceiling. 
- Paint Kevin's Dresser .. We don't have matching furniture in our room, and we can't afford to buy more, but pretty much all of the wood is dark in color except Kevin's dresser.  So I would like to paint it white and put new knobs on it.
- Sew a skirt for my vanity, and re-upolster the stool
- Re-paint the room ... the blue is just not doing it for me.

This may help you visualize what I'm thinking ... feel free to offer ideas or advice!

Explanation for the board:
1. "Worldly Grey" Sherwin Williams paint color, for the wall opposite the bed and the ceiling. (this wall slopes into the ceiling, so it would be a seamless transition.
2. "Amazing Grey" Sherwin Williams paint color .. for the other three walls

I love the combination of yellow and grey, and blue and green are by far my favorite colors.  I tried to go a different direction with our bedroom, but I just feel more comfortable with blue and grey.  I like that putting grey on the walls would allow for an easy change to accessories/bedding without changing the wall color.

3. I don't think the number is visible, but it is for the dresser (which is the one I actually own), it is the Hemnes Dresser from Ikea in black brown.  The rest of our furniture is about this color, so I added it in for reference.
4. Striped fabric from JoAnn Fabrics for the head board, I realize stripes will add a challenge to making the headboard because they will have to be kept straight ... but I am up for it!
5. This is an image of the pillow sham color that we already own, from Pottery Barn.  My comforter is also this color blue from L.L Bean (Ultrasoft Cotton Comforter in bay blue). When I say my comforter, I do mean my personal one .. Kevin and I sleep with twin comforters because we both cocoon ... sleeping with separate covers works for us!  I want to buy Kevin a matching comforter however, so they would be the same color.
6. Springmaid Daffodil Aris Coverlet from Target.  I have actually almost bought this coverlet (it's reversible) from Target multiple times, but wasn't sure I was going with yellow in the room.  It looks like I'll have to go snag it!  It's also very reasonably priced ($89.99).  Having a king-size coverlet allows me to make the bed over our twin comforters so that it looks nice.
7 and 8. Fabric from JoAnn Fabrics .. for pillow accents and I think I am going to use the yellow to cover our lamp shades.
9. Fabric for the curtains
10. Fabric for vanity and cushion on vanity stool
11. Rug (from Target) ... we have hardwood floors in our bedroom, which I can imagine will get cold in the winter.  I am debating about two 5X7s or one very large rug ... I liked this one because it was creamy and cushiony.

So that's what I have so far, I'll keep you updated with the progress (it might be awhile).

Yesterday's Project

Good morning!  Yes, today is my birthday (yay) and also my twin sister's, Happy Birthday Becca! so I am not going to spend much time on the computer, but I wanted to write a quick post about the project I did yesterday.  I have been thinking about/wanting to complete this project for a couple of months, and it ended up not taking a pretty short time to complete so I am not sure why I waited so long!

It started with a little bit of inspiration on Pinterest here, and a fantastic find of an old door/window in our shed, and a blank spot in our stairway.  I have been wanting to hand pictures going up our stairs since we moved in, and thought this would be a great way to add some photos and decor in a unique way.  I envisioned hanging the door at an angle to match the stairs, and then the pictures would be at an angle compared to the panes in the door so they would be straight when you actually look at them.

I started out by cleaning and lightly sanding the old door.  It is a little rough around the edges, but I like the vintage/peeling look, I guess I could always paint it in the future if I want to.
Then I printed out pictures that I wanted to place in the "frame".  I chose places that Kevin and I have visited together, or are important to us; like Fair Hill, Lake Wentworth, Hawaii, the farm, our dogs etc.  I really like that I can easily switch out the photos for different seasons or just a change of pace.  I taped the photos to the back of the "frame, at an angle so they would be straight as you walk up the steps, and nailed in picture hanging strips at the same angle to the back of each top corner.  Sorry for the lack of "before" and "in progress" pictures, I was in a hurry.

Pictures laid out ... Baxter approves

My helpers

If you have a really sharp eye you might notice that I taped all the pictures the wrong way ... basically backwards, they were going the opposite direction to the angle of the steps.  It was easy enough to flip them the other way though :)
I had a little trouble hanging it in the stairwell by myself, but some how I made it work.  Here is the finished product:

Now I just need to paint the stairway and upstairs hallway.  I was thinking a neutral color before, but I may go with something a little bolder ... it would look nice behind the "frame".  Enjoy your Saturday everyone!  I'm going to go wake up my husband so we can have a fun birthday day!

Kevin's Birthday

Yesterday was Kevin's 27th birthday, which is so hard for me to believe, 27 just sounds so old!  Unfortunately he had to work yesterday, so I am not sure how exciting of a day he ended up having, but I did my best to make it a little special.  I went in and visited him in the SICU for lunch, it was quick but nice to see him in the middle of the day!  I also made his favorite dinner and an especially delicious chocolate peanut butter pie for dessert.  So Happy Birthday to my handsome husband!

Romantic dinner for two

Shrimp and Broccoli pasta

Awesome bday Dessert!

Emmy bday snuggles

Here's the recipe for the pie .. it was amazing!

CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER PIE

Read more about it at www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1928,157183-248200,00.html Content Copyright © 2011 Cooks.com - All rights reserved. 1 9" graham cracker pie crust 8 oz. softened cream cheese, light or regular 1 c. granulated sugar 1 c. creamy peanut butter 2 tbsp. melted butter 1 c. whip cream 1 tbsp. vanilla TOPPING: 4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate 2 tbsp. butter 2 tbsp. salad oil 1/4 c. chopped peanuts

Available at: Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

I followed the recipe directions except I substituted a chocolate graham cracker crust instead of original and I used reeses pieces for the top instead of peanuts.

Directions:
Whip the cream cheese until fluffy.  I used my mixer, but I am sure a hand held mixer would have worked just as well.  I also started the process with the whisk-type attachment, and switched it out for the white beater attachment later .. in retrospect I would have used the white one the whole time.

Slowly add the sugar, peanut butter and melted butter, it ends up looking like this:

In another bowl, whip vanilla and whip cream until firm. * I wasn't really sure what this recipe meant by whip cream .... because I had never heard of whipping already whipped cream I bought "heavy whipping cream", you know the stuff that is still liquid before you whip it.  It seemed to work well, even though I am still not sure which was correct.  I love whipping cream anyways, so why miss out on the fun??  For this I used the whisk attachment on my immersion blender, a hand held mixer would have worked perfectly(I just don't have one).

Before whipping

Starting to get there

"Stiff" whipped cream

Blend 1/3 of whipped cream into peanut butter mixture (I did this with the mixer)

Fold Peanut Butter mixture into remaining whipped cream.  * I wasn't really sure why it had to be done this way, or really what the directions meant by this, but I used a rubber spatula to mix small amounts of the PB mixture into the whipped cream bowl at a time, and actually kind of folded over the whipped cream instead of mixing around the edge of the bowl.  Again it seemed to work, but I am not sure if being that precise is necessary.

Fill pie crust, smoothing top and then chill.

 I did use all the filling, even though it didn't seem like it would fit.  It kind of condensed to fit.  Then I put this directly into the refrigerator.

While the pie is chilling, melt chocolate, butter and oil in a double boiler. * I used semi-sweet chocolate chips and just guestimated 4 oz. (1/3 of a 12 oz. bag).  Also, I do not own a double boiler, so I filled a large pot with water:

 And placed a bowl in the top of it.  We got a stack of glass bowls from Williams Sonoma as a wedding gift, and I use them all the time and love them!  The second largest bowl fit perfectly in my pot, and had a nice little lip so it stayed on.

 Melting the chocolate this way keeps it from burning

 Nice and smooth.

Allow chocolate to cool slightly, then pour on top of chilled pie. * I removed the bowl from the pot and allowed the chocolate to cool until it just started to stick to the bottom of the bowl, it poured nicely over the pie with no problem.  Since my pie was very full, I turn up the foil edges on my pie plate so the chocolate wouldn't spill over, and that worked perfectly.

Then I just spread the reeses pieces (Kevin's favorite candy) on top and cooled in the fridge until dessert.  It was awesome, this will definitely be a birthday favorite for a long time!

Fall Foliage

It seems like the leaves have changed color around here overnight, and they look incredible.  I have wanted to stop on the side of the road to take pictures several times, but thought it might not be safe.  So today I went to the L.L Bean outlet in Fayetteville to get Kevin's birthday present (I didn't buy anything) but since I was out that way I went to Greenlakes Park to take some pictures of the leaves.  This park is seriously gorgeous and a really really nice place to walk/run/bike and swim, however we haven't really taken full advantage of it.  I think because it is about 20 minutes away from our house, there was an entrance fee all summer and it is usually crowded in the evenings and on weekends, plus if we want to walk on a path around a lake we can do that from our house on Lake Onondaga.  Even so, I did have a nice walk/picture taking adventure today, and it was nice that I was already out that way.  I did leave the puppies at home though .. they have been smelling my jeans since I walked in the house, wondering where I went without them :)