Food, Shopping, Holly Jolly and Pie

30°f, about -1°C this morning, light snow cover which was soon gone.

Looking back at Thanksgiving at my son's home:

I think that for a single guy he did a great job. Even the table looked pretty.

My green beans are hiding under the ham! I could not eat all of this, but itvwaz all delicious. Derek did a cheese and meat tray beforehand, and the turkey, potatoes, and green beans. Haley made the ham and deviled eggs, Desiree made the broccoli casserole, and Jared made pasta salad. I contributed the apple cider, carrots, gravy, and 2 pies for dessert. It was a feast! We forgot to put out the pickles, cranberry sauce,  and rolls, but they weren't missed until after dinner.

We came home with enough leftovers for two days--one of the best things about Thanksgiving!

Spent the evening by the fire. It has been a gray, rainy day so tbe fire felt pretty nice.

Friday i went out to lunch with a friend visiting from Florida. I realized with surprise that this was the first time I have driven since I had my knee done. It wasn't that I couldn't drive, I just chose not to. I really don't enjoy it any more. After lunch I shopped, and I must admit it was glorious to be able to take my time all day, not having to hurry because Larry was waiting. I went to several stores, picking up Christmas gifts along with some things I needed...and it was in the third store that I realized it was Black Friday. I rarely shop on this day, but fortunately the stores I was in were not crowded. 

I got home and picked up Larry, and we were off to Charleston for one of our favorite holiday events, Holly Jolly Brawley.  It was opening night for this festival of trees and lights and boy was the place hopping. We parked in a parking garage that was free for this event, and when I got out of the car, there was Santa! Funnily enough, I instantly recognized his voice as that of our friend Bill, a man made for the role. 

Our first stop was Taylor Books (restroom!), an independent and very popular bookstore with an excellent cafe and even an underground theater. (It was much busier than it appears in the above photo---a large group had just left.)

While I was "resting" a young lady asked Larry if I was the storyteller. Turned out to be a writer friend I had not seen in at least 5 years, so we had a nice visit in the cafe, then Larry and I headed outside.

And oh, the lights! And the crowds! And the trees! It was pretty cold (about 26°f) but no one seemed to mind. There were large patio heaters here and there if one needed to warm up. 

We strolled along,  just enjoying the evening, when who should we meet but

Yep, grandson Jared,  who is home from LA. We had no idea he would be there, and he sure was surprised to see us. )I kinda stole a screenshot of his FB video). So back to Taylor Books we went to sit down with drinks for a nice long chat. What pleasure. Finally we headed home, worn out and happy. Brawley Walkway was much emptier by then, but there was this photographer taking down his equipment and we stopped a second to chat, only to find out he was the son of a friend, and I have actually been following his work on Facebook. West Virginia really is just one large small town, you know? This is Raphael Barker, who is making his name in the photography world.

He, of course, did not take this bad picture!

You can see more photos from the last 2 years of Holly Jolly Brawley here and here.

Sad to say, I suffered for that day. I had not thought much about my knee, but I hadn't rested or elevated it since morning, so I was icing and moaning most of the night. Still, it was worth it.

Yesterday was a ho-hum housecleaning day, getting the Christmas cards done, and yes, I rested too. Today we are back at it, this time making apple pie filling with some free apples we were given and had stored in the cellar. 

We ended up with 9 1/2 quarts, enough for a year of pies, but may make more since we have a lot of apples left. I used the recipe on this website.

And now I am resting again, and for the rest if the evening. Tomorrow will be another full day, booth work and physical therapy, so I am girding my loins for that. I do believe I will finish the Adam Dalgliesh series I have been watching the past couple weeks. And maybe have a cup of that Mexican hot chocolate I have been hoarding.

Have a good one, friends.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Apple Pie Filling

 I've been working on getting some apple pie filling made for the freezer. So far I have nine quarts put up, and hope to do about that many more.

It's a simple process: peel, core and slice the apples. I put them in water with lemon juice to keep them from turning brown.

Then I drain off the water, season the apples with sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg to my personal taste, put in freezer bags and freeze.

I have no specific recipe as to amounts of any of the ingredients, just as I do not have a recipe for fresh apple pie--I am definitely a "pinch of this-dash of that" kind of cook. But you can find a good recipe at Taste of Home.



Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Apple Time

Apples are everywhere this year, and they're big, juicy and ready to be put up right now. We've stowed 5 bushels in the cellar, made apple butter and applesauce and cider, so today we decided to put up some pie filling.

There are a couple ways to make your own pie filling; some people make it so that it can be canned and is very similar to the canned filling you can buy at the store.I prefer freezing it because at this time of year I'm tired of canning and usually out of jars and space in the cellar. If you want to try the canned version, here's one recipe that sounds good to me and doesn't require buying something called Clear Jel.

We brought out two tools I haven't used in quite a while: the apple peeler and the corer-slicer. I've had both of these since I was 22, and used them almost every year but then I bought a Squeezo to make my applesauce and my boys grew up and I was canning less. But with so many apples this year, I thought it was time to get the old tools out. And now that Larry has used them and fell in love with their simple mechanics, I would bet we'll be using them a lot more often.

Here's Larry peeling the apples

and here's he is coring and slicing

This tool did have another arm on it that was supposed to do the peeling but I much prefer the big peeler so I removed the peeling arm some time ago. I wonder where it is now? Hmmm...

We ended up doing about a bushel of apples in 2 hours, making 23 quarts of pie filling. The chickens were quite happy to get the peels; in past years I would boil them to get juice to make jelly, but we have no need of more jelly this year. The peels and cores could also be covered with water and left to make vinegar, something I've also done before.

To make the filling: I put the apples into lemon juice and water as I sliced them to keep the slices from turning brown. Then I drained them, added sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg (I measure nothing so I can't give amounts--I make sure the apples are coated with sugar; I judge the spices by the way the mixture looks). Then I bag up the mixture in quart bags and freeze. No cooking required! I've used this method several times in the past with good results, and it is very like the method recommended on the HGTV website.

Now, what to do with the rest of the apples? I think I might try drying some next week, and probably make some more pie filling because next year the crop might not be so abundant.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.