Baked Apple Pies

I'm a big fan of reusing or re-purposing just about anything I can think of- especially if I've created it with my own two hands. Most of this is because I'm just cheap, poor, and it gives me satisfaction when I can take something that I already have around the house that is being unused and fashion it to use vs. buying something new.

I also hate throwing away food. So...

Everytime I make a pie crust I have those extra bits that don't go into the pie, you know the bits that you pull off around the edges of the crust that you just throw out! So here's what I do:

I combine my extra bits and roll them out to pie crust thickness on two layers of saran wrap and put two more layers on top. (I've already got out the rolling pin and flour!) I fold the saran wrap over and freeze the dough. (In my tiny freezer this is the easiest way to store anyway) When the apples in my kitchen start getting to the point where they aren't quite bad but aren't super yummy to eat anymore, I take out the pie crust and peel and core two apples. I, then, set each apple over the crust and surround each apple with the left over pie crust including the bottoms, but not covering the top.

I make a cinnamon sugar mixture: 1 part cinnamon, 3 part sugar. I fill the apple cores with 1/2 Tbsp of cinnamon sugar and place 1/2 Tbsp of butter on top.

I put the dough wrapped apples in a pan and into a 350 degree F oven for 10-15 minutes until they look like this:

Whala! My own little baked apple pies. Perfect with some vanilla ice cream!

The Making of a Dress Form

(Notice the new hairdo)

One of my recent projects has been making my own dress form...cheaply. Dress forms run into the hundreds of dollars and even the cheapest adjustable forms are around $100. So, I decided to try to make one myself.

I found a few online tutorials that said I could use duct tape to make a dress form. 

My good friend Amelia was kind enough to spend a Saturday morning duct taping the top half of my body for this project while we made some lard- yes, lard, that's a whole different story.

I got some very funny looks from her 4 boys! I think they were jealous of my armor!

When the form was finished, I tried to follow another tutorial on how to make a stand for the dress form.

As with most problems converting US instructions into UK instructions product availability was my obstacle.

I ended up with what I thought were about the same products from my local hardware store. Dun, dun, dun!

When the stand kept falling over, I enlisted the help of my husband and his BA in Engineering degree to get this thing to stand upright so that I could go about filling it.

We ran wood rods down the middle pipe to give some stability and used left over pipes to reinforce it from the sides. I then fastened my stand onto a wooden deck tile to give the bottom some weight.

I also bought a can of insulation foam to fill out the inside of the dress form.

The plan was to fill the form with grocery bags and insulation foam, but my foam turn out not to be the magical expanding polymer I had remembered from organic chem lab in college. Therefore, Todd and I smushed many grocery bags (and some cotton I had laying around) into the form to fill it out.

I tend to have grand illusions of glorious results when is comes to my craft projects and they tend to turn out like this.

So, instead of a sleek standing duct taped body double I have a decent dress form on an imperfect stand for which I only ended up paying around £20.

Now all I need is some time to make some clothes! 

A trip to Harrogate

Yesterday:







Jeremy Bergstrom, who is in town for his viva (PhD thesis defense), was awakened by a morning snarf!

Todd, Jeremy, and I traveled 1.5 hrs to a cute little town called Harrogate. It's located near York and was a fun little town with some cute shops to see.

We wound up at a shop for lunch called "crepes and creams" where we got the yummiest savory crepes and milkshakes.

Salmon and cream cheese crepe! Yum!

AND

Chunky monkey milkshake- vanilla ice cream, chocolate chips, bananas, coffee and chocolate syrup! Slurp!

We topped off our lunch with a gourmet cupcake from "Cupcakes by Charley".

 After lunch, Todd and Jeremy found a bookstore (like you had any doubts!). Meanwhile, across the street, as if it new that I needed some magical place to linger while the theologians did their favorite thing, was a shop called "The Remnant House". There was more beautiful fabrics than I've seen here and I felt like singing and grabbing hold of the fabrics like Maria in the Sound of Music when she realizes that she can use the drapes to make play clothes! Drapes people! She is my inspiration!

But, alas, the store was packed with people (it was Saturday after all) and to save myself the embarrassment I instead looked quietly through the fabrics.  I found a beautiful fabric that I considered trying to make into a dress for a friend's upcoming Florida wedding. But when I discovered that the fabric I fell in love with was 12.99/meter I decided that my sewing skills would need to be perfected before such expenses could be justified!

 
On the way home, we stopped at Ripon Cathedral, which has a lot of history but is really well maintained. It has a small library of Roman artifacts that were found on the site and displays many of the silver vessels used previously in the life of the cathedral. It also has a small crypt below the sanctuary. 

 

Sanctuary

Todd headed down to the crypt.

The strangest thing we saw here was a wooden hand protruding from the organ case above the choral stalls at the front of the church. Apparently, the wooden hand moves up and down with the organ pedals to conduct the choir. I find this a bit strange, but it was fun to see.

We had a nice time on our trip and got to eat some really yummy food....always a must for any Brewer adventure. 

Spring

Finally, the sun is sticking around a bit longer in the day. It's setting around 6pm and it is out when I wake in the mornings. My daily commute to and from the rail station is now in the sunlight instead of in the dark. Well, it's not exactly sunny, but it's certainly brighter. Early spring flowers are also appearing here as well. It's certainly a nice perk after a long seemingly sunless winter to have crocus and daffodils out already. I'm highly enjoying their presence.

This picture is of crocus blooming in front of St. Andrew's Church- a view from my journey to school/work from the rail station in Newcastle.

Parker Dance Party

Todd and I, along with our friends (the McFarlands) babysat over this past weekend for our friends (the Parkers), so they could have a weekend getaway. They have four children ages 8,7,4 and 1. It was a fun weekend with lots of games and fun outings. One of the things we did before bedtime each night was to have a dance party. Here are two clips of the kids dancing. (Bad video quality is because it was shot on a cell phone)

Graham (4) in front with his book light "microphone", Isaac (7) and Ewan (8) dancing from the sofa:

Graham and Jude (1):

Dog Intelligence

When we are not trying to turn Maggie into the first pea-diving aquatic dog, we have fun with Maggie and Belle in other torturous ways. To further procrastinate on my school work today, I set up a camera to see if Belle really is the "Pinky" of this "Pinky and the Brain" duo or if she is just "unmotivated". Here's what I found:




Turns out we have a new Brain!

Maggie diving for peas

We made it a bit harder to see if she would still go for them! Here is the video in slow motion: