Let the Madness Begin

WEDDING SEASON APPROACHETH!

 

 I literally just spent the last twenty minutes of my life checking registries and RSVPing to showers, bachelorette parties and wedding ceremonies.

Does anyone think its weird that you have to RSVP to a wedding you're IN? I did that today. It felt weird. 

Last week, we hit the One Month Mark before my brother Dain's wedding which will be out in Minnesota. In lieu of wedding cake, they are asking people to bring home made pies. They asked me to make some blueberry pies, but since blueberries aren't in season yet, I made a few of my personal favorite, Dutch Apple*. 

I found this recipe on Brown Eyed Baker and whipped up two of these babies Saturday evening. Here are my thoughts/confessions/regrets. 

1. I made two of these pies and used 10 apples. 5 Granny Smith and 5 Gala. This is way less than what a doubled version of the recipe would call for, but in the past, I always end up with extra fruit so I took a risk. It turned out perfectly! 

2. This recipe really called to me because after you cook the apples you reduce the drained apple juice with heavy cream and then pouring it over the pie. What? Yes. 

3. Instead of just doubling the recipe like a normal person, I baked two pies, side by side, completely separately because when push comes to shove, I can never distribute things evenly at the end of a recipe.

4. My second favorite part of this recipe was using melted butter for the crumble topping instead of cutting in cold butter. This method resulted in beautiful crumbles that were really easy to distribute over the pies. 

5. I sincerely regret not making three of these because I didn't get to try a slice! Rookie mistake. I might make myself one this weekend just so I can try a piece. My kitchen smelled like a heavenly combination of apple, butter and cinnamon and I was drooling. 

6. I chickened out and didn't make my own pie crust. I used store bought. I hope I will be forgiven, but sometimes you just don't have it in you, you know? 

These are now hanging out in my freezer, waiting for the big day! I'm hoping they're as delicious as they looked and smelled. 

Happy Tuesday! 

*Don't worry. I will still be making the requested blueberry pies for the wedding, but I'm waiting until I'm actually in Minnesota since that pie is much better fresh than frozen-then-thawed. 

Things Have Happened

You guys, its been an insane couple of weeks. 

Last week  2 weeks ago (curse my inability to post on time!) was Holy Week, which is always a busy week/really big deal for me. Here is a rough break down of things that happened. 

1. I gave up booze! I thought it would help me stay focused through the week, but mostly it just made me focus on how much I needed wanted a drink. Still, it was probably the right thing to do.

2. My friend Monica had her baby! And she is awesome, even if she did steal my miraculous day. 

3. Celebrated my brother's birthday. I bought him a Home Brewing Starter Kit. I hope he loves it and shares some of his beer with me. Maybe it'll even pop up on his podcast. Who knows.

4. I sang in 4 church services. I headed up and lead my church's Good Friday service, sang in our 8:30 Easter service, lead the 9:45 Easter Service and sang in the 11:00 Easter service. I pretty much do this every year, but THIS YEAR there was a power outage in my town and my alarm didn't go off. I woke up at 8:05 and made a mad dash to church and barely got my unshowered/barely made up self into my robe and seat on time. It was stressful stuff, you guys. 

5. I made a very wholesome and traditional Easter Dinner for Chris and Mike...NOT! 

6. I rejoined the masses on Facebook and Twitter! Giving it up for Lent was definitely a positive experience. I've been back on it for 5 days and I definitely don't feel as compelled to waste time there as I did pre-Lent. Still, I did make a running list of things I wanted to tweet about during my 40 Days of Exile but couldn't. Perhaps I'll share them here some day. 

I hope your Easter was great and you're not buried in snow like my poor parents in Syracuse. 

Happy Monday!