Autumn Arrives

Happy Autumn! or Spring!  - depending on where you are at this moment.  Many thanks to Rhonda Jean at Down to Earth in her Weekend Reading this week she called this little blog delightful.  Since Thursday afternoon, Joy & Comfort has gotten about 1,500 extra hits (yes, at first I thought the new Blogger workings were messed up - then I realized, no, somebody out there likes me).  To any new readers I may have 'Welcome.'  To the delightful group of followers who read this blog (and try hard to understand my sense of humor) "Thank You" - especially everyone who comments. 

The apple pie I made was pretty good (I've made better, someday I'll share that recipe). There are two pieces left. I played with my food and I'm looking forward to experimenting with other fruit and spice combinations (pears and apples with ginger, or maybe apples and raisins, or blackberries, or cherries (I put up some in the freezer last month), or pears and cranberries - the dried 'cranraisins' .... or maybe...)
.

 

That is the beauty of a fruit pie, use the fruit you love, anticipate the moisture that fruit will release (that's why there is a bit of flour and butter in the fruit mix. I would tell you it's magic, but I'm pretty sure it's science), and have fun.

Recipe - Apple Pie

I used three apples (a Granny Smith apple, a Jazz apple, and a Golden Delicious) for my pie. I peeled them, cut them up, and tossed them with

 

 

3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon (you can use 1/2 teaspoon)

1/4 teaspoon of allspice

1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg

1 Tablespoon of flour

2 Tablespoons of brown sugar

2 Tablespoons of regular (granulated/white) sugar

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

1 Tablespoon of butter (cut into little bits and stirred into the mix)

I put the above ingredient in a bowl, mixed well, (sampled a couple of slices of apple), let stand on the counter about 1 hour.

You could buy your pie crust. I saw them in the refrigerated section at my local grocery store - two pieces of pre-made flatten stuff to fit a deep dish 9 inch pie pan for almost $4 dollars. Hello? I just didn't want to pay that much.  However, I'm not you, if buying a pie crust makes you happy, go for it.  But if you want to try and make homemade do it - so what if it's not perfect?  Trust me, perfection is highly overrated. 

For five inch pie plate I used:

2 Tablespoon of butter, soft (room temp - the room was about 77 F)

2/3 c. of all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon of salt

Mix together in a bowl with a fork until the ingredients look like cornmeal. 

 

Add  2 - 4 Tablespoons of cold water (sorry, I wasn't paying attention - I was just trying to get the dough to come together). 
 

Stir flour mixture and water until it comes together in a ball. I did this whole thing 'the worst way possible' just to make sure it could work. (Right now you could sprinkle a bit of flour across your nice clean counter top or a favorite table and, using a flour dusted rolling pin, roll out a beautiful crust.) Or you could do what I did and put the dough in your pie plate and start mushing it with your fingers, shaping it to fit the plate. Yes, I did that. Some days my laziness knows no bounds..

 

The topping is

2 Tablespoons flour

3 Tablespoons Oatmeal (I used the quick cook Quaker Oats)
2 Tablespoons of soft (room temp.) butter
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons of the 'juice' from the bowl the sliced apples are in (you can skip this, it's the butter and sugar that seem to hold everything together.  I was just experimenting/playing with my food.)
a handful of pecan pieces

Mix together in a bowl.  I used a fork, it's a bit crumbly, you just want to mix everything up evenly - I started with a fork and eventually used my hands.  Then I pressed it on top of the apples, juice was squishing out - I tried to be gentle.
 

 

 

I preheated the oven to 425. Put the pie plate with pie crust inside on a cookie sheet (face it, it's probably going to bubble over and even if it's just a little bit burning sugar in your oven it will smell yucky).

 

 

 

Pour in the apples - if you have too many I give you permission to put them in a little bowl and eat them. Trust me, it will be o.k. Next I poured the topping on and pressed it down with my hands.

Put the pie (on cookie sheet) into oven and cooked it 30 or 35 minutes. My husband took it out of the oven for me so I'm not sure of the time.

Let it cool maybe 10 to 20 minutes, then sliced a couple of pieces - he had vanilla ice cream on his - I went plain. It was good.

Thing is, you don't have to follow this recipe exactly to get a good pie. Play with it - if you don't have allspice don't worry. If you use two pears and one apple you may want to use ground ginger instead of allspice and maybe half the cinnamon - it is your call. No brown sugar, use granulated sugar.

Next time I make a pie I'll roll out the crust and make it all beautiful. I just love trying different fruits and making sweet treats that make the house smell wonderful. Yes, this was better than store bought, better than most bakeries, almost as good as my mom's...


*

 

 

Frog

This green froggy bank has been with me since 1968.  It looks very MOD don't you think? 

On the window sill in the laundry room -
iron, bank, rubber duck and  marbles.

Today my little bank sits proudly in the laundry room window and collects coins, and sometimes a dollar or two, that get left in clothing.  As clothes washer for the family this is how I make a bit of extra cash.

Like many people I have talked to recently, I can see that I take money for granted.  Not that I have piles of the stuff around the house.  I just always seem to have enough to meet my needs.  There have been times in my life where I counted (and recounted) every penny.  These days I just whip out my debit or credit card and get on with my life.

Then there was Tuesday.  Tuesday, two weeks ago, when I was out shopping doing my serious stocking up of paper products and such.  Please don't leave when I tell you - I was at Walmart.  On this day they had the best price for the items I needed.  I was very careful to buy American made.  As I neared the checkout area a sweet voice came over the sound system. "Attention, Walmart Shoppers, we are sorry for the inconvenience but at this time our service is down and we can not take credit or debit cards.  Again, we are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause."

Hello?  Help?!

I looked at a few of my fellow shoppers, we were all looking around like we had just heard that Elvis was in the store looking for backup singers and wanted to meet each and every one of us.

Disbelief is a weird thing.

I slowly started for the front of the store.  As I walked I heard the announcement again.  They were still sorry and they were still unable to accept any form of payment except cash.

I had a few dollars on me but not enough to pay for this afternoon's work.  All the price checking and looking to see where things had been made would be for nothing if these guys couldn't get their computers up and running.  They couldn't.  Word got around through the shoppers - there was an ATM connected with the bank that was in the front of the store and for a small $3.50 fee I could get cash, pay for my groceries and leave.  Or I could just leave, afternoon wasted, gas wasted to get there and I would have no Kleenex in my house.  I decided that the ATM fee was worth it, got my money (I did great I got enough for all my purchases except one item - for a moment or two I thought I was a genius).

Sad thing was when I looked back in the store there were carts left all over the place.  Are we becoming that much of a cashless society?  Where does that leave us when computers are down? 

That moment or two that I considered myself a money genius vanished when I realized:  I am not prepared.  I really don't have supplies at home.  If I had had to leave the store that day it would have made our lives a bit uncomfortable.  What if a neighbor had needed help?  How can I help anyone if I can't help myself?

Coincidence time:  Sometime during that week a blog I follow, Mockingbird Hill Cottage (yes, I started following her because I love the idea of naming our house  - another story for another day).  Anyway, Claudia at MHC is working with 4 other bloggers and they are doing a series on Thrifty Living 2012.  It's interesting how different folks are making life work within their means. 

A week or so later I also found Rhonda at Down to Earth (a blog about simple life).  Rhonda is teaching me how to stock a pantry, really stock a pantry.  Not the one extra roll of paper towels, a few bags of pasta, and a few cans of tomatoes and soup that I had been happy with for the longest time.  To really stock up, to be prepared - to be ready at all times to take care of the people I love.

All of these blogs have me looking at homemaking in a whole new way.  Not in the June Cleaver pearl earrings on while I vacuum sort of way but as a member of society who makes the world a better place because of the way I live.

I didn't mean to go on forever.  It's just I'm on the verge of learning things new to me and I wanted to share.  I'm also exhausted from working in the garden and I need sleep.

Tell me, do you just live day to day - or are you ready for anything come what may?


It's Thursday, join me at ColoradoLady 's Vintage Thingy Thursday to see other vintage treasures. 


*