Apple Crumble Pie

Can't decide between Apple crumble and apple pie? Now you don't have to!

Apple Crumble Pie
1 - 9" pie crust (I used my Grandma's pie crust)
5 cups peeled, sliced & cored granny smith apples (about 4 apples)
1/2 cup sugar
3/4t ground cinnamon
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup flour
6T cold butter

Preheat oven to 350°. In a small bowl, mix together 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon.

Arrange a layer of apple slices in the bottom of the pie crust, then sprinkle with some of the cinnamon sugar mixture. Continue layering apples and sugar until all the apples and sugar are in the pie crust. The apples will be stacked higher than the edge of the crust.

In another bowl mix together1/3 cup sugar and flour. Cut in the butter using a pastry blender or your hands, which is what I prefer to do. Pile the crumble topping on top of the apples. Your pie will look like a mountain but it will all bake down in the oven. Bake at 350° for 30-40 minutes until the apples are soft and the crumble and crust is golden brown.

I'm well aware of the madness that ensues when you attempt to cook Christmas dinner. So why not make your life a little easier and bake this pie right now! Cover it with foil and toss it in the freezer. To serve, thaw the pie and reheat it in the oven and serve it with vanilla ice cream!

Pumpkin Pie Playdough

Let the pumpkin theme continue!! Since we are eating and drinking everything pumpkin this time of year, we might as well play with pumpkin too! A friend shared one of those Facebook video tutorials that had this recipe ( if you can call it that) on it and I knew I had to try it. It's super easy to make, extremely inexpensive, and who doesn't want it to be okay to play with pumpkin pie!

To make this delicious smelling dough, all you need is pumpkin puree, cornstarch and pumpkin spice! We mixed the cornstarch into the pumpkin puree 1/2 cup at a time until we reached the dough consistency we wanted. It ended up taking 6-7 cups, so I suggest doing it 1 cup at a time. Then we added in the pumpkin spice. To jazz it up a bit, I dug out some sugar leaves that I had in the sprinkle basket and tossed them in too. *TIP - because you need such a large amount of cornstarch I suggest buying it in bulk from a store like Bulk Barn.

Roman lost interest in mixing pretty quickly when I told him he had to mix gently and keep everything in the bowl, so he stuck to scooping and dumping. In hind sight, it probably would have been better to just let him mix however he wanted to. Bianca is currently in the "everything must go in my mouth!!!" stage, so she just watched us from the sidelines. As you can tell from the pictures, she was impressed with me....

Of course the first thing he did was run off to get his construction trucks so that he could "build a construction site". I always cringe when he puts cars with small pieces into dough like this because cleaning them can be a nightmare. Not this time though! I rinsed his tractor under warm water for a few seconds and voila! A squeaky clean tractor!

Roman had a blast playing with the dough! Once he had enough, I stuck it all into a freezer bag and popped it in the fridge. It's been about a week since we made it and the dough is still usable. When it's cold it is pretty crumbly but once you work with it and it warms up a bit, it's back to normal. I don't think I'll hang on to it much longer though because I don't want things to start growing. Oh, and those sugar leaves. Yeah, they basically dissolved. Not surprising since the dough is pretty wet and they are in fact made of sugar.

Have you made any scented dough for your kids to play with, or is there a scent you'd like to see me attempt? Comment below! I'd love to hear your ideas!

Thanksgiving 2016

I almost wasn't going to write this post, but when I saw some of the pictures I took I knew I had to share them.

Thanksgiving isn't usually a very exciting holiday, but since it was Bianca's first "big" holiday I was a little more special this year. We spent the day at Mom & Dad's hanging out, visiting, and playing with all the super fun toys that live at Grandma & Grandpa's house. The train tracks are usually the first thing Roman dumps out, quickly followed by the Lego. But now that Bianca is crawling the Lego has to be kept in the bin or on top of the step where Bianca can't get to it and eat it. You'll notice in most, if not all, of these pictures Roman has firmly planted himself right next to his favorite person in the whole world, Uncle Selby. We're all pretty much garbage once Uncle Selby shows up, but not too often you'll hear any of us complain about it!

 

My favorite part of being ditched by Roman for Uncle Selby is that I get some time to hang out with B. Not too often do I get to spend one on one time with her, so I make sure to make the most of it as often as I can. It's also times like this that make me look forward to the day when Bianca is older and is wanting to help with Thanksgiving dinner in he kitchen. I can't wait for all those fun mother daughter experiences. Except for the 10 years of not being able to stand each other, can I skip that part?

 

Onto the food! Which is really the best part of Thanksgiving, or any holiday for that matter. It was a pretty standard meal this year; turkey, stuffing, gravy, peas and carrots, and mashed potatoes. Speaking of mashed potatoes, do you peel your potatoes? I truly can't be bothered, plus most of the nutritional value is in the peel, and I always take flack from Mom and Selby about it. Comment below and let me know if your a peel on or peel off family.

 

Bianca enjoyed every bite of her first turkey dinner, and the meal was pretty normal until...

 

 

The pumpkin pie and whipped cream came out; specifically the whipped cream. Roman scrapped off just enough pie to get every last blob of whipped cream off his piece, then promptly asked for more. Normal right? Wrong! Somehow Roman getting a second helping of whipped cream turned into Roman shooting whipped cream into the mouths of everyone at the table. I managed to spare Bianca this fate, mostly because I was more than a little scared that Roman would drown her in the tasty whipped delight. I think most of us got more compressed air than we did whipped cream, but Roman thought it was hilarious.

 

After everyone was sufficiently stuffed, it was time for the kids to head off to bed for a nap. I had intended to spend their nap time in the basement digging through and cleaning out the closet in my old room, but instead I sat upstairs and yattered with everyone. I was thinking about turning my closet blast from the past into a blog post. Let me know if you'd be interested in seeing what is hiding in their from my high school/college days. It'll be just as much of a surprise to me as it will to you!

Home Preschool - October 2016

We're are officially into fall, my favorite time of year!!! There isn't anything I don't love about this season; the temperature, the colors, the smells and the holidays. In Canada we celebrate Thanksgiving in the first part of October, which makes October a busy month. I struggled a bit when planning this month's activities because I want to do it all but there just isn't enough time!! There needs to be a solid month between holidays so we have time to do all the things!! Before I get into the plan for October, I want to touch on some of the activities Roman enjoyed the most from September.

By far Roman's favorite activities were the exploding paint bags and the dramatic play: spaghetti shop. The paint bag's didn't actually explode, more like popped and oozed, but Roman didn't mind at all. He jump on top of them to send the paint flying, which he thought was much more fun. The neighbors however probably were not thrilled since we were doing it outside at 8am on a Saturday morning. This is why I give them holiday gifts haha. I couldn't find powder tempera paint so I just squirted some regular craft paint into a sandwich bag of vinegar, added a big scoop of baking soda, seal it, and ran!

The spaghetti shop was a whole other can of worms. Roman LOVED it. In fact the spaghetti is still sitting in the fridge three days later because he keeps pulling it out to play with. I'll probably toss it tonight and if he wants to play again we can cook up some more. That's the great part of this activity; it's SO inexpensive! We haven't tried the activities from the last week of September yet, since it's only the 27th, but I have a feeling Roman is going to love them.

Now for October!

October 1st-8th - Chocolate dipped krispie treat turkey pops, Toilet paper roll turkey &
                             Apple tree ABC match
October 9th-15th - Halloween eyeball topiary & Moon Dough
October 16th-22nd - Fall pretend play, Baking soda & vinegar reactions & Peek-a-boo ghost
October 23rd-31st - Bubble science with pumpkins, Spider web fine motor activity &
                                 Simple scissor practice

I'm excited for all of these activities, but especially the krispie treats and the eyeball topiary. While I think Roman will enjoy those, I know for a fact he will love the baking soda reactions, moon dough, and bubble science with pumpkins. We were at Superstore the other day and they already have pumpkins out. I've never seen anyone so excited. He wanted a treat (as I feel all kids do), but this time he requested his treat be a pumpkin so he can cook it and eat it. Yup, he's my child!

Homemade Pumpkin Puree

Fall is the season of pumpkins! Pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin waffles, pumpkin cookies; really I could go on forever. But all of delicious treats have on thing in common. Pumpkin, specifically pumpkin puree. Your first instinct is probably to pick up a can from the grocery store, but why not set your pumpkin masterpiece apart by using fresh pumpkin!

 Pumpkins are readily available right now and very inexpensive. I promise this isn't as scary or difficult as it might sound! You want to choose a pumpkin a smaller pumpkin as the larger jack-o-lantern pumpkins can be a little off in texture.

The first step, and the nastiest in my opinion, is to cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out all the guts. I tried to enlist Roman's help on this one but he wasn't having it. If you can't cut the pumpkin in half you can just chop it into a few pieces, it's all going to be blended anyway. Place your pumpkin pieces skin side down on a parchment lined baking sheet, and pop them into a 375° oven for 45 minutes.

Let the pumpkin cool slightly before cutting the flesh away from the skin. Or ignore this step and burn your hand like I did, it's really a matter of personal choice. I like to live on the wild side. Toss the pumpkin into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. You may have to add a little water to get it to blend well. Of course Roman was more than happy to help with this part.

Now that you have your pumpkin puree you can do one of three things with it;1. Use it immediately, 2. Transfer the puree to a freezer bag and freeze it for later use, or 3. transfer it to an airtight container to use in the next few days. I decided to use some mason and jam jars to hold my puree until I can get around to making some muffins with it. I didn't have any lids kicking around so I used a layer of tin foil under the collar to seal it up.

See, that was pretty painless! Now you have some delicious, homemade puree to use in your Thanksgiving pies, tarts, cheesecakes, cupcakes, muffins, brownies, cookies.....Well, look at the time! Time for me to hit the kitchen and make some muffins!

Baby Food Jar Turkeys

I love Thanksgiving and all the food that comes with it, but it's often a holiday that has been overlooked as far as decorating and crafts in past years. Well, overlooked no longer! I was bound and determined to make some Thanksgiving crafts this year. How is that working out for me? Well, so far this is the only craft we've done and Thanksgiving is a week away. Oie, best laid plans right? In my defence I am getting ready for Thanksgiving and Bianca's upcoming baptism, while looking after two kids and running this blog. Don't make excuses, make a schedule! At least, that's what I tell myself....

I came across a picture of these cute little turkeys on Pinterest, and I knew I had a few baby food jars in the basement I'd been saving, so it was a perfect fit. It was also super quick and easy to do. In fact, we whipped these bad boys up in under an hour! Also, can we talk about why the plural version of turkey is turkeys and not turkies? Why do you taunt us English language, why!!!!!!!!

Baby Food Jar Turkeys
baby food jar
modge podge
foam paint brush
glitter (brown/orange/red/yellow)
googly eyes
construction paper (brown/orange/red/yellow)
hot glue/white glue

Apply a thin layer of modge podge to the inside of the baby food jar, making sure to cover the entire surface or you'll end up with a splotchy turkey. Pour a good amount of glitter into the jar and tightly seal the lid. Shake the jar so the glitter evenly covers the entire surface. Roman loved this part the most. If you have excess glitter inside the jar, you can pour it onto a creased piece of paper and pour it back into your glitter container.

For the turkey's tail feathers (shake your tail feather!), John traced Roman's hand onto three different colors of construction paper. You can have as many or as few handprints for your turkey's tail, but I think three is the minimum you'd want. Next, we cut them out and hot glued them onto the back of the turkey. **TIP- most jars will have a spot where glue from the label is stuck to the jar. Use this as the back of the jar as the handprints will cover it up. Lastly I cut out a beak and a gobble and hot glued them, along with the googly eyes, onto the front of the turkey. You could use white glue to attach the elements, but I don't have the patience to wait for it to dry.

Let the turkey sit with the lid of the jar off to allow the modge podge to completely dry, otherwise your turkey will forever have a white-cast, as though he applied a little too much sunscreen. If you aren't a fan of the color of your baby food jar's lid, you could totally give it a quick coat of paint to make it brown or red. I had planed on doing that, but the green didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

 

These little turkeys are definitely a Pinterest win! I would have loved to make one turkey with Bianca's handprints, but let's be real, getting her to sit that long with her hand flat would be nearly impossible; maybe next year. I think these will be decorations that we look forward to setting out each year and watching how the size of the hands change over time. Not to mention that fact that we finally have Thanksgiving decorations! Mom win!

Thanksgiving 2014

Thanksgiving is the kickoff to the cold weather holiday season in my books.  A time of year where we stuff our faces with more food than we should and get to spend quality time with our family and friends.  This year was extra fun for me because this is the first holiday that we get a comparison photo for Roman.  Isn't it crazy how much difference a year makes?  Where did my little cuddly baby go?  You really don't realize how big they get until you compare photos.  Wow.  I'm still shocked.

Mom decided to host Thanksgiving again this year.  Which is great because then I don't have to cook or worry about how clean my house is!  My brother and his girlfriend were also there, so we had the whole fam damily, which is a sure fire recipe for craziness and laughs.  The day started off like most Thanksgivings with Marvel Agents of Shield.  Okay so maybe that isn't traditional, heck I'm not even sure that's what they were watching, but it was some sort of movie like that.  It was obviously good because Selby, Stephanie, John and Roman all seemed to be enjoying it.

Once Roman realized there was food in the kitchen he ditched everyone in the living room to investigate.  He almost gave Grandma a heart attack with his climbing stunts but he kept himself busy for awhile.  After the novelty of that wore off he decided he should probably help Grandma with the cooking.  So let's follow Roman's lead and get into the food!

 

 

 Of course the star of the show is always the turkey.  If you mess up the turkey you might as well pack it all in because Thanksgiving is over.  Luckily my Mom is an old pro at roasting turkeys so it was done perfectly.  I guess the skin could have been a little crispier but who am I to complain, we still stole the skin off of it as it sat on the counter waiting to be carved.  This year I was the lucky person to get stuffing scooping duty!  Truthfully I was just the only other person in the kitchen, but I like to think I was chosen for my skill level.  Mom likes to stuff the turkey with as much stuffing as possible and then makes some more in the oven since Selby loves stuffing and the bird doesn't always hold enough.  Once the stuffing is out of the bird, we mix in the stuffing from the oven so that is it all equally moist.

In our family Dad ALWAYS carves the turkey, mostly because the rest of us would butcher it.  Dad has a very specific way that the turkey must be carved.  I think he heard this on a cooking show (I keep thinking Martha Stewart) at one point and ever since this is the way the bird is carved.  First he removes the legs and wings, or in this particular case wing since our poor bird was missing one, and places all the dark meat on a platter.  Then he runs the knife down the breast bone of the turkey to separate the meat from the rest of the bird.  Finally the meat is artfully arranged on a separate platter from the dark meat.  Artfully arranged, dumped, same thing.

Once the turkey is all chopped up it's time for gravy!  Mom sticks the entire roaster on the stove and gets the turkey drippings boiling.  In a state of the art shaker from Tupperware, circa 1978, she mixes up some cornstarch and water and pours it into the drippings while whisking, with a toddler in her arm.  Hey, Grandma's can do it all!  The gravy simmers for awhile until it starts to thicken, enough to block our arteries in 10-15 years.

Our family only uses the highest quality of diner rolls for Thanksgiving.  These ones are identical to the ones you used to get at KFC.  I haven't been there in ages but I imagine they still have them.  They are great for buffet style dinners as well because they fit perfectly in your pocket.  Don't tell me we are the only family that sticks buns in one pocket and butter and cutlery in the other... 

I'm not sure why Mom insists on have turnips (which are actually rutabagas but her family calls them turnips) since only her and Dad like them.  I guess it was a good thing she did have them though because Roman also really enjoyed them.  To make them Mom boils the turnips (rutabagas) then mashes them up with brown sugar and butter.  I'm sure they're tasty but I don't trust them.  Mom has steamed her potatoes for many years, which is an acceptable way of cooking potatoes.  What isn't acceptable is her insistence on whipping them to fluffy peaks with her hand mixer.  Apparently her Aunt Olive used to make her potatoes like this when Mom was little and Mom liked them so much that she has followed in this tradition for as long as I can remember.  I personally like my potatoes a little lumpy, but potatoes are potatoes and I will still eat my weight in them!

And here ends the tour of our Thanksgiving meal!  We also had homemade pumpkin pie for dessert but I was clearly to involved in eating mine, and trying to keep Roman from putting the whip cream into his hair, to take a picture.

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the meal, especially Roman!  During the meal, while everyone else was silently shoveling food into their mouths, Roman mmm'd through every bite.  Everyone got a kick out of him.  Once he was done eating he started making faces at Uncle Selby, who was quite happy to oblige and make funny faces back until Roman was rolling with laughter.  These two are going to have a blast together as Roman gets older!

At the end of the day, and many many calories later, Thanksgiving is all about who you spend it with!  If you are surrounded by the people you love then it doesn't matter if the turkey is burnt and the mashed potatoes are lumpy.  Thanksgiving is about sitting back and appreciating the things we have because these lives we live are much shorter than we even realize.  Happy belated Thanksgiving to the Canadians, happy early Thanksgiving to the Americans, and happy Thanksgiving to anyone else who celebrates this fantastic (and often overlooked) holiday!