Mama’s Apple Pie
I am NOT turning into a baking blog, I promise! Besides the cakes that I have been working on, I have one other “speciality”. I have it in quotes, because to me pie is pie. But according to my father, I make the world’s best Apple pie – well second to my mom, of course. She has passed down the tradition to me and ever since I made my first one 4 years ago, it is my job to do it every holiday and sometimes – very rarely – my dad will get one out of the blue – just because.
This was one of those “out of the blue” times. My mom and I went to the local apple farm last week and I saw the Granny Smith’s and new what I should do. Besides I did just buy a Pampered Chef Pie Crust Shield 
which to me was a complete splurge, but none the less, I am now a Pampered Pie Baker! So on Friday, I made one of my famous Apple Pies from scratch!! The secret you may ask? It’s what you can’t really read in the above picture. My mom has a few things scribbled in the ingredients section that I will keep a secret too! Okay fine, I won’t keep it a secret because Thanksgiving is coming and with the season changing everyone enjoys a wonderful piece of apple pie.
My secret is to use all Granny Smith apples! The tart goes really well with the sugar and extra spices that are added! Along with that here is the rest of my Mom’s secret:
instead of 1/2 tsp. of nutmeg – change it to 1/3 teaspoon of nutmeg
keep the cinnamon the same at 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
And you’re adding 1/3 tsp. of allspice
My mom always made crusts from scratch, so of course I had to keep that tradition going also. Which makes it a little bit more time consuming but well worth it in the end to have a nice flaky, buttery crust that melts in your mouth!!
Stumble Upon
Del.icio.us
Buzz
“Dirdy Night”
One of my favorite memories from my childhood is “Dirdy” Night. Dirdy night was on Friday nights. My sister and I would get our jammies on, get as many pillows and blankets as we could carry and jump into my parents’ bed. It was the only room besides our living room that had a t.v. My parents would buy us some snacks and soda and we would watch t.v. – I remember the A-Team, Dallas, Night Rider, Grape Soda, and Cheetos cheese balls that came in the can. Okay so I am dating myself a little bit.
Let me give you a little back ground on these special nights. First of all, I couldn’t speak properly until the age of 4. No one could understand me, not even my own mom. I took speech therapy and after having to be retaught how to control the muscles in my mouth, I was able to speak clearly. That is where “Dirdy” came from. Since I couldn’t speak clearly, “Dirdy” was my word for “snacks”, coming from the word Dorito. So the name stuck. It is a funny and quirky name to call an activity but somehow it has remained!
Secondly, growing up, my parents were on a strict budget. We always had food on the table but early on in my childhood, the “extras” couldn’t be afforded. So to make up for not having snacks in the cupboards during the week, my parents gave us a snack night, on Fridays, that they would get us a 2 liter of soda and a few snacks. We would all cuddle up in there bed, watch t.v. and snack until our hearts’ content!
But no matter where or why “Dirdy” Night came to be a part of our lives isn’t the point, the point is that we had the best time, just enjoying each others company, even if we were on a tight budget.
So that is the history. Fast forward 25 years. Jeremy and I have started the tradition with our boys, and yes we still call it Dirdy night! Granted it is a little different, we both felt it important to set up a scheduled “family night”, ours is in the form of movie night every other weekend. I pop popcorn and make cookies from scratch. We usually order or make pizza and literally gorge ourselves on junk food! It is great! We pull the futon mattress off and put it in the floor and pile it with pillows and blankets so we can cuddle.
This weekend I decided that instead of making cookies, we would do the real movie thing and get candy and for nostalgia, get cheese balls (not shown) .Introducing Evan to the finer things in life.
I reserved several movies, from the library, for the night so that Evan could choose which one he wanted. Out of the 3 to the left, he chose the Pixar Short Films, which actually worked really well for two toddler’s attention spans.
We love doing this and an added bonus to it is the amount of money we save, based on the alternative of taking the boys out for family night. The movies are free because we get them at the library, we pop the popcorn and a full bag of kernals is around $2.00, instead of getting microwave popcorn, which we didn’t even make a dent in this evening. The candy was a couple of bucks. I usually make the cookies and healthify them by using whole wheat flour so I don’t mind when Evan eats 5!
But the most important reason of all – getting some quality family time in – in this crazy busy life of ours! Carter sat perfectly still in the nook of my arm, so I was able to get some good loves from him. When he wasn’t loving on me, he was cuddled up next to Evan. Which believe me is a rarity! Evan doesn’t “love” on his brother ! And when those 2 weren’t laying on each other, Evan was sprawled out on Jeremy. There were many times, that Jeremy and I exchanged that “look”. You know the one, the “Life can not get better than this” look! Because truly, life can’t get any better!
