FALL/HALLOWEEN EXCHANGE RECEIVED

 

Fall/Halloween Exchanged

Received from

Debbie B.

I just love this cute little ornie and Debbie's stitching and finishing is lovely. Thanks Debbie.


Unbelievably,  we had our first snow the other day.  If it were December, I might have enjoyed it, however, in my opinion, October is way to early for snow.

Huge, heavy flakes fell all afternoon into the evening.

After all, I still have apples to pick...

and mums in bloom.

Then I discovered that if I stood under my apple trees and 

just looked at the green grass under my feet, 

I could pretend it wasn't snowing. LOL

What happened to the warm, sunny days of fall?

Take time to enjoy the beauty around you.

MORE STUFF ~~ PART 2

OR I SHOULD SAY APPLES, APPLES AND MORE APPLES?

Not much stitching due to 3 apple trees in my backyard

and tons of beautiful apples.

This year's apple harvest is the best my trees have ever had. 

What to do with all those apples?  I've only ever made apple pie with the few apples I got each year.  I thought about apple pie filling, but the thought of peeling all those apples was just too much.  I can hardly stand to peel apples for one pie and there was no way I was going to peel hundreds of apples.

A little research on the web led me to several applesauce recipes that don't require peeling of apples.  That sounded great to me and I pulled out all the canning stuff that's been tucked away under the stairs for the past 20 years.

My nightly ritual has been washing, coring and cutting a 5 gallon bucket full of apples.  I put all the cut up apples in my large 22 quart electric roaster and let it cook on low overnight.

In the morning, the soft apples were ready to be turned into applesauce.  Some recipes say to use a potato masher or immersion blender to create the applesauce leaving the peels to get chopped up along with the apples, others say to put the applesauce through a strainer that separates the peel from the apple flesh.   I sort of did a combination of the two.

First, I used the potato masher to combine the soft apples with the juice and then I ran it through the food grinder attachment on my mixer.

There were still pieces of peel that weren't small enough for my liking, so I put the food strainer attachment on and ran the mixture through.  The result was perfect for me.

I also took some of the applesauce and made Caramel Apple Jam.  It turned out pretty good considering I've never made any type of jam or jelly.

After the applesauce was made, it then had to be heated on the stove to boiling before it could be put in hot jars and processed in the water bath canner.

Just so you know, I did make a few apples pies too.  Hubby and my future son-in-law were very pleased.

I won one of Nancy's giveaways. Instead of picking my own colors, I asked Nancy to pick out her favorites.  I love the colors Nancy sent.   

Nancy is having another giveaway on her blog Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe so hop on over there and check it out.

FALL/HALLOWEEN EXCHANGE SENT

"Pumpkin Keeper"

The Drawn Thread

October 2013

Sent to Christina

Have an awesome week!

PUMPKINS FOR CATHEY

I might be a little late to the party,

but it's never too late to say

 HAPPY BLOGOVERSARY!

Cathey over at Pumpkin Patch & Co. is celebrating her 

blogoversary and Daffy-Cat 

arranged for a great party of pumpkins!

Cathey, sending you a

Please know

YOU are in my

Thoughts and Prayers!

And to cancer,

I say...

 KISS MY. . .