My Authentic Pie

One of the memories I have of both my mom and my grandma was their ability to bake an awesome apple pie.  I have much to learn about baking pies, but frankly, baking is not my cup of tea, and I am certainly lacking in the patience department when it comes to food prep. 

Given that we had an abundance of apples on our trees this summer, and the fact that I came upon a pie plate in the cupboard which likely has never been used for a pie before, I thought I would have a go.  Chris is not much of a sweets person, so baking deserts typically means I will eat most of it, but what the heck, I was up for the baking challenge.
 

I surfed the net to find a good pastry recipe, and also a filling recipe that seemed easy enough for me to attempt.  I found a simple one that didn’t require any chilling before rolling out:

 2 1/2 c. Flour
1 c. Lard
1 Tsp. Baking powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 egg in a measuring cup + cold water to bring to 1/2 c. 

Instructions for kneading the pastry was to put it in a pillow case, but I used a bag instead.  

 It was really simple and easy to roll out.  

 

Next came the filling.  I used about 8 apples - a mix of Braeburn, Pippin and Liberty and then squeezed the juice of a lemon all over them.   Next they were dusted with a little cornstarch, brown sugar and cinnamon.  I recalled as a child this was the best part of the apple pie making process - mom always took a bit of the dusted apples out for me to eat. Yummy!

Overall, I was happy with the ease of putting the pie together and getting it ready for the oven.

But even more happy with the end result, as the pastry was melt in your mouth and the apple filling was not sweet at all.   It may not have looked all professional like, with fluted edges and what-not, but that's not my style.  And don't forget-  I haven't the patience for finishing touches. It's what's inside and the flavour that counts.

Chris had one slice and cooked up a serving of custard for on top of his piece.  The rest of the pie was left for me to eat.  I did – but with ice-cream; and over a few days.   There was a bit of pastry left, so Chris picked me a couple more apples and I threw together this little mini pie.  It's in the freezer so not sure how it will taste.

That's it for this year's baking.  Next year I may try a pie again - perhaps a berry pie.

Fighting Like Cats & Dogs? NOT!

I’m not sure where the phrase came from, but in our family the dog and cats are the 3 amigos.  They share their living space quite amicably, as you can see below.  Interestingly enough, there is a pecking order which can be seen quite clearly here.  Gypsy thinks she is the queen and perches above the rest in her wanna-be "alpha" role.  Jake is next in command, thinking that he really is "alpha", and then there is Smoke, who is totally oblivious to the term "alpha". 

Copious Amounts of Blackberries!

We thought last year we had a good crop of blackberries, but this year, with the months of sunshine and weeks of scorching records temperatures, our backyard blackberries and bigger and better than ever, and there are copious quantities.  All these berries are also  providing much-needed food for hungry  birds and mice who are having a tough time with the hot dry summer. 

Truthfully, we have not been able to keep up with them.  We are getting at least one big mixing bowl each evening, but could be getting more if we weren't so lazy. 

Basically we are just freezing them on trays as they are picked. 

 So far we have 13 freezer bags in the deep freeze.  This means blackberry smoothies for breakfast all  winter!!

Ok, So We Bought a Motorhome - Now What Do We Do?

As you can read from the title, we’ve bought an RV.   That’s exciting news in and of its self. But how did we get to this point?  It’s really not a long story.  Almost spontaneous, in fact, and probably not very well thought out.  

Both Chris and I are at crossroads about what to do as we grow older.  Being opposites, we can never agree on much.   I find myself getting more and more bogged down with work while Chris is more and more relaxing into full retirement.   We have thought about selling our home and being debt free so we can be more spontaneous, but I am still committed to my career and retirement is not imminent.    Early retirement means selling the house, but then what?  “Hey, we both said, “if we had an RV, we’d always have a place to live”.   And its true, no matter what comes up – if we sell the house or I quit my job, and life changes – we can always be camper kids.   

We did not do a lot of shopping around.  We looked at a 1992 Class C motorhome this spring that was for sale on Bowen and we really liked it.  Good shape, low mileage etc – but we didn’t pursue it. Do we really need a motorhome?   We talked about how there are many RV’s from the '80's and the 90’s that are in great shape, they are just cheaper because they are simply old.   No matter how nice it is, the sheer fact that it's old drives the price down.  People with these RV’s often just want to get rid of them, and not necessarily because there is anything wrong with them.  The point is, there are a lot of nice ones out there, and if you're willing to watch the market and be patient, you might get lucky. 

That's what we did.   I was browsing the internet last month on Kijiji, and came across a similar model to the one we saw on Bowen, but this one was in Langley.  Chris humored me and we went to look at it.  Inside was like new.  We didn’t even check out the engine, we bought it:  a 1992 28ft  Tioga Monterra, Fleetwood with $120,000 kms on it and the price was right at $9k.  We paid cash.  It's done!   

Now, we are sure there will be things come up that will need to be fixed.  It's got brand new class E tires and a new fuel pump.   I'm sure there are brittle pipes that will break, etc.  These things happen in old models.  We will deal with it.  Interior-wise – there is nothing to be done – even the upholstery is like new – and all appliances and furnace etc work fine.

We got her home and she has been in the driveway until today.  She is now out back near the pond and boat shed.  We are fortunate we have the space to park it.  We never, in a million years, thought that we'd make use of our space for "RV parking"   It's a miracle that Chris  and I are still speaking after the stressful nail-biting scenario of me directing him back between the house and the fence and the driveway.   He did it – nothing damaged. 

So what now?  Well, likely we will take it to Campbell River next year and park it for a few months.  Chris can tow his boat (it has a brand new trailer hitch for towing) and spend the summer fishing like he enjoys and I can come up on the weekends or days off.  A summer getaway.  Not sure if we would go south to the USA in winter. I don’t fancy it myself.

There you have it. Go figure, eh!