Apples, oh my

Apples.

I'd never made applesauce before the boy arrived, and never knew how easy it was. My parents always have lots of apples every year and now that we're in the same town we are often the lucky recipient of apples and pears too. These apples were sitting in boxes in my parents' garage, waiting and hoping to be put in a pie or some such thing. In an effort to "save the apples" my mom baked something like eight or nine apple pies one day the other week. Applesauce is much more doable!


Quarter them, add a bit of water, and boil until they start to break apart. Then grind them with a doohickey (a.k.a. food mill if you want to get all technical).

Ta da! Add cinnamony goodness.


When we were moving and whenever we had to eat on the go I used to buy the boy's food (in the baby food stage). Aside from those times I made his food in big batches and froze it. This book by Annabel Karmel made it easy, gave me confidence about food safety and also had lots of great combinations the boy really liked. (Just because I'll worry if I don't add this as an aside; the book doesn't seem to incorporate the latest research about kids and allergies so be wary of recipes including nuts, eggs, etc. if you use it.) I think I like the previous version better (the one the libraries seem to have) but the newer version is just fine for the baby food. When I made big batches of food I liked to sit there and calculate how much money all of the results would have cost us if we'd bought the baby food instead of making it; very rewarding to a thrifty (read: always worried about money) gal like me.

Did you see on Daily Candy that the Goodwill has an online auction site now? I'm still holding out hope that they miss good stuff every once in awhile. When I looked they had fabric, amazing vintage hats and dresses, and some cool tools. Wow.

I justified the basic Typepad expense to myself, finally, and signed up for the 30-day free trial. I was so excited about making a move but I think I've discovered that you can't upload your own banner with a basic account. Is that true? Am I right? I can't justify spending more than the basic level, so is Blogger my home for good?

I completely, totally, 100% forgot that I'd practically begged T for About Alice for Valentine's Day. Being the wonderful husband that he is, I unwrapped the book in utter surprise last night! It looks to be almost the exact article from the New Yorker with wide double-spacing. Still, it's such a lovely thing.

If I had more of the aforementioned pennies I'd do this.