Homemade Bread

My new thing is to make yummy homemade bread rather than buying store bought bread. I try to make two loaves every week because Adam and I go through it so fast. But it saves us a little money and it tastes a lot better than the store bought stuff. It does take a little time, but I actually really enjoy baking and the end result always makes it worth it. :) It's just something we can do to save our pennies.

They may not look the prettiest, but they taste amazing!

Happy Halloween??

So today is Halloween, but it's really not at the same time. Rexburg along with a lot of other places made yesterday Halloween because no one wanted to trick or treat on Sunday. I even have a teacher training meeting tonight from 7-8. If it were really Halloween, I wouldn't be going to that meeting probably. So today at church, I didn't know whether I should say Happy Halloween to people or not. So I just didn't. It was just like another day.

Adam and I got to teach our first Sunday school lesson today in church. We just got called to be Sunday school teachers and I was nervous about this new calling at first, but it has turned out to be not too bad. Our lesson today was on strengthening our stakes and it was pretty fun to work with Adam to prepare this lesson. We are learning a lot from each other and it's nice to have that scripture study and preperation time together.

Thore

This massive water bug has been Adam and I's pet for several weeks now. He just chills in this large baking bowl during the day, then we can hear him swimming around at night and splashing in the water. His favorite thing is to just hang out on his rocks. I think he likes living with us. I personally think that he is too big to be a bug. We are good to Thore. We fed him a fish about a week and a half ago and we are going to get him another one for family night tomorrow. I can't watch him eat the cute, 28 cent, gold fish, but Adam thinks that it's pretty cool. Thore has this long needle/stinger thing by his mouth that he stabs into the fish. The stinger makes all the insides of his food turn into a liquid and then he sucks it all out. It's pretty gross and kinda alienish, I think. But we like Thore, and hopefully he'll live for a long time. We should have probably gotten a tank for him by now. Oh well. I will just never use that baking bowl ever again.  

Thore

Thore's food

Fresh, Homemade Apple Pie... Mmmm...

When we went down to Utah last weekend, we visited my Grandma and Grandpa Twitchell. They let us pick some apples on their apple trees and we brought them back with us to Idaho. I wanted to make something with them and I thought, what is better than fresh apple pie? Nothing. So I slaved for about three hours last week and I whipped up a yummy apple pie. Everything was from scratch, and as you can see it was made with lots of love. It was a fat and heavy pie, but it sure is yummy.

Pastry

2 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons shortening
4 to 6 tablespoons cold water

Filling

1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
8 cups thinly sliced peeled tart apples (8 medium)
2 tablespoons butter or margarine


1.In medium bowl, mix 2 cups flour and 1 teaspoon salt. Cut in shortening, using pastry blender (or pulling 2 table knives through ingredients in opposite directions), until particles are size of small peas. Sprinkle with cold water, 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing with fork until all flour is moistened and pastry almost cleans side of bowl (1 to 2 teaspoons more water can be added if necessary).

2.Gather pastry into a ball. Divide in half; shape into 2 flattened rounds on lightly floured surface. Wrap in plastic wrap; refrigerate about 45 minutes or until dough is firm and cold, yet pliable. This allows the shortening to become slightly firm, which helps make the baked pastry more flaky. If refrigerated longer, let pastry soften slightly before rolling.

3.Heat oven to 425°F. With floured rolling pin, roll one pastry round into round 2 inches larger than upside-down 9-inch glass pie plate. Fold pastry into fourths; place in pie plate. Unfold and ease into plate, pressing firmly against bottom and side.

4.In large bowl, mix sugar, 1/4 cup flour, the cinnamon, nutmeg and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Stir in apples until well mixed. Spoon into pastry-lined pie plate. Cut butter into small pieces; sprinkle over filling. Trim overhanging edge of pastry 1/2 inch from rim of plate.

5.Roll other round of pastry into 10-inch round. Fold into fourths and cut slits so steam can escape. Unfold top pastry over filling; trim overhanging edge 1 inch from rim of plate. Fold and roll top edge under lower edge, pressing on rim to seal; flute as desired. Cover edge with 2- to 3-inch strip of foil to prevent excessive browning.

6.Bake 40 to 50 minutes or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust, removing foil for last 15 minutes of baking. Serve warm if desired.

Makes 8 servings

I love Fall :)

I just thought this was a cute picture of Adam and I from our trip down to Utah last weekend to visit family.

We fed some ducks too.

Our Fall Apartment

I had so much fun decorating our apartment this year for my favorite season. I love fall and I love Halloween. It's nice to finally have a place that I can decorate the way that I want. I was pretty happy with how it turned out. And those are flowers that Adam got me by the window. I'm sad Halloween in over and that my decorations need to come down.

Salt Lake City Vacation

Adam and I decided to go on a little weekend vacation before the semester started in September. Salt Lake City was the coolest and closest place that we could think of going. We stayed in a hotel and everything. It was the first time either one of us have gone there and not had it be a family trip. On our way down from Idaho, we stopped off at Snow Basin to take a chair lift and get some lunch.

We also went to the Mayan restaurant and watched the divers. That was pretty neat and we ate the best jalapeno poppers we have ever had.