.:: Fire The Housewife ::.

Let’s not even talk about my absolute desire to own these Bucky Balls.  You don’t even want to know how badly I want these choking hazards that occasionally show up on Woot during woot-offs.  Instead, let’s talk about what I have been referring to as Bucky Balls since yesterday when I made them…

Buckeyes!  I have been meaning to try these out FOR-EV-ER, but let me tell you, internet, school takes up a lot of time.  Just ask The Boyfriend what the only topic of conversation at our house has been since last June when I got the job.  It’s all school, all the time.  You don’t even know, ya’ll, when it’s not talking about the kids, it’s talk about the curriculum, not that, then it’s coworkers, not that? then it’s the school drama, THERE WAS SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT EVERY NIGHT.  Just trust me on this one, so basically this led to me having absolutely not time to blog.  Now, not that I’m promising anything better for this summer, because stupidly your friend FTHW has decided to go back to school and get her Master’s degree.

Speaking of that, let’s tell you a story…

It’s fairly relevant, just stick with me.

So, after all this school drama I finally get myself enrolled and one of my “required” courses is this class about The Beatles. YES. FTHW LOVES THE BEATLES. NO. FTHW DID NOT WANT TO SPEND $285 A CREDIT HOUR TO TALK A 3 HOUR CLASS ON THE BEATLES WHEN IT IS NOT AT ALL RELEVANT TO TEACHING. So, I’ve been a little bitter.  So, I do my 10 chapters of reading each week from the worlds most boring book ever written about The Beatles and I do my assignments.  This week, I just happened to notice the word “Lisztomania” in the text.  Each week we have to choose a topic the book discusses and write a more indepth article about that topic.  That is when it struck me. The perfect first line for a paper about Lisztomania.

“Lisztomania is more than just a song by the band Phoenix”

AND THAT IS HOW I STARTED MY PAPER, YA’LL. FOR REAL.  I do not belong in graduate school. I am not serious enough for graduate school.

Of course, I went on to elaborate how Lisztomania can be related to Beatlemania in many ways.  I mean, you guys read my blog, you know how much crap I can make up.  I’m really good at this.  Whoo! Those crazy 1800-ers.

AND TO MAKE THIS RELEVANT… I just happened to listen to Phoenix on my kitchen record player while I made the Bucky Balls Buckeyes.

Guys, these were so ridiculously easy to make I don’t even feel like we need a step by step. THIS IS HOW EASY IT WAS. I almost forgot to take pictures because it was so easy.

SO. EASY.

Mix 1 stick of butter (softened)

1 lb powdered sugar

1 18 oz. jar of peanut butter

in your mixer bowl.

(does anyone measure vanilla?)

and 1 tsp vanilla (more or less)

It will most definitely look like playdoh. Tasty, tasty playdoh.

Then just roll it into balls and put them in the freezer while you melt up your chocolate and wax.

Now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that for the most part I set up a really sweet bowl and pan double boiler. But! BUT!

TA DA! The Boyfriend’s Mom bought me an actual double boiler. Who knew!

Now, the recipe I used says to melt 1 bag of chocolate chips with a 2×2 piece of parafin wax.  I started this melting and thought it tasted too waxy and tossed in another half bag of chips, but perhaps you will think it is okay.  I would use less wax though, maybe a 1×1 square, because mine were plenty shiny without the whole 2×2 piece and all the extra chocolate.

Now, after much trial and error, I have found your new BFF.

The corn on the cob pick.  It’s just perfect for stabbing the top of the Buckeyes to dip them in chocolate.  Look, LOOK AT THIS BLURRY PICTURE OF ME USING THIS:

Though not fool proof:

It works quite well…

YUM!

We’re going to give this a try.  Today I need to make 3 pans of manicotti and 2 cheesecakes.  I hope you’re here to follow my adventure/demise.  I’ll give you the updates.

I’m starting out with the pumpkin cheesecake. If you’re baking along at home turn on your Jakob Dylan vinyl and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Starting with the crust you will need (for 1 cheesecake):

1 1/2 cups gingersnap crumbs

1/2 cup chopped almonds

1/3 cup butter

You haven’t lived until you’ve sorted through some uncrushed gingersnaps! WELCOME TO THE PARTY YA’LL.

Also, I fully understand what The Pioneer Woman is always saying about her Alien Hands. Could my arms look any fatter in this pictures?! I BLAME YOU IMAC. I BLAME YOU PHOTOBOOTH. I BLAME YOU STEVE JOBS!

2 things. 1. I put in some walnuts. Don’t tell anyone! 2. I’m wearing my Seahawks shirt. Go Hawks! UNEXPECTED 3. OH CRAP I JUST PUT MY BLURRY FACE ON MY BLOG.  I’ll cover it up with some creative photoshopping later.

Oh and in case you missed it, the record changed to Death Cab for Cutie’s Something About Airplanes.

My kitchen is already a gigantic disaster (much live the movie Gigantic) but I have 2 crusts ready to go in the oven for 10 minutes.

Completely ignore the smell of burning coming from your oven and continue on with the cheesecake filling.  I’m going to tell you how to do the filling for just 1 cheesecake, even though I’m making two. Eventually it may look a little different because I’ll be mixing for two.  More than likely I’ll be eating enough cheesecake for two as well.

Start with 24 oz softened cream cheese

1 cup + 2 Tbsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla. Mix well on medium speed until well blended

Then add 4 eggs, one at a time beating well after each addition.

Stay tuned…I must go beat my eggs.

After beating in those 4 eggs, take out 1 cup and chill while you add the rest of your ingredients to the batter:

If you are me it will be at this point that you realize you just got cheesecake on your recipe card. Also, if you’re me, you licked it off.

Add 1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg to the batter, mix well.

AT THIS POINT I’D LIKE TO SAY HA! THE BOYFRIEND! I DO HAVE THE ATTENTION SPAN TO LIVE BLOG!

Also, it’s time to change records, I chose a great cooking standby, Billy Joel’s Greatest hits, more than likely to be followed by Billy Joel’s The Stranger.

Not a good picture:

But alas, your cheesecake should be mixed with pumpkin!  I hope you were lucky and the bags of pumpkin your The Boyfriend’s mom gave you turned out to be exactly the right amount.

Next you get ready to layer.  Pour in a little of the pumpkiny mixture.

Then pour in a little of the regular.

Then use a knife to make it look marbled. I like to then dump in the rest of the pumpkiny mixture so I can make the top look extra pretty. So dump that pumpkin stuff in there and scoop the rest of the plain cheesecake into a pastry bag or if you’re me, a ziploc bag.

Pipe lines on top of the cheesecake until the cheesecake mixture is gone.  Sometimes (all times.) I have to retrace lines because I have a whole lot left.  Don’t mix in a ton of lines just because you have extra, use it to push down your other lines and add more.

Then again, use that knife to marble it.

I like to go in alternating directions because then it’s going to look awesome…like this:

Don’t judge me, I have to hold up my laptop to take these pictures.  I HAVE THE SHAKES, PEOPLE. THIS IS A LOT OF PRESSURE.

Now put it in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour and 15 minutes and go lick all the bowls, especially if you’re like me and you still need to make another one. LICK THEM CLEAN SO YOU DON’T HAVE ANY PUMPKIN IN YOUR REGULAR CHEESECAKE.

Caught a mistake already.  I forgot to add sugar to the pumpkin cheesecake part.  If you’re reading this! DON’T FORGET YOU ONLY PUT IN 2/3 A CUP IN THE PLAIN CHEESECAKE MIXTURE, THEN ADD THE REST OF YOUR SUGAR LATER. I DON’T FOLLOW EVEN MY OWN DIRECTIONS VERY WELL.

I live in constant fear that I just put an egg shell in something I’ve baked. Apologizing in advance.

Cheesecake #2 is ready for the oven!

This brings us to an important side note.  On Facebook Girl I Went to High School With asked “Is one of the mistakes wearing a scarf while you cook? I would end up with a batter-scarf.”  to which I had to reply “haha, oddly enough I do okay, I actually just took it off and changed to apron, not because of food, but because I had to wash some dishes and THAT is when I truly get messy.”

Now, as for my floor and counter tops? Those are covered in stuff.

Also, I lied, the new record is Rocky Votolato.

It’s time for the manicotti…BUT FIRST STEAL SOME IDEAS FROM MY GIGANTIC COLLECTION OF BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS COOKBOOKS!! This was actually a recent addition. DARN YOU SAVE N SHARE!

First ingredient…one brick of tofu, mashed up.

Then 30 oz of ricotta. (remember I’m making a quadruple sized recipe. you will DEFINITELY not want to use this much.)

2 7 oz  cans of mushrooms

1 white onion, diced very fine

4 Tbsp oil (in pan to cook everything up)

parsley, basil, paprika, salt, and pepper to taste.

The rest I haven’t really figured out yet, I’ll let you know.

So far:

1 whole diced onion

2 cloves garlic (minced)

3 7 oz cans of mushrooms (cut up into pieces)

Saute in 4 Tbsp (ish) oil.

Ok here’s what we’ve got.

30 oz of ricotta mixed with 14 oz of tofu

4 eggs, beaten

and the onion, mushroom, spice mix

Mix the eggs, tofu mixture, and 3/4 cup parmesan cheese (grated)

SIDENOTE! (it wouldn’t be FTHW without getting off topic)

THIS GUY JUST CAME OUT OF THE OVEN.

MANICOTTI UPDATE:

Mix veggie mixture with tofu/egg mixture. Tasted it. Needs more spice. Currently adding more salt, pepper, basil, and paprika. Also just added garlic salt.  Should have gone for 4 cloves of garlic I think.

Currently boiling manicotti noodles for exactly 7 minutes. EXACTLY, INTERNET.

Did I forget to mention I’ve also changed records again, John Vanderslice, Cellar Door.  This is all very important. I always listen to records while I cook. It’s good for you. It counterbalances all the fat you injest while cooking.

I am stuffing so many manicotti shells right now you would not even believe it.  Also, do not ever shortcut and buy Kroger marinara sauce. YUCK.

All 3 pans of Manicotti are in the oven at 350 degrees for 40 minutes covered with foil.

This was a looooong day of baking. The cheesecakes are in the fridge and the manicottis

Hope you enjoyed this and are less tired than I am.

Christmas, ya’ll, sucked.  Yes, I’ll say it. IT SUCKED.  Not only was it like WWIII around the FTHW Family, I ended up mostly being sick most of the time and now The Boyfriend is starting to come down with something and I’m staying so far away from him because, well, homie don’t play that.  Here’s the thing, while I do LOVE to bake treats that are fatty and horrible for you, in general, I eat pretty well.  A lot of veggies, a fair amount of fruits, whole wheat everything.  I do my best.  Christmas was basically one meal after another that was full of more fat that I eat in a year.  Not that MOST of these meals weren’t delicious, but I’m just not equipped to handle such meals anymore.

Let’s discuss these in depth.  It all started December 23rd when I had to make an appearance at a show featuring a band The Boyfriend made a record with (shameless plug, www.rocketheartrecords.com) I hope too many people don’t click that because I have always been the leader in website hits between The Boyfriend and I and I would like to keep it that way.  Anyway, the show was great, the bands were great, I was exhausted.  Turns out I’m  not as hip and awesome as I was in high school when I sold merch for bands and would rock out until 3am.  I was tired. SO TIRED.

Plus, I woke up at 8am the next morning.  Yes. The girl who usually gets 8-10 hours of sleep per night got about…4 1/2.  NOT OKAY.  I was exhausted and had too many things I needed to get done.  Desserts to make for the multitude of family Christmases I would be attending for the 3 days following. NOT EXCITED.  So I get up, start moving, start baking, churn out some whoopie pies and a cheesecake from a recipe that I had never used before.  The cheesecake was, well, weird.  It poofed and smooshed and was weird.  In the future I will stick to my very own recipe for pumpkin cheesecake which is tried and true and awesome.  It was this day, the day when I was going crazy and baking so much on 4 1/2 hours of sleep that The Sister and The George decide, yes, this is the day to try to completely explode FTHW’s head.  That day I was yelled at for using the wrong wrapping paper, for not getting a present wrapped quickly enough, for wrapping something upstairs which was already in a box, for not allowing my niece to come downstairs while I wrap said present, for having a baking disaster, for baking things the sister doesn’t think she’ll like, for basically living.  I couldn’t take it anymore and had a complete meltdown.

Now, friends, you’ve read this blog, you may or may not know me in person, but FTHW+Stress+Tired = SO MANY OBSCENITIES.  At one point The Niece says “Uhhh…I’m going to go in the other room because Aunt FTHW is using too many bad words”

IT IS TRUE. I WAS SCREAMING THEM AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS BECAUSE REALLY, YA’LL, TODAY IS THE DAY TO YELL AT ME ABOUT WHAT A HORRIBLE BAKER I AM? REALLY?!

I FELT LIKE MY HERO RICHIE SEXSON.  I looked really hard for the video of Former Mariner Richie Sexson throwing his batting helmet at a Texas pitcher, but I couldn’t find it.  Basically, those Mariners like to fight, and I like to watch it.

Speaking of Seattle Teams:

I made these Seahawks vs Chiefs whoopie pies a few weeks ago or so when the Seahawks played the Chiefs, we will not discuss the outcome of that game.  Not that I care about football, but I refuse to believe that anything Kansas related would dominate anything Seattle related.

Anyway, back to my Christmas rant.  Because that’s what this post is about. ME HATING CHRISTMAS.  So, after all this work, I made this adorable stack of Red, Green, White, and plain whoopie pies wrapped them up and got them ready to go to The Aunt’s house for Christmas Dinner with the FTHW’s.  THEN! THEN! Something about a plate wrapped in plastic sat way away from all the other food for the evening looked like something that should be eaten, so they were picked at and messed with and eaten and just in general messed up before they even had a chance to go to Aunt FTHW’s.  So, here is an image of some different red and green whoopie pies I made once…In memory…

Unfortunately I did not make the non-pareil whoopie pies for Aunt FTHW’s house, just the out of focus red and green, and also some with white sugars and some with no sugars at all.  Trust me, they were adorable.   A little stale by the time the remainders got to Aunt FTHW’s, but all together, not awful.  I finally got the recipe down to exactly what we wanted the taste to be.  Which, I will share with you!

So, for the pies:

This is the recipe I used for the  Chocolate Gobs, The Other Side Aunt actually sent me this recipe a long time ago, I’ve decided this is the best recipe for the pies, tasty, just the right amount of chocolate flavor, and just in general, yummy.

Mix in order:

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup sour milk

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa

1/2 cup hot coffee

1 tsp vanilla

I like to pipe mine using a large circular Wilton tip in about 1 inch circles onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper,  you might need to smooth the tops a little, these are a little more solid and don’t flatten as easily.  If you slam the cookie sheet on the counter a few times it will also work, this is especially nice to do when your family has angered you over the holidays.  TRUST ME ON THIS ONE, INTERNET.  Bake it in a 350 degree oven about 8 minutes, if you lightly tap the top it will not indent when they are finished.  I like to leave mine just a tiny tiny bit under-done because they do tend to be a little dry.

AS FOR THE FILLING! I HAVE MADE UP A NEW FILLING RECIPE.  I have had a few disasters lately with my old tried and I thought true recipe, so here it goes:

2 c. powdered sugar

1 c. crisco

1/2 c. butter/margerine

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup marshmallow fluff

Beat together the first 4 ingredients on high.  Add the marshmallow fluff, beat on high until very fluffy.   I actually added the word “YUM!” to the end of my recipe, that’s how good it is.  It’s the only hand written recipe in my recipe box, scrawled across the back of my original filling recipe one day when I finally decided to conquer the whoopie pie for a second time.

In conclusion, I spent a few days hiding out at The Boyfriend’s parents house, where I got to prove to The Boyfriend yet again how awesome I am at Wheel of Fortune since The Boyfriend’s Mom got us the electronic Wheel game for Christmas! YESSSS.  I had previously stolen this version from my Grandpa when he wasn’t looking:

BUT NOW IT’S ALL ABOUT THIS VERSION, WHICH I PLAYED ALL THE WAY HOME AND DROVE THE BOYFRIEND INSANE!!

In conclusion, Internet, I need to go to the grocery store because I am going to bake cookies for the release of the Ultimate Fakebook Album Electric Kissing Parties which The Boyfriend helped to get pressed, so, in order to draw in some new cool friends, and NOT tweet creepy things about them like I did with Jim Suptic of The Get Up Kids, I am going to make some UFB cookies to woo them with.  Maybe, JUST MAYBE, I’ll remember to post them too. OH YES.

So, it’s just quite near Christmas Candy season and I’m pretty much always excited for that time of year.  It means I’m going to make a ton of candy which I never eat because after making all of it the thought of sugar makes me want to die.  This is how to keep your girlish figure, friend, make a lot of sweets, the smell of sugar will make you so nauseous you don’t even want to think about eating any of it.

So anyway, I learned something new today. WAX! WAX! WAX! Yes! I’m telling you! I’ve been making truffles for a couple years now and the part I hate the most is dipping them in chocolate to cover them, this has made me HATE making chocolates because I just can’t stand the work it takes followed by sub-par looking chocolate.  I was browsing around the internet this morning trying to find something new I’d like to try when I noticed several of these truffle recipes I was finding used Gulf Wax in the chocolate when you dipped them.  I thought “SURELY NOT! WHO PUTS WAX IN THEIR CHOCOLATE!?” but this is a true story!

Gulf Wax is basically just wax you use in canning to seal jars.  I’ve never really done any canning, but I had heard of this stuff.  We found it in the teeny tiny grocery store in the teeny tiny town I teach in, so I know you can find it where you live.  Just look in the canning section, it comes in a box with the words GULF WAX on it in gigantic letters.  The box is about the size of a pound of butter.

So, I made these Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough truffles, I stole the recipe straight off the internet but all it really was is the the recipe for chocolate chip cookies minus the eggs.  So use your favorite recipe and don’t add eggs.  You’re going to leave the dough raw, so you don’t want to give your loved ones salmonella, but if you do want to give them salmonella, go ahead and add the eggs, whatever, I don’t care.  I’m not in a giving mood today, so I’m not giving anyone salmonella, I didn’t use the eggs.

Onward!  This is the chocolate concoction I used…

10 oz almond bark (chocolate flavored)

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

a little less than 1/2 a block of gulf wax.

Throw it all in your double boiler, or your homemade double boiler if you’re me and don’t own a double boiler…

That white block in the middle? That’s the wax. It melts so much faster than I thought it would, just let it party in there until everything is all melted.  Now, as for those chocolate chip truffles? You should have made those into about 1 inch balls and put them in the freezer for about 15-20 minutes.  My freezer MAY have been too small for my cookie sheets so I MAY have put them in the fridge and forgot about them while The Boyfriend and I watched Penny Serenade. I MAY have swooned over Cary Grant and then The Boyfriend MAY have told me all these stories about Cary Grant being into LSD and also being gay and also that he once sued Chevy Chase for saying he was gay on television.  Kind of an odd.

So anyway, after you melt everything, it’s pretty easy just to dip them, there should be a flat side from sitting them on the cookie sheet, so put them in and cover them, then take them out with a fork, let the chocolate drip off a little.

I noticed that the chocolate hardened MUCH faster with the wax in it so if you’re going to add anything on top you need to do it quickly.

Basically, this made everything A LOT easier and I fully recommend using Gulf Wax to mix with your chocolate, it gives it a lot more shine.  I read a few things about the chocolate having a waxy taste, but it really isn’t that noticeable. You will notice a slight tiny little difference but it’s a lot like any candy bar you’d eat, it has that texture to it.  My advice, try it once, decide for yourself.

I want you guys to know YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVED THANKSGIVING BREAK.  That part where I baked and I hung out and I watched TV and I was lazy. OH BOY THAT RULED.  The parts where I drove a zillion miles, the parts where plans didn’t go as they were originally planned, the parts where I yelled at everyone…those parts weren’t that great. Basically, internet, I was supposed to spend Thanksgiving with my family and The Boyfriend got too busy with his family to remember my family and I almost missed it.  I had to get The Republi-Dad and The Sister to drive out and get me but all was well when I ate like 6 helpings of cranberry salad and wowed The George’s family with my baking skills.

Are you ready? ARE YOU READY TO BE WOWED?!

This was my Thanksgiving pie spread.  I made 2 apple pies and an apple custard tart.  I’ve showed you the tart on here before… HERE.  It turned out just as tasty as ever, even after it had to survive a couple of days in cars before it made its final destination.

That pie. OOH THAT PIE.  That apple pie has made The Boyfriend’s family stop hating me. They’ve finally accepted me into their hearts, but only if I bring along that apple pie.  I got fancy this year and made my very first pie crust (that has come out right) and my very first (EVER) lattice pie crust.  I thought I’d probably ruin things trying to get that thing laid out correctly, but it was surprisingly easy.  I did, however, use a recipe straight out of my gigantic collection of cookbooks and didn’t even begin to try to wing it. NOT EVEN A LITTLE.  Now, these pies were not nearly as tasty as my pies usually are because I did them as a double batch because I’m LAZY, but I’ll tell you what I do for a single pie so that you can be impressive.  I like to call this…

Caramel Apple Pie (with a crust straight from the pages of Better Homes and Gardens All-Time Favorite Pies)

Let’s start with the crust. This recipe is listed for a double crust pie, but I used it and made my lattice pie and didn’t really have any left over crust.

You will need:

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

4 Tbsp shortening (or lard…The Republi-Dad has offered up some lard from the pig he had slaughtered, so I’ll be using that next time, this time I used shortening)

6 Tbsp butter

6 – 7 Tbsp ice water

Here is my first very important bit of advice.

FREEZE

YOUR

FAT.

You hear me? FREEZE IT. Your pie crust will be tastier, flakier, and more awesome if you just freeze your fat. SO DON’T FORGET.  This is what my fat looks like:

That’s my fat. That’s my fat on top of the coffee that The Seattle Friend sent me away with when we moved.  Basically, she’s awesome and so is my fat. FAT FAT FAT. MY FAT! LET’S SEE HOW MUCH LONGER I CAN AMUSE YOU WITH TALK OF MY FAT.

Basically, you want everything to be so cold. So basically have the fat frozen and use a big ol’ bowl of ice and dump some water in there, you want that water to be super cold.

Because what’s cooler than bein’ cool?

ICE COLD!

I said!…nevermind…

Just trust me on this. It took me years and years of trying to get a pie crust to come out tasty and not nasty (also, The Repuli-Dad is an excellent critic and he even said the pie crust was good, this comes from the man who told me this weekend “uh, so I was looking at your senior pictures earlier and, man, you were pretty fat in high school!” to which I responded “uh, Republi-Dad, that’s after I lost 50 lbs. THANKS!”)

So, here’s how I do this, I put half my butter and half my flour/salt mixture into my cuisenart (but only because it’s too small to put all of it in) then pulse it until it looks chunky.  Don’t mix it too long, don’t let it look cornmeal-y like some recipes suggest, I have decided that is just TOO mixed, you want chunks of fat a little smaller than pea sized.

Once you have all that mixed, use a fork to mix in your water 1 Tbsp at a time.  you may not need all of that water, both crusts I made I did use 7Tbsp of the ice water, just check to see if your crust is sticking together, if it is, you don’t need any more water. TRUST ME. Then just split it into 2 balls of dough and roll them out to fit your pie pan, and later to make your lattice.

If you’re me you mixed your apple mixture up before so you did all of this quickly, if you’re not me, put your other crust mixture into the freezer until you’re ready for it.  You wouldn’t want to unfreeze that fat!

For your apples:

you need about 1 lb of apples, I used about a pound because I used a shallow pie shell, my family enjoyed that, you just look at your pie shell and decide how many will fill it up.  Peel, core, and slice those apples and throw them in a bowl.  That’s when the fun starts!!

on the stove melt a stick of butter with 1 cup of brown sugar. Let that do it’s work while you mess with the apples.

YUMMO.

So, I used a mixture of Jonagolds and Jonathans, I liked that mixture, not too bad. About the time I got ready to do all the work with the apples I discovered a mouse in our garage which put a little bit of a damper on my day.

HERE IS MY STORY WHICH GETS MY RECIPE ALL OFF TRACK BUT NEEDS TO BE TOLD:

So, when we moved into this place the Landlord’s son gave us the impression that WE MUST ACT QUICKLY OR WE WILL LOSE THIS HOUSE.  This was probably not the case because if I’ve learned one thing about this family, they are full of … bologna (that is the absolute nicest word I could come up with.  This is not at all close to the words I would like to use to describe the family we rent from.)  I call Landlord (who we now deal with instead of JR.) and tell him “Oh! HI! I am in your rental! The Boyfriend is out of town and I’m home alone and well, I discovered a mouse in our attached garage, could you come set some traps and get rid of him?”

his response? OH I WILL TELL YOU HIS RESPONSE.

“Uh, well, I lived in the other side of that duplex while we were building our house and we NEVER had any mice.”

“oh, well, we have one…”

his response?

“Well, you live so close ot the country that’s pretty typical”

TYPICAL!? TYPICAL?!#%@ YOU ALREADY SAID YOU LIVED IN THE OTHER HALF AND NEVER HAD A MOUSE, OBVIOUSLY THIS IS NOT TYPICAL OLD MAN MCGEE.

This is the same old man who seems to think it is okay for us to live in mold city and that we should just DEAL WITH THAT.  I think old man needs get ready for the meltdown that is FTHW when she’s stressed out. You hear me OLD MANLORD?! IT IS COMING.

I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL HE FINDS OUT THE THINGS I SAID TO OUR OLD LANDLORD, RON PAUL, THINGS LIKE

“IF YOU WANT TO BE A SLUMLORD THAT’S YOUR PROBLEM, DON’T DRAG US DOWN WITH YOU” and “SEE, THE THING IS, I DON’T TRUST YOU BECAUSE YOU HAVE ALREADY STOLEN A $200 CLEANING DEPOSIT FROM US WHEN WE MOVED INTO UTTER FILTH.”

We also moved into filth in this place.  Apparently no one thinks that vacuuming is important, ever. Plus Old Manlord was all “THIS PLACE IS SO CLEAN!” and the fact is, the carpet is stained all over, the walls were NASTY and we discovered all sorts of fun things under the burners of the stove.  And among the things I don’t expect to be cleaned, we found like 25 cat toys under the fridge when we vacuumed the inches of cat hair off the fridge coils.  Old Manlord and JR are pretty much idiots anyway considering we asked if they would hook up the ice machine in the fridge and JR told us “uh, there is no water hookup for that!!” and a day later we pulled the fridge away from the wall and hooked up the ice machine with the CONVENIENTLY LOCATED WATER HOOKUPS RIGHT BEHIND THE FRIDGE WITH THE CONVENIENTLY LABELED WATER SHUT OFF VALVE IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM WHICH SAID “ICE MACHINE/FRIDGE.”  So really, we rent from morons.  MIDWESTERN MORONS no less.  The Republi-Dad is pretty convinced they’ve ignored the mold/water damage in the bathrooms so long that the wood behind the tub surround is probably rotten clear through.  I hope he’s right, because I think anyone who won’t help a sweet little 25 year old girl get rid of a mouse deserves the worst levels of hell, the levels in which you find that your house is full of rotten wood and mold!

Anyway! APPLES!

Use your favorite spices to spice up your apples, I happen to use

1 Tbsp of each of these:

cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg and SOMETIMES ginger.  Also throw about 2 Tbsp of sugar on top of those.  let it mix up all nice and throw it in your pie crust.  THEN you get to pour your butter/brown sugar mixture on top of those apples.

Weave your lattice top on there and flute the edges:

A while back The Boyfriend purchased me one of these great pie covers:

This thing makes me so much happier than all those times I tried to wrap foil over the crust, it was such a pain.  You can feel free to cover this thing in foil your you can feel free to purchase one of THESE BABIES from Amazon. And if you’re a prime member it even is available for free shipping.

Toss this thing in the preheated to 375 degree oven for 25 minutes.  You’ll notice I put mine on a foil covered cookie sheet to catch any dripping and there will be plenty, trust me. After 25 minutes take off your shield (or foil) and bake for an additional 25-30 minutes.  Just watch for it to become golden brown.  Mine took some extra time, about 35 minutes I think.

In closing, Old Manlord will not be getting an homemade pies in his mailbox any time soon, lattice pie crusts are not as hard as expected, and Thanksgiving was delightful.

Stay tuned for some new fangled whoopie pies. Totally worth it!