Standing at the sink

Before next apple season I need to make a purchase. I spent way to much time standing in front of my kitchen sink peeling apples with a knife. Many interesting things happen while a mother is so occupied with fruit. Chick #3 pick up a Bob book and started to read it by herself. My oldest daughter, Chick #1 watch me a long time and thought that it looked to be the funnest thing in the world. She was amazed that the knife could touch my thumb with every cut and not injure me. She thought that maybe she should try but I am not ready to have my oldest daughter cutting apples with really sharp knives. I do not know what it is with mothers but we are always trying to hold that first child back. "Oh, they are not old enough yet", we tell ourselves. Then we have a third and fourth and they show us how wrong we were and how capable and inventive they can be. My poor hand started to ache from pealing and cutting up so many apples.


I made one really nice batch of applesauce and it tasted just wonderful. Never have I tasted applesauce with such flavor. Well. once when I was at my friends house, she served us some of her applesauce and it was very tasty. I figured that this year I would make it down to the apple orchard and buy a mess of apples so I could try it for myself. I kept that sauce as natural as possible by only adding a little cinnamon and brown sugar after the apples had cooked down.
Then I placed the sauce in jars and gave them a nice hot water bath. Don't the jars look so beautiful? I do not know what it is with food in canning jars, it just make me feel all warm inside. Oh, wait I am all warm inside because I had to do all of the hard work to get the scrumptious food in those pretty jars.
Of course a bunch of apples could not survive in my house with finding their way into a pie. I have a goal in my life to make a perfect looking apple pie that also tastes wonderful. I was close yet again but have not yet mastered it. I simply loved the way that my pie looked after it was done. The crust worked well for me while I was rolling it and placing it in the pan. But when I cut open the cooked pie is was hollow on the top. The apples had cooked down and the crust had stayed in its place. I am not sure how to fix this problem. I pressed the apples firmly down into the pie plate. Maybe it was the egg wash that I put onto the crust. Could it be that it got to firm and then the crust could not settle down onto the apples? I do not know. It sure does taste good with ice cream! Yum!