Give away pie winner............

Sharlene's Cranberry-Apple Pie

Our winner in the Pie Give Away is Lisa. Congratulations and may you enjoy every last crumb.

After reading the comments, it struck me that none of my own children mentioned the Cranberry-Apple Pie being their favorite. Hmmmmm. I’ve been making that pie for 43 years. I guess it’s just me and my hubby that love it. As promised, however, I’m giving you the recipe. Try it, you might just love it.

Also, I found it very interesting that most people liked “homemade” pies. Lisa, if you’d prefer a homemade pie, I’m glad to do that or you can choose your favorite pie store and choose from their wonderful selection.

Sharlene’s Cranberry-Apple Pie

Makes one 9” pie

First: make pie crust of your choice

Next: prepare the filling:

Cook: 4 cups (1 pound) fresh cranberries in 1/3 cup water over low heat until berries burst (about 7-10 minutes) Stir several times

Combine: 2 ½ cups Sugar and 1/3 flour; blend into cranberries

Add: 2 cups chopped apples (about 2 medium to large apples)

Heat: to boiling stirring and mixing

Turn: hot filling into pie shell; sprinkle ½ cup blanched almonds, if desired; then criss-cross strips of pie dough for a lattice on top

Bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes

Enjoy!

Pies----give away!

Did anyone see the “Parade” article (Nov. 13) on pies?!  My mouth has been watering ever since.  I can hardly wait for Thanksgiving pies.  I love pies---all kinds.  My mind went floating back to eating Blackberry –White Nectarine pie from Three Babes Bakeshop in San Francisco.  I wonder if they'd deliver one of those to TN? Traditionally I make a Cranberry-Apple Pie and Pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.  But pies of all sorts and flavors arrive to our house on Thanksgiving Day.  It seems one of the daughters always makes a chocolate pie.  In celebration of pies, today’s giveaway is a gift certificate to be used to buy your favorite pie.  And if you don’t like pie, why not buy one for someone else? Or, hey, you could even buy a cake.  Go here and here and here to wet your appetite.

Leave a comment and tell me your favorite kind of pie.  The winner will be announced on Thanksgiving Day—in celebration of pies. Oh, when I announce the winner, I’ll also include my recipe for Cranberry-Apple Pie.

Hiding

In our 23 year old home, we have many favorite spots that the grandchildren enjoy when they visit.  We have a secret passage—fully finished with carpet and lighting going from a bedroom to the bonus room. I’ll blog about that another time. We also have what we call a cubby hole in Joel’s old bedroom, and then when we built some bookshelves and cupboards in the family room, we accidently created another hiding/play place. We had to leave one cupboard space totally empty because of the furnace air return there. The younger grandchildren will crawl inside and we pretend we don’t know where they are.  We call out for them, and then finally, they burst out and say, “Here we are!”  It’s just a nice place to chill when one wants to get away from it all.  While most our grandchildren have hidden from us in this favorite spot, I don’t have a picture of all of them.  But here are a few. 

Let's start with the cubby hole in Joel's old bedroom:



Lydia readies the cubby hole - 2010



Almost ready for company

All set - Cousins Lydia and Hale - 2010

Now let's move downstairs to the favorite hiding space in the family room:

Cousins Koen and Josh enjoy playing - 2005



And why not push plastic cards into the hiding spot?

Cousins Claire and Josh approach the hiding spot - 2005

Cousins Claire and Josh are set - 2007

This pix of Afton and Lydia shows the hiding spot as found in the family room - 2010

Girls just wanna have fun - 2010

Cousins Lydia and Lincoln - 2011

And finally:  Lydia and Afton just a few days ago - 2011

**Coming soon: The secret passage from bedroom to bonus room.