Mum went Scrumping

My mums staying at the moment, not only did she bring loads of fabric, magazines, a massive hamper, a beautiful bracelet, mugs, a spoon rest, cocktail glasses and loads more, she's given me a massive bag of apples! Someone she knows has four or five apple trees and is away for half of the year - if no one took the apples they would just rot. The lady is happy for people to take the apples so mum went round and collected six or so carrier bags full of apples. This is my bag -

The picture is quite deceiving I think - there's an absolute ton in there! I took the picture after taking some out for a crumble as well. The apples are huge!

Mum and I made a apple crumble last night, I'm going to find a few recipes for other things and probably freeze stewed apples this weekend.

First off, I peeled the apples and mum chopped them -

Then I stewed them with sugar, cinnamon and cloves with a little bit of water (excuse the state of the hob...)

 While I did that, mum made the crumble topping -

 Then, once the apples and topping were done I put everything in here -

Forty minutes later we had the most amazing apple crumble! It smelt fantastic too!

Here's the exceptionally simple recipe - 

Apple Crumble 

Ingredients

For the filling -
900g apples
25g brown soft sugar (I used dark but my recipe says light >.<)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves

For the crumble -
110g almonds, chopped
75g salted butter
175g self raising flour
1 dessertspoon cinnamon
110g demerara sugar

Method

Simmer the apples in a little water for 20 minutes or so, until they are all mushy. Stir in the cinnamon, cloves and sugar and simmer for another 5 minutes.

For the crumble, rub the flour and butter together until it resembles crumbs. Mix in the sugar, cinnamon and almonds.

Place the apple mixture into an oven proof dish, put the crumble mix over the top and bake for 30-40 minutes at 200ºc, until golden on top. Leave to stand for 10 minutes then serve with custard or cream or ice cream - whatever you want!

Yum!

More Apples

As the first apple I made was such a success I rooted around in my piles of fabric for some green, pink or red cottons. Found a few and made five more apples last night. I'll be making a load more in the red and green holly leaf fabric for yule, the rest will be displayed all year round (want to find some sort of wire basket to put them in).

I've started reading another book as well (haven't quite finished Kitty Raises Hell yet but I will, I know what happens but still). I had a look through all the books I have in a cupboard in our bedroom trying to decide what to read next. The thing is I've been completely hooked on Urban Fantasy novels for years now, before that I read a lot of crime/thriller stuff - mostly Andy McNab, Jack Higgins and Wilbur Smith. So I decided to get a McNab book out (one of his Nick Stone books, not the non-fiction stuff) and see if I could get into it. So far so good! I'm reading Firewall, the earliest Nick Stone book I have (really need to get the others so I can read it from the start...) and I'm enjoying it. Fingers crossed I enjoy it enough for me to get back into the crime books - I have 50+ of them to read!

Where have I been?!

I've been buried in books...

 
I got the Kim Harrison and Patricia Briggs for my birthday and whizzed through those, both of which were amazing! The Hollows series (by Kim Harrison), Mercy Thompson series (by Patricia Briggs) and the Kitty series (by Carrie Vaughn) are my favourite Urban Fantasy books. I've read each series 5-6 times now.

I re-read two of the Nocturne City books after finding three more buried in a cupboard. The first two were great, the third confused me no end, the fourth had a coincidence that annoyed me and the fifth.. Well, I nearly threw the damned thing out of the window. Yet another massive coincidence that really, really bugged me. It was ridiculous. I did cry at the end though >.<

I've also been doing crafty things, a couple of which I will show you as they are my favourites...

Apples! Little fabric applies with little wooden stalks. I love them! The pattern is from Tidla's Sew Pretty Christmas Homestyle.

And... SPARKLY PINE CONES! I love pine cones. I love glitter. Add some glue to the mix and you end up with these -

I've also been busy starting another sort of blog, don't worry, I wont be abandoning this one! I've just started a blog for hamsters where I can share all the knowledge I have and gain while doing research. So if you have a love for hamsters or have ever thought about getting one as a pet, pop on over to Hamsters Galore.

Well, I hope you're all well, I'm sure I'll be seeing you all before Samhain at the end of this month - looking forward to Samhain? I am! :D