Adventures In Stacyland

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Caramel Apple-Cran-Orange-Cherry Pie!

My mom says I need sponsors, and I should blog more. So she is baking a pie RIGHT NOW that takes LOTS of preparation, and I am going to blog about it!

I haven't really done a "recipe" style blog before, so I'm going to give it a shot! You know, the kind everyone always repins on pinterest. Where the blogger shares tidbits about his/her life between photos and instructions.

The pie is called Caramel Apple-Cherry Pie. Prep time is 2 hrs. Bake time is 1 hr. 15 mins. Chill time is 40 mins. She found the pie in Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

Of course, the recipe tells you how to make the pie crust, but my mom isn't all about making pie crust. She's all about unrolling pie crust from Pillsbury!

It does the trick. In fact, I didn't even know she didn't make it until I was a teenager, and I wanted to know how to make pie.

So there's your recipe for pie crust from me: go buy one! Until I learn how to make one, if even then, that's how I make mine. :)

To prepare the crust for the filling, you have to bake it at 375 for 20 minutes. With no filling... so weigh it down with beans. You are right, that sounds silly. First you have prick the bottom and sides of it with a fork, refrigerate it for 20 minutes, then line it with parchment. THEN you can fill the parchment with dried beans or pie weights and put it in the oven.

So it's called "Caramel Apple-Cherry Pie," but the "Cherry" portion is actually "Cran-Orange-Cherry." Actually, they call that part of the recipe the "Cranberry Compote:"

1 12 oz bag fresh cranberries
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup orange juice (Mom squeezed fresh mandarin oranges!)
2 tsp. finely shredded orange peel
20 fresh sweet cherries, pitted, or 1 cup frozen unsweetened pitted dark sweet cherries. (We used canned ones, juice drained).

Basically, you put the cranberries, sugar, juice, and peel and a little salt into a pot. Cook it over medium heat until the cranberries pop, stirring occasionally. Then, gently stir in the cherries when it begins to thicken. Then you need to remove it from heat so it can cool.

The Caramel Apple Filling, which by the way is DELICIOUS just by itself, has the following ingredients.

8 tart baking apples such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and sliced 1/4" thick. (2 pounds or so)
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp. finely shredded lemon peel
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flower
1tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1/4 cup whipping cream (Mom didn't have whipping cream, so she used 1/4 cup evaporated milk.)
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract
1 egg
and 2 to 3 tbsp coarse sugar.

For the apple part, toss together apples, lemon juice, and lemon peel in a large bowl. Then in a little bowl put brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp salt. Mix that together and then sprinkle it over the apples, stirring gently to coat them.
Melt some butter in a large pot (to fit your apples) over medium heat. Add your apple mixture and cook for around 5 minutes, stirring it frequently. Add whipping cream (evaporated milk) and vanilla. Continue cooking, & stirring until the juices thicken and the apples are tender- about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool completely.
Then take a freaking bite cuz it's delicious.

So you should also cut your top pie crust into cute little shapes. BH&G used leaves, but we used trees and moons.

Then you are ready to fill up your pie!!

So after you made the crust golden brown and you got your fillings cool, you layer them inside like lasagna. 1/3 of your cherries, half your apples, 1/3 of your cherries, half your apples, then dollop the rest of the cherries on.

Then put brush the crust edge with egg wash, and put your shapes on there (connect the edge ones to the edge), and brush those, too.

When that's done, you are supposed to sprinkle the pie with coarse sugar. Well we didn't have any, so Mom decided on pink sprinkles! :)

That's it! Stick it in the oven and bake it for 40 minutes. Cover edges with foil and bake 10-15 minutes more. You may want to put a pan below the pie to catch the drippings. Mom put a piece of parchment paper on the pan.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Thrive Again

So here I am. I just got off work a little while ago, and Les, Ryan, and I are discussing some things about a house we used to rent. I started to look through old pictures, and I came across an emotional rollercoaster.
Here’s the deal. I will not ever go back to where I was when I started with 41 sports. I weighed over 230lbs. I wore a size 18 pants. I didn’t like life very much. When I “cooked” dinner, it meant pulling something, anything, out of the freezer and preheating the oven to 400 degrees, or putting a pot of water on the stove to boil it. I.e. frozen pizza, pasta, burritos, appetizers... you get the idea. The things I kept in my refrigerator were eggs, milk, sausage links, butter, turkey lunch meat, beef lunch meat, mayonnaise.... In my cupboards I had fruity pebbles, bread, canned veggies, manwich, pasta, pasta sauce, pop tarts...

At that point in my life, the highlight of my day... the biggest thing that got me out of the house... was putting on enough clothes to go down and check the mail. Even if that just meant pulling on PJ pants and a sweatshirt in the 80 degree sun. I occasionally walked to the apartment mailboxes barefoot. I rarely brushed my hair. I went to bed at 3am and woke up after noon or one. Miserable is the best word I can think of to describe it. Pathetic would be second-best.

So looking through old photos today, first I find these old photos of me.
The me I was when I was with 41 Sports.

I took lots of photos in the mirror, as I kept getting new clothes when I was losing weight.

Granted, eating nutritionally, and incorporating fitness in my life left even less time for me to motivate myself to clean house, so many of the photos I never shared because of the disaster-area behind me. I am working on the organization problem. Regardless of the mess, I took the photos for myself, and to text to close friends. I was proud of my body, my life, and my accomplishments.

I was writing daily, going to school, doing my homework, playing with the dog. Sometimes I even forgot to look through the mail.

I went through some tough shit that year, for lack of better wording. Bootcamp pulled me through it. Although sometimes they dragged me kicking and screaming, I got along. Even if that meant running in the snow. Even if that meant doing pull-ups on the swing set. I remember once, I was awake at 5am still from the previous day. I was so stressed I could not sleep. I asked Anthony what I should do about all my stress and energy.
He said, “Run.”

So I did. I ran 3 miles at 5am. I even met up with the 5am bootcamp group before running home. In the dark. I ran passed the grocery store and I could smell the bakery. I remember running through a puddle and smiling wildly. When I got home, I got right in bed, and though my fiance (now husband) was very confused, I fell asleep happy, and proud of myself.

So back to a few minutes ago, I’m looking at all these pictures and thinking, “man I’ve really got to get back on top of this,” and thinking, “could I really be back where I started? I thought I would never let myself get this bad...”
And then, I found the oldest pictures. The pictures from BEFORE I started.

And I am not at that point. I will not let that happen. I WILL strive to be better. I will continue to drop pounds, and sizes. Yes, I will hit ruts I’m sure. But I am hoping they will never last this long again.

(Me and my hubby, recently)

I miss boot camp. I miss the support of the group, but I know in my heart that they are there for me. They are all rooting for me, and I know I have been letting them down. I know for a fact that Anthony has been worried about me.

We are about to move again. I will let this move be a great thing for me. I am going to thrive again.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Rainbow Dash

Mom took these & edited them. I ended up with the light blue shrug (on the left and bottom picture) because mama made it for me out of an old t-shirt when I expressed my dismay that mine was purple.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Halloween 2012

Inspiration:

Components:

Results to follow.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Yes, my facebook is deactivated. For now.

I've been keeping sort of a diary on google drive. I'll post stuff that isn't incredibly private here to periodically update my friends. :) Here is what I wrote today about facebook.

So I haven’t written every single day. But here I am, writing again. It’s Sunday, and I have just deleted my facebook. Well “deactivated” it, not deleted it. Because for some reason, once you have a facebook, you can never *not* have a facebook. I go back and forth on social networking sites.
It’s like this. Things like facebook are a wonderful advancement in technology. The possibilities of facebook and google+ and other such sites are endless. But these possibilities include causing anxiety issues. See, mentally, facebook is a setback for its users. Especially for me. In fact, if you just do some simple research, there are several articles about the detrimental facebook addiction.
Here are some signs you may have a problem, found on various sites:

You check your facebook or feel an urge to check your facebook in these places:

In bed
On the bus
In a car
During a movie

You check your facebook first thing in the morning, possibly before even using the restroom or having your coffee.
If you check your facebook multiple times in an hour, or even every hour.
When at your computer, you occasionally have facebook open in more than one tab.
You become agitated when you do not have access to facebook. (Frustration when your internet goes down, or your phone loses signal, and you can’t post a status or whatever)
You have other things you’d rather be doing (hobbies/activities), but instead you find yourself browsing the newsfeed.
The majority of your “friends” are people you would never talk to in real life.

There are more signs, but these are the main ones. I found this very cool graphic which I pulled many of those from: http://www.adweek.com/files/adfreak/images/Facebook-Addiction.png

It suggests that facebook may be more difficult to avoid than alcohol, tobacco, sex, and even sleep.

How often do you think to yourself “ok, I should really go to bed now,” then spend another hour or more on facebook? Maybe you have a book you’d really like to be reading, a friend you should be but instead you are reading a really intense thread on facebook where people are arguing marriage rights or sharing what they put in their coffee.

When I step back and think about it, I am like holy crap - who gives a shit?!

But I have totally been in that situation.

Then there are those million times per day that you see something, say something, watch something, hear something, do something, take a picture of something, accomplish something, fail at something, wonder something, think of something... etc. And you have this crazy weird urge. This urge to share it with all your facebook friends and see what they all have to say about it.

Do you remember when that urge was to call your best friend and tell them? Or to call your significant other? Or how about that feeling of satisfaction knowing you just did something awesome, and leaving it at that?

For example, I have just deleted my facebook and have since thought of a million things I’d like to share on there. I’ve seen two youtube videos I’d like to share, thought of two friends I’d like to message, and a couple statuses I’d wanted to post. That’s ridiculous. I’ve only been deactivated for an hour.

So friends, what does an addiction mean for society? Social anxiety, withdrawal symptoms, anxiety from game requests, responding to friends, etc. You are constantly worried about it, especially with those push notifications to your phone. Oh Meghan just posted a picture, I better see how cute Ellie looks today! Eryn just posted a status, I hope things are ok, better read it. Then it’s I better comment on what they’re saying! Holly b’jeezus no wonder we feel too busy to do anything!

Anyway, I am going to stop writing for now. I need to go to my neice’s birthday dinner/party.

Any Thoughts?

=)

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Lessons In Language

Today I happened upon this video. It is a very detailed video about speaking Pirate, which definitely has its own grammar, tone, and words. I love videos like this! It reminded me of this oldie but goodie!

I wonder when we'll see more good ones? How about speaking like yoda? :)

Here is one of the awesome language videos we watched in my linguistics class. I find language fascinating. Don't you?

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Toothache

So, I have a forum on FB that I share with a few of my closest friends. I was trying to post this first post on normal fb with my phone last night (the screen can be dulled, so it wasn't too bright like my monitor) but it wouldn't let me post any statuses. So I put it in Besties. I also updated them today. But I wanted to share my toothache story with you guys, too. So here's what's going on.

I'll try to post again after the dentist.

Stacy Morgison

I was brain dead at work today. Then I clock off and as I'm walking to the front of the store my tooth starts hurting. By the time I reach my car, my whole head hurts, which amplifies the tooth ache.
I text my friend that we'll need to meet in the a.m. instead, and it gets worse. I text mom, "migraine from tooth ache" ....it gets exponentially bad. So bad I am closing my eyes cuz parking lot lights are too bright.

I had to call Les and have him pick me up.
2 naproxen, some water, and I walk in house, eyes shut. Get in hot hot shower. And just when I think, as I'm on the shower floor under the nice hot water, that it can't get worse, it does, and I start bawling.
It feels like its been hours... but I clocked off at 8pm.

Anyway.... now its back to a toothache and slight headache. I'm going to bed before it flares back up.

Stacy Morgison

So, an update on the toothache. Went to bed, tried everything to fall asleep, but my teeth were still a bit sore. Then.... it flared up again. SO BAD. I took 2 ibuprophen. I crushed one and dissolved it and swooshed it against my teeth, then spat it out.... thinking maybe it will dull the pain if it goes directly to the source.
Well having cool water in my mouth made it feel a little better so I got back in bed with high hopes.
No Such Luck.

Within 2 minutes I was having shooting pain again. It hurt my whole jawline, my head, my cheek bones... I cried. I sat up. I rubbed my toes. I rocked back and forth. I rubbed my face, my head, my neck.

I got back in the hot shower, it didn't help. As I was walking to the shower I told Les to call mom and figure out something. A little while later I was back in bed, freezing (did I mention this whole time I was colder than ice? Even in the hot shower, everything not touching water was freezing. Even in my car waiting for Les to pick me up. Even in bed under 3 big blankets) .

Mom came home with some orogel like stuff caled benzydine or something. I rubbed that ALL OVER, on my teeth, gums, all the way to the back of my mouth, and the roof of my mouth. Surrounded all the problem teeth.

Do you know the stuff that they put on your gums just before they give you the Novocaine shot? That's all it was.

It tingled and buzzed and also continued to hurt like fucking hell.

The pain made me nauseous. It was after midnight.

Then it was one... still in pain

Les was next to me snoring and my shrieking every time the pain spiked kept waking him up.

two a.m.

I go floss my teeth. I think, if I could just rub my gums. If I could just rub them maybe they'd settle...

Then I am back in bed, there is far less pain. I fall asleep. Then 30 minutes later, the pain makes me sit straight up, wide awake, scared.

I go to the bathroom and floss again. I think... this worked once... maybe it will again.

It did... I finally was able to fall asleep somewhere around 3:30 this am. Of course, my tooth is still at an ache, but we are at a 3 on a 1-10 scale whereas last night I was at a 12. Now I have a dentist appt for 11:40.

Idk what the fuck they did to my teeth when I got my fillings the other day but they god damn better fucking fix it.