Apple Pie

Bill and Kayleigh both have work and school today but I got half day off for the holiday.  I had planned from the beginning to go grocery shopping this afternoon.  It seemed like a good idea to leave that until today so that we could do more fun things on the weekend.  I finished that pretty quickly since the store was deserted and thought I would come home, go for a run, and then bake a pie.  Next thing I knew, I had completely skipped the run and went straight for the pie baking.  Oh well, can't win them all!  Actually the pie will be done at 4 PM so I have time to get the run in.  I have a sneaky feeling it won't happen though.

This is a plain old apple pie but we love it.  The filling part is from Lee Bailey's "The Way I Cook" although it is a really basic recipe that I probably could have come up with on my own.  He calls for butter (or margarine in my case) to be placed on top of the filling but, frankly, I forget every single time so I figure it isn't necessary.

My mom gave me the pie crust recipe when I went away to college.  The funny thing is every time she has pie at my house, she always says, "I have to get your crust recipe"!  She swears hers never tastes like mine. I posted the crust recipe back in June but I'll repeat it here so you don't have to go look for it.

Apple Pie:

Pie crust:
2 2/3 cup flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup oil
6 tablespoons non-dairy milk

Mix together the flour and salt.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil and milk.  Add to the flour mixture and stir with a fork.  Cut in half and roll the crust between wax paper.

Place the rolled out crust in a pie plate.

Filling:
4 cups peeled and sliced apples
1 cup sugar (*see note below)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Zest of half a lemon
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Mix all filling ingredients together.  Place in the pie crust, heaping slightly in the middle.  Roll out the second pie crust and place on top.  Crimp the top and bottom crusts together.  Cut a few slits in the top crust to let out the steam.

Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes.  Lower the oven to 350 degrees and bake for 30 more minutes.

NOTE: I usually cut the sugar in half when I'm using regular sugar.  This time I used coconut nectar though, which seems to be much less sweet so I used the full cup.

Active day - I am tired!

It was bad enough that I returned to a full-time job.  Then it started getting dark earlier.  That means that I basically come home every night and just sit around on the couch.  It is one thing to be too lazy to exercise but seriously, too lazy to blog?  That is really lazy!

Actually the main reason I haven't posted is that I have three main topics on this blog.  First, exercise.  I already commented about how I can't seem to figure out how to work and exercise all in the same day.  Second, food.  I now work until 5:00 which means my husband does all the cooking during the week which means I'm never in the kitchen.  Third, happiness.  Back to the working thing again.  I feel like I don't have time to think about things that make me happy because I spend all my time working or staring blankly at the TV.

But that all changed today because it was parent/teacher conferences.  I took the day off since Kayleigh was off and it was fantastic.  First of all, the weather was beautiful.  It started out around 50 and got up to almost 80 but it was sunny all day.

Kayleigh had cross country practice at 9:00 this morning so I dropped her off and then went to the park for a run.  I was a little worried because I haven't worked out the last couple weeks and I can't even remember the last time I went for a run.  I have been running around a lot at her meets but that isn't the same thing.  So I decided to start off slow and see how it went.  I ended up running 3 miles in about 35 or 36 minute which isn't too bad.  I then walked for about 5 minutes then ran a cool down of 1 more mile.  It took a total of about 50 minutes.  I felt like I could have gone even longer just because it was so nice to be outside running.
Then we went out to lunch with a friend of mine who Kayleigh has seen in years.  After that we had to go to the conferences which was actually really fast.  The only teacher I wanted to talk to wasn't there so we grabbed her report card, talked to her coach for a minute, then headed out.

Kayleigh's cross country team has sectionals next Tuesday.  This is the first year she is in varsity so her first time competing.  Her coach gave us a map of the course because it is different from last year.  We decided to head over to the park and check out the new route.  We ended up getting really confused in the woods so hopefully they mark it well.  We walked about 2 miles probably and raced up and down the hill.

It felt so good be outside today and moving around instead of sitting at a desk.  But, after all that activity, I am exhausted!  Think I'll head back to the couch - but with less guilt today than usual.

Since I haven't been blogging the last two months I should add that Kayleigh is having a fantastic season.  She has knocked about 4-5 minutes off her 5K time which is amazing.  Here she is in action.  That is her in purple.  This meet finishes on the track which is fun to watch.

Here is her team after that same meet.  It was an Invite with about 20 teams and they got 3rd place.  Kayleigh is #648.

We are very proud of her and I love to see her new-found confidence in her running.