While I Was Out: Cider the Old-Fashioned Way

So, I'm not a huge fan of cold, but man, have I had some great times this fall!

A few weeks ago, in prime apple-picking season, we drove up to my mom's parents' house on The Mountain to help with cider making! My grandparents restored an old cider press, and when there's a good apple crop, we all head up to help churn out some cider! I'm a superfan of apples, and this is one of my personal favorite ways to consume them, especially now that it's getting cold.

The whole process is really painstaking, and it takes a LOT of apples. They're cut up and crushed using the grinder on the cider press, and then blocks are placed on top and all that delicious juice is pressed out through a cloth. From there, we strained and bottled it up in jugs. Around 20 gallons of cider got made that day. I got to take home about a gallon and a half!

Grandma's deal is that if you come on Cider Day, you work, so there's me turning the press with Uncle Bob.

When I got home, I set out to pasteurizing and pretty-fying my cider. It's pasteurized by gently heating on the stove until just simmering. That way any germs those apples picked up from the ground won't make anybody sick. I also added some sugar and cinnamon extract to sweeten and spice things up a bit! Everything got rebottled in sterilized glass and wrapped in a ribbon! I gave several of these as gifts to people at work and to friends!

This stuff was so good! Such a great welcome to fall! What about you? Did you celebrate the seasons changing this fall?

Edible Reasons to Love America

Happy Fourth of July, y'all!

Up here at the Nuclear Chemistry Summer School, we had a cute little barbecue this afternoon. My goodness was it good. And seeing as how I'm the only Southern lady here, I had to make everyone something delish. And American. And fried. That's right. It was fried apple pie time. Mmm. 

These things are SUPER scrumptious, impressive, and easy to make. Here's what you'll need: 

3 medium Granny Smith apples

1 stick of butter

Cinnamon Sugar [I used about half of a pre-mixed bottle. If you're making it yourself shoot for at LEAST twice as much sugar as cinnamon. It goes a long way.]

2 8-count cans of refrigerated biscuit dough

Vegetable oil

A frying pan

A heat-safe bowl

First, you need to slice your apples up. I just put them right into the pan as I'm slicing to save dishes. Make sure your pan is big enough to contain all your apples.

When they're all in, add your butter and pour on the cinnamon sugar mix. The more the merrier. Cook on medium heat until the apples are tender and the butter-cinnamon-sugar mixture is turning into caramel. Make sure you're always stirring! 

These are looking yummy. After they're all cooked up, transfer them to your heat-safe bowl to cool off a bit. You don't want them cooking your biscuits from the inside. Make sure you get all the caramel sauce you made. 

 I cleaned out this pan and used it to fry to, but you can get another. You'll need about 1/2" of oil in your pan. Like this. 

Once your apples don't burn your fingers, you can start assembling the pies. Take each biscuit and flatten and stretch it out slightly. 

That's about right. Then scoop up 3-5 apple slices and put them right in the middle. Next, fold the biscuit in half over the apples and seal up the edges. The sauce can make this hard to do, but a little water can sometimes help cement that dough together. 

Next, we fry em up! It takes about a minute on each side at low to medium heat. Make sure you're careful, because they can leak and make the oil mad. 

These are looking amazing, aren't they? CAREFULLY take them out and put them in layers on a paper-towel lined plate. I sprinkled more cinnamon sugar on top of each layer. Once they were all fried, I poured the sauce from the apples over the top of the pile. They looked [and tasted] amazing!!!!

In addition to all that yumminess, they also made all THIS yumminess!

Suffice to say, I can't move. This has been a momentous day. Off to fireworks tonight and then the city tomorrow! And I get to see Once this weekend! Amazing!

I hope you had a wonderful Fourth! I know I have! 

Six weeks - Two Bags. Why Packing is Either My Best Or Worst Skill

So.
I'm spending this summer at a national lab doing a nuclear chemistry summer school. I know. It's fancy. Drink it in. Six weeks of learning all the awesome applications of nuclear science? Sign me up. Of course, after I was signed up, I had to fly up here. And that meant packing. For 6 weeks. Including stuff for a dorm and a kitchen. Not to mention the fact that our labs have pretty strict clothing requirements, and the laundry is expensive to do. Needless to say, it definitely presented a challenge. Want to know how I did it? Extreme amounts of luck and some favor from God, probably... but here's my tutorial on packing 6 weeks of clothes [including lab appropriate ones, beach appropriate ones, athletic clothes, and clothes for networking lunches with the foremost experts in this field] in one bag that you can check, under the weight limit of 50 pounds, and completely manage in the airport.

First, you need a good, big, versatile bag. Mine is like this except blue. It was an awesome gift from my mother for Christmas last year, initially intended for my trip to Italy, but it ended up being used for this.

Next, you have to decide about those clothes... I admittedly brought probably a bit more than I needed, but I would rather have everything up here and not get kicked out of lab.

On that note, we're required to wear long pants pretty much every day [ugh] so I brought 9 pairs, including basic skinny and bootcut jeans, dress pants, colored and patterned jeans, and sweats.

                           

I'm a big fan of packing by rolling, so that's how they went in. Next came blazers, jackets, and cardigans. It gets pretty cold at night here sometimes..

Next were some shorts, T shirts, athletic clothes, and dresses that ranged from beachy to appropriate for nice dinners. I had to start building into the top clothes section of the bag for this. You'll see why that's so awesome in a minute.

                                
                                
                                


I also added two swimsuits, pajamas, and a few more tops for normal to dressed up days.
                                 

All cozy in there...
                                 
In that top compartment with the zippered flap, I put a couple of trash bags over the opening and got all my normal shoes [athletic shoes, flip flops, nice sandals, and some canvas slip-ons] along with my "sturdy, closed-toed shoes" for lab nice and happy in there. Then it was super easy to zip up and make sure everything was nice and safe for the flight. And it all came in at under 45 pounds.
                                 
                                 


There was also a box of beauty supplies that went in.
                                  

For some reason, I didn't get a picture of the thing fully packed, but it was super manageable. I had a second checked bag with all of the things for my room up here [I'll spare you the saga of wrapping my Keurig in bath towels and praying for the whole flight that it made it here safely], but it was just as easy to deal with.

Basically, the goal with packing is to manage the space in your bag as wisely as you can. Having good luggage really helps with that. My bag has lots of ways to get at the stuff inside and lots of ways to carry it. It's a good little guy and I highly recommend it.