Cloudy Skies and Apple Pies

My oldest child has been learning about couplets in school so of course once she came home she was excited to share with me all of the couplets that she could think of. Then I shared with her all of the couplets I could think of. She thought I was pretty awesome and was happy to have some inspiration to help her think of more. We went back a forth for a while. Who knew couplets could be such fun? With this still fresh in my mind yesterday when I woke up as soon as I realized that the day would be cloudy I immediately thought cloudy skies and apple pies and decided to bake an apple pie. (I really am that big of a dork sometimes)

I went to my mom's house to get her pie crust recipe and as she pulled out the old cook book that she has turned to for the base of many of her recipes over the years I was on the verge of giddy. The old cookbook has a missing front cover and the string from the binding hangs precariously. I treated it as if I were holding a book of secrets. I asked her which page the recipe is on and very carefully turned the pages afraid to cause any more damage to the book that has been around my whole life when my mom came over flopped the book open to the correct page. That's my mom for you, how the book has not disintegrated yet is beyond me.

With the "ancient" pie crust recipe in hand I headed home to search the internet for a filling for my pie. I came across a recipe that looked promising and went to work on it. I also decided that while I was waiting for the dough to chill I would work on dinner. So here I am home alone with two kids making a ham, mashed potatoes and vegetables and an apple pie all at one time.  Needless to say things started to fall apart rather quickly. The kids were in the midst of their "witching hour" and between their loud playing and intermittent bursts of arguing I struggled with my patience. I tried to hurry the pie up and wound up pouring the pie filling directly into the bottom crust rather that over the lattice top as per the recipe, so at that point I decided to make a one piece pie top crust. I threw it over the top and hoped for the best. It was also at this point that I realized that almost all the water had boiled out of the potatoes. So now I also had mashed potatoes that had a really strange chewy texture. I think I was the only one who noticed because two very hungry, tired kids are not the best food critics.

 So that was my adventure for the day couplets, clouds and pie. Thank goodness the man of the house returns home today, I need someone to reign me in before I get anymore bright ideas. By the way the pie was fabulous.