fruit trees

Stress baking

~ MaryG ~ 26 Comments

I gotta say, this whole situation with the midterm election (and Trump’s plan to undermine it), the mess in the Middle East, inflation, AI coming for us…and on and on…is…STRESSFUL.

Baking with fruit from our own trees is a good counterbalance to the news.

A friend’s trip to Germany inspired me to try making apple strudel for the first time. My husband cut-up the last of our Winesap apples and we used a recipe I found online.
I have very little experience baking with puff pastry. It turns out the timing of when you take it out of the freezer is a key.
There were dots of butter under the top sheet of puff pastry, which I brushed with milk.
After 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven
Amazing. No ice cream needed.

The midterm elections have begun. VOTE like your life depends on it, because it does. VOTE early if you can.

Find voter information here.

Fruit trees

~ MaryG ~ 38 Comments

We hired the young man who plowed our driveway last winter to help install my husband’s new vegetable garden (aka The Retirement Garden), which will have four large raised beds, irrigation, and a deer fence. (Fingers crossed the kid is up to the job. The soil where the fence posts need to get sunk in is very hard.)

In the meantime, a few of the many fruit trees my husband planted about twenty years ago have survived deer and other blights and are producing fruit. And for some reason, this year, the squirrels are missing in action. Typically, they would’ve had these trees stripped by now.

I made my first ever pie from the apples in our yard yesterday.

According to Google,
“Winesap apples are a classic American heirloom variety prized for their deep, cherry-red skin, exceptionally crisp texture, and unique, tangy, wine-like flavor. Dating back to the colonial era, they are famous for an intense sweet-tart profile with spicy undertones, making them a premier choice for fresh eating, cider brewing, and baking.”
My Winesap apple pie was really good. I used the basic recipe that’s printed in the bottom of my pie plate, but these apples definitely have a complex, spicier taste than the usual store-bought varieties.
Thank you squirrels for taking a vacation this year.
Bosc pear tree
Asian pear tree
I have done some baking with our Asian pears in the past, but they’re very sweet. They’re best eaten fresh off the tree.
These beautiful pears are hanging just out of my reach, untouched by squirrels. We finally broke down and ordered a fruit picking tool so we can get these down, but it’s not being delivered until Tuesday. 😕 I really I hope we beat the squirrels to these.
And here’s a throwback photo (August 2002). Check out that harvest. My husband grew all that food! He actually remembers the exact moment he went Organic after reading the ingredients on a bag of grub killer at our first house in Canton, MA in 1995.

Growing some of our own food again has become increasingly appealing in Trump’s America. Between skyrocketing food prices, never ending news of American food supply contaminations, and now an absolutely ridiculous trade war with Canada, we want to put our sunny yard back to doing something useful.