I start my second class in two days. I'm looking forward to it; I'll finally get to see what kind of work load to expect from the rest of my classes. I'm already planning to make Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights my school study nights. Of course I'll be working on school during the weekends too, but spreading out the work over several days a week will be infinitely better than two harried six or eight hour days during which I try to do everything that has to be done. Spreading it out will make me feel less overwhelmed and give me less of a reason to procrastinate, as I was wont to do sometimes during my undergraduate college days.
And so, with the rest of my semester close at hand, I took Sunday as my day off, my day to relax and enjoy. It didn't start out very well. My new laptop wouldn't turn on, so I spent an hour on the phone with Dell Technical Support only to find out that my hard drive is fried. The machine is brand new and I haven't done much except school work on it, so there's no real explanation as to why it died so quickly. Luckily most of my files are still on my old laptop that Scooter (my boyfriend by his pseudonym) now uses. The only exception to this is a school assignment that I had turned in. I learned an important lesson yesterday--always back up school files in another place. After the diagnosis was made for my poor laptop, they informed me that they would send another hard drive to me and I would have it Tuesday. Well, that's a piece a good news!
The rest of the morning was passed playing video games and watching DVDs with Scooter. The weather started warming up outside, promising a beautiful day that shouldn't be spent indoors. Scooter and I decided to make an early dinner, pack it up, and take it to a park with a lake that's near where we live. And what was the menu? Chicken enchiladas (a recipe I love given to me by my best friend), strawberries, root beer, and apple crisp. The food was made, packed into plastic containers, and we headed out to the lake. By this time it was hot outside, and I was ruing the fact that swimming was not allowed in the lake (it's a reservoir).
The lake was still busy, even though it was after 5pm. Families were having barbecues, people were walking their dogs, and there were even some fishermen and women out on the lake in boats enjoying the good weather with their favorite past time. Scooter and I found a spot down on the shore of the lake that was cool and shaded and had a wonderful view of the lake and the surrounding hills. The breeze coming off the water was heavenly and cooled us down after being in the hot sun; I stopped thinking about needing a swim. Even the ducks were friendly, paddling back and forth in the water in front of us, and even coming up on the shore to say hello and see if we had any apple crisp to share with them. Sadly, I am very possessive of any dessert, so there was no apple crisp to share; I doubt it would be very good for them anyway. It was very calming and soothing there on the edge of the water. The sounds of the tiny waves lapping against the shore was a music that I have missed lately. I don't think we'll wait as long to go back to the lake again.
And now for this week's recipe: apple crisp. I melded a couple of recipes together; I took the filling from the spoon cake recipe I posted not long ago, and the topping from the fruit crisp recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (and ad libbed as I sometimes do).
What you'll need:
4-5 medium apples
1 Tsp. cornstarch
1/4 c. + 2 Tsp. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. oats
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. flour
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
3 Tbs. butter
What you'll need to do:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Peel and slice the apples. Put them in a large mixing bowl. Add the cornstarch, sugar, and cinnamon. Mix everything together until the dry ingredients are moistened and let the bowl sit for 10 minutes.
2. In another bowl, mix together the oats, brown sugar, flour, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Add the butter and mix everything together until the topping resembles crumbs.
3. Put the apple mixture into a pie tin. Cover with the topping. Put in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes until it's bubbling.
It's a (relatively) simple and easy dessert to make. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream (or even a little unwhipped cream drizzled over it). It's a positively sweet way to start the week.
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