Oktoberfest Quiche

I am not normally one to go off-book when it comes to recipes. I love following directions. I love rules. I am not a confident cook. However, I had this idea to make an Oktoberfest or German themed quiche to bring to a Fest potluck with the other residents in our apartment building. I searched Pinterest and did not come up with anything exactly like what I had in mind, so I combined ideas from a couple different recipes and came up with my own Oktoberfest Quiche. It is a little risky serving something you have never made or tried before, but it turned out pretty tasty! 

This was my first time wearing my brand new dirndl! I am in love with it and so glad I found it in the sale section. Not only did I save a bunch compared to buying a current season style, but I had my eye on this exact one from my online browsing. Finding it in my size at 50% off made my day! And of course Suzie was a big hit in her "dirndl". 

In addition to my Oktoberfest Quiche, I brought my German Apple Cake. This is one of my favorite things in life and this time I made a salted caramel frosting instead of the typical vanilla buttercream. Yummy! It's not authentically German AT ALL! Germans would never make something that sweet, but it was made with apples we picked in Germany, so that makes it more legitimate to me. 

Apple Cider Rum Punch

During the fall there is nothing more refreshing and delicious than a glass of apple cider. I'll take it in just about any form--cold, hot, slushy... I was attending a social function and wanted to bring a fall beverage for everyone to enjoy and ran across a recipe for apple cider rum punch. I had to settle for grocery store apple cider, but I bet this would be even better with some freshly pressed cider. 

Post card display

My brother-in-law and his wife love to travel. Many years ago, he started sending up post cards from his vacations. I have kept them in a photo box over the years, but I thought it would be nice to display them.

For another project/event, a purchased an old window frame from an antique store. I accidentally broke the glass pane inside and thought it was a lost cause. But then I thought I could attach chicken wire to it and hang post cards on it!

The window frame from Spouses Night Out, Goodfellow AFB, TX theme

That idea came to me over a year ago and I finally completed the project!

Tending my garden

Growing up, my mom was always gardening. We moved just about every three years (unrelated to the military), so she had a lot of opportunities to start new gardens. And for the most part we always lived in new construction houses, so the yard was a clean slate to begin with. However, while I was younger did I have any interest in gardening? Of course not. That changed once we had our first town house in Ohio.

While renting, we were pretty limited in what we could do in the yard of each house we have lived in. We have planted several flowers and such in containers, but that is hit and miss with me.

When we moved here and bought our first house, I had my first real chance at a garden. This is a new construction house, so the yard was a clean slate. It came with grass and some plants in the front flower beds, but everything else was on us.

Being an environmentally-friendly person, I was most interested in creating a bee/butterfly/hummingbird garden. Bees are essential to our food production system. Pesticides and such are causing large amounts of casualties among bee communities, so planting bee friendly plants and flowers and avoiding pesticide use is super helpful. I made my list of plants and flowers to look out for and headed to Lowe's.

Chocolate mint

Citronella...my attempt to keep the mosquitoes at bay

More herbs

Lime basil and lemon balm both smell fantastic!

The cilantro (behind the salvia) has doubled in size over the past two weeks. I better start using it before it's taller than me.

We also wanted to plant some fruits and veggies. We had a tomato plant in California that did really well and we wanted to try a few other things.

Two apple trees and a magnolia tree

Strawberry flower

Okra

Broccoli

We planted three blueberry plants. Two are really tiny and we're hoping they grow nice and tall with lots of blueberries.

Watermelon! We attempted watermelon while in California, but it never really produced anything. Here's to attempt #2!

Grand Rapids, Michigan

The next day of our Michigan sojourn was spent in Grand Rapids. The only thing I knew about the city before visiting was that my Mom went to college there. We ended up driving by the school at one point.

We started our day by walking around the extensive Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. I loved the juxtaposition of natural, plant life with man-made sculptures. There were so many amazing pieces throughout the gardens!

This sculpture is by Kiki Smith. The name immediately sounded familiar and it's because one of her pieces, Wolf Girl, was shown in a Gilmore Girls episode. I also featured Wolf Girl at my Gilmore Girls themed birthday party.

After the Gardens, we headed to Robinette's Apple Haus for lunch. Walking in, it smelled amazing from all the apple cider donuts and other goodies. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed sitting outside at one of their picnic tables and did some people-watching. Later my mom was telling us she would go here for lunch while in college.

Easy Scrapbooking: Apple picking

Charles and I visited Apple Hill and picked a bunch of apples. It was so much fun to decide what apples to pick. We left with a big box full of apples and lots of ideas of what to make with them.

The page is simple, of course. It took me some time to decide what to do for the "title." I finally ended up with the list of types of apples. It is appropriate for our apple picking excursion because we came across many of these varieties. You wouldn't believe how many different types there are! During apple season we always find a new variety when we visit the grocery store.

Thanksgiving dessert: German Apple Cake

As I mentioned in my Thanksgiving entry, I made a couple desserts to accompany the sweet potato pie that came with our meal. Usually I make Caramel Apple Pecan Pie for this holiday, but I wanted to make something different. For our Oktoberfest party I made an apple cake that was AMAZING! I knew it would be a hit at Thanksgiving, too. Of course, I found the recipe on Pinterest. To see the original recipe, click here.

German Apple Cake

Ingredients
2 large eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 3/4 cup white sugar
1 t vanilla
2 cups flour
2 t cinnamon
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
4 cups thinly peeled and sliced apples (Granny Smith are my favorite)

Frosting
1 8oz pkg cream cheese
3 T melted butter
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

*Since my husband does not like cream cheese, I just made regular vanilla frosting from the Betty Crocker Big Red cookbook

Directions
Preheat over to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 baking dish.
Add oil to eggs in mixer and beat until foamy. Add the sugar and vanilla; mix. Add the flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Mix together. Add apples by folding in with a spoon. The batter will be very thick. It seems like there are more apples than batter. This is normal.
Bake for 50 to 60 minutes.

Make frosting. If following recipe for cream cheese frosting, she said add a little milk if it's too thick.

The season for apples

With the long Labor Day weekend, we intended to visit Eureka and check out the Avenue of the Giants along the way. However all last week I was feeling under the weather and had not quite recovered by the weekend. On Saturday, we spent some time in Folsom and stayed the night. On Sunday we visited Apple Hill which has tons of apple farms and other great spots for fall treats.

Charles love, love, loves apples so our first stop was to Denver Dan's for apple picking. They had a ton of different varieties. Charles filled two buckets of apples. We also purchased some apple cider to enjoy after walking around in the warm, September afternoon. It was so refreshing!

Our next stop was the Fudge Factory Farm. Near the fudge shop were a bunch of tents each with different handmade goods. It was fun to walk around and see all the different items for sale.

With our car full of apples, we headed home. It was a great day!

Bread Machine: Caramel Apple Pecan Bread

I apologize in advance, but I do not have any pictures to share.

We decided to make some bread specifically to use for French toast. I gave Charles a few options from the Betty Crocker bread machine cookbook and he chose Caramel Apple Pecan Bread. I have to say he made an excellent choice.

Ingredients

1 1/2 lb loaf
1 cup water (of course we had to add a little extra because it is so dry here)
2 Tablespoons butter, softened
3 cups bread flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons yeast
1/2 cup chopped unpeeled apple (like a Granny Smith)
1/3 cup coarsely chopped pecans (it says toasted, but we didn't toast ours)

2 lb loaf
1 1/4 cup water
2 Tablespoons butter
4 cups bread flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons yeast
2/3 cup chopped apple
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Place all ingredients, except apple and pecans, in bread machine pan in order recommended by manufacturer. Add apple and pecans at the Raisin/Nut signal.

Select Sweet or Basic/White cycle. Light crust color. Do not use delay option.

I used the Betty Crocker Big Red recipe for french toast. I am a recipe follower, but french toast batter can usually be done without one. I did add cinnamon to the batter.

Caramel Apple Pecan Pie

A couple years ago, I found a recipe for a Caramel Apple Pecan pie (probably in a magazine, but I don't remember). It sounded so delicious! I decided to make it for Thanksgiving that year. When I took my first bite, I thought it was the most amazing apple pie I had ever tasted and decided to make it every Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow, after work, I'll be making this pie, but I wanted to go ahead and share the recipe with you. It's so easy to make, especially if you use store-bought pie crust. I love to bake, but I am intimidated by pie crust. And my kitchen is pretty tiny, so I don't have much room for rolling out a pie crust anyway.

Caramel Apple Pecan Pie

Ingredients:
2 9" pastry shells or pie crusts (don't buy Pilsbury... they have trans fat)
4 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced (you could use a different kind of apple, but I love Granny Smith. You kind of need that tart to balance out the sweet from the caramel. And it says to slice them, but I just chop them into bite size pieces)
1/2 cup chopped pecans (you can omit these if you don't like nuts)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 lb chopped Caramels (I use Werther's)
2 Tablespoons flour
1/4 cup milk
Milk and sugar for the top

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a bowl, toss together apples, pecans, sugar, caramels, flour and milk.Spoon mixture into pie crust. Top with other pie crust. Pinch together edges. Cut slits into the top (our your initials to be fun). Brush top with milk and sprinkle with sugar (this just gives it a nice shimmer).

Bake until crust is golden brown, about 45 minutes.

Sound easy, huh? It definitely is! I hope you enjoy!

* This post was shared on the following Link Parties:

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