Grandma's Apple Crisp Pie {CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE}

Welcome to the all NEW and IMPROVED - CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE
October Challenge - APPLE PIE

We are in our second month of our second year of the CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE, you can read all about it and join in next month (it may be too late to make an Apple Pie for today, but you never know, some people are crazy cooks like me and can whip one out in no time at all.) But, for those of you who read about the challenge last month and are prepared to share your Apple Pie with us today, we are SO excited to see what you made.

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For those of you who have already participated this past year, you know how this is done, check out the NEW & IMPROVED information here. If you are new here come on over and check out how to jump on board this wild and crazy, CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE. You can read all the details and get all the codes for you to link up, join in and get this great linky party added to your CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE post.

Last month we made Ranch Dressing and next month we will be doing Stuffing Recipes (like Turkey Stuffing or some call it Dressing), ya know that stuff we all have on Thanksgiving day. But today it's all about apples and Apple Pie.

So, after another great day of fresh Apple Picking with a couple of friends (actually one of them are my twins girl friends, but since their away at college, I just steal their friends and call them my own). Nikki, Kristina and I had an awesome day picking apples, raspberries and then came home to bake all day.

Everyone who wishes to join in on this challenge, all you need to do is add the CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE BUTTON (grab the code above) and make sure your Apple Pie includes the BLOG HOP Linky Party (code is below the linky party, click on BLOG HOP CODE) or you wont be able to link up. We hope you join us in this CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE....

Just an FYI - CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE is always on the 7th of every month and will post at MIDNIGHT. Here is a SNEAK PEAK for the next couple of months, so everyone can think ahead and be prepared for the themes.

November 7, 2012 - STUFFING Recipes (dressing)
December 7, 2012 - PERFECT SUGAR COOKIE
January 7, 2013 - FRENCH TOAST

I have been practicing all week with Apple Pies (the first one we made was this Dutch Apple Pie, it was SO GOOD I am not sure I can top it, but it was for the SRC and is already posted on my blog), so I keep trying to come up with an even bigger and better Apple Pie recipe. With one failed attempt, my husband suggested I call his mom (ya, don't ya love that). It's okay, I actually don't mind, she is a great cook and is more like a grandmother to me then my mother-in-law.

I called my mother-in-law and said her son said she made apple pie all the time when he was little and could I have her recipe. She had no idea what he was talking about (funny!). She is almost 80 years old but her memory is perfect and my husband is 51 years old, so between the both of them, who knows, she did say that she use to make apple crisp all the time. She found the recipe and now I've got it. YEAH for me, another family recipe passed down. The challenge though was for Apple Pie, so my brain went to work and the creation began, apple crisp turned into a beautiful Apple Crisp Pie.

Apple Crisp Pie
adapted by me, given to me by my mother-in-law Charlotte

Pastry Crust (from the Dutch Apple Pie)
1-1/4 cups plain flour
pinch of salt
1 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp butter, chilled and diced
5 tbsp ice water
1 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp sugar (mix together)

Apple Pie Filling & Crumb Topping
4 cups sliced apples
1/4 cup hot water (or fresh apple cider)
1/2 cup butter (extra butter for bottom of crust)
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar

vanilla ice cream
caramel syrup, drizzle

For the crust, in a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar and salt. Add the cold diced butter over the dry ingredients, mix with a pantry knife, working the butter into the mixture, until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add in 5 tbsp water (more if needed) using the pastry knife or a fork incorporate it until the dough will hold together, without being too sticky. Flatten the dough into a round disk, and sandwich in between two pieces of wax paper, roll out into the desired shape (round) that will fit into your baking pie dish. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.

Transfer the dough to the round pie dish and press into the base and over the top of the edges of the dish. Trim the edges to extend 1/2 an inch over the lip of the dish. Mix together the 1 tsp of cinnamon and 1 tsp of sugar and then sprinkle on pie crust. Place the dish into the freezer for 30 minutes until very firm and cold. Place the oven rack on the lower middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Arrange the apple slices into the cinnamon pie crust. Pour water (or apple cider) over the apples.  Cream together with a pastry knife the butter, flour and sugar to form crumbs.

Bake in a hot oven at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes, then raise oven to 400 degrees and bake for an additional 25 minutes, until top is brown and apples begin to crisp. Serve with vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of caramel syrup.

To add the Linky Party to your post and join in this Blog Hop please grab the code by clicking on GET THE CODE HERE (below). If you are on word press that code will not work and you will need this code.

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Banana Bread {SPECIAL POST FOR SECRET RECIPE CLUB}

The Secret Recipe Club is such an awesome group of people and when you read this you will know why. One of our SRC Members died suddenly and was taken from this earth way too soon, leaving his wife, unborn child and two sons. I did not know this man or his brave wife, but after reading her post all about her husband, I came to know them through blogging, and this is why I love the blog world.

The SECRET RECIPE CLUB decided to pay a small tribute to this man, who loved to blog and to his wife by hosting a Special SRC day. It was for any of us who wanted to participate to make a recipe from their blog Haggis and Herring, I of course wanted to participate, in what seems like such a small way for someone who is suffering so much at this time of loss. I pray for them and hope that God will watch over their family and grant her peace, and hope that the little love we can show them her will put a little happiness in her heart.

This SPECIAL POST will be my 18th post for the Secret Recipe Club. I LOVE THIS GROUP.

I decided to make their Banana Bread. I poured through pages and pages of their blog and read for hours. I came across so many unique recipes, many things I had never even heard of. It was so fun reading through all the posts and hearing her husband speak through those posts. I never thought about it before, but a blog is so much like a daily journal, even when someone has passed on, the journal is left for all to read over and over again. AMAZING!

FREEZER TIP: If you have bananas that are ripe and you aren't in the baking mood, just stick them in your freezer whole. When you are ready to bake some bread like I was, just let them sit out for about 15-30 minutes and they will be ready to mix up in your recipe. This also works great for banana muffins, banana cookies and banana cupcakes too.

Banana Bread

adapted, recipe found at Haggis and Herring, original idea from Better Homes and Gardens

2 cups flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
1-1/2 cups (3 bananas), mashed
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Grease two loaf pans (or use one of these great mini loaf pans that make 4 loafs) and preheat oven to 350. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. 
 
In a separate bowl, combine eggs, bananas, sugar and butter and add to flour mixture. Stir until moist (still lumpy) and fold in chocolate chips. (I divided the batter in half and made half banana bread without chocolate chips and half with). Divide mixture and pour into loaf pans.
 
Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes, remove from pan, and let cool completely on the wire rack.

Here is a list of my past Secret Recipe Club recipes:

• Blueberry Muffins (Gluten-Free)
• Bean Roll-Up (extra post)
• Cucumber Salad
• Raspberry & Nutella Pizza (extra post)
• Pioneer Woman's Chicken Pot Pie 
• Frozen Breakfast Burritos
• Pink Pearl Applesauce (crock-pot)
• Peanut Butter Marshmallow Cake (extra post)
• Cake Mix Cinnamon Chip Brownies
• Sweet and Smokey Roasted Cauliflower
• Cheesy Bacon Ranch Dip
• Trail Mix Cookies
• Creamy Noodles
• German Chocolate Cracker Candy
• Brownie Trifle
• Raspberry Greek Breakfast Parfait
• Dutch Apple Pie

White Chocolate Snickerdoodle Cookies {THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS LINKY PARTY #101}

THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS has changed, you can now link up ANY recipe you'd like. Come one, Come all. NO rules, NO requirements, just link up any recipe (or food related craft items) and hop around to visit all the great recipes.

Cookies are hardly ever store bought around here (maybe with the exception of Oreo's for the little boy). I am always finding new cookie recipes to make (I freeze whatever is not eaten the first day) and therefore we have fresh homemade cookies almost year-round. This was another one of those recipes, found online and couldn't resist.

White Chocolate Snickerdoodle Cookies

recipe found at Averie Cooks

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking soda

1-1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Plus: 1 tbsp cinnamon & 1/4 c white sugar, mixed in a small bowl for dipping/rolling the dough (to retain a true “sugar cookie” rather than snickerdoodle, omit the cinnamon and just roll in sugar)

Preheat oven to 350. Cream together in a mixer the softened butter and sugars until very smooth and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until well combined. Stir in the cinnamon, baking soda, and flour and mix until just combined. Do not overmix.

Stir in the white chocolate chips and place the whole mixing bowl into the freezer for about 10 minutes so that it chills a bit. You can also chill the dough for an hour or longer in the refrigerator.

While the dough is chilling, prepare the cinnamon sugar mixture for rolling.

After approximately 10 minutes, remove the chilled dough from the freezer and form 1 inch balls. I use a cookie scoop and it's awesome for any kind of cookie dough. Roll the balls through the cinnamon sugar mixture and place on prepared cookie sheet (sprayed with cooking spray).

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until just barely set. Allow the cookies to cool, well, on the cookie sheets before attempting to remove them.

THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS has changed, you can now link up ANY recipe you'd like. Come one, Come all. NO rules, NO requirements, just link up any recipes (or food related craft items) and hop around to visit all the great recipes.

If you are a regular to THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS Linky party, then link-up we're excited to see what you made this week. We are no longer sticking with ONE theme, so just link up any of your favorite recipes. 

Please Grab Our Button!!!

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Your hostess for this linky arty are: Tina from MOMS CRAZY COOKING, Nicole from The Daily Dish and Kristi from Veggie Converter.

THE LINKY PARTY is opened ALL Week, come back and link up as many times as you wish, we can't wait to see all your fun and new recipes you made this week!

Happy 19th Birthday to my beautiful daughters....

I am leaving California today to see my awesome daughters in St. Charles, Missouri. Today is their birthday and mama is flying to see them. I am SO excited, probably way more excited then they are (haha). I am bringing lots of goodies for them, so let's hope they are happy to see me too.

Gooey Trail Mix {Nestle Toll House Morsels}

This recipe is for sure GOOEY and for sure DELICIOUS. It's a very tasty {but} gooey candy Trail Mix. It's simple, it's versatile, it's easy to customize to your liking and it's SO good you can not stop eating it.

You can make it with almost any kind of cereal, you can add in pretzels, switch up the nuts to your favorite kind, if you don't like coconut leave it out and you can pick any kind of Nestle Toll House Morsels to add into your trail mix.  We choose this awesome Nestle Toll House Morsel mix of Peanut Butter Chips and Chocolate Chips and a bag of Nestle Toll House Mini Chocolate Chips, what an easy way to give it that peanut butter and chocolate flavor all in one.

We had so much fun in the kitchen cooking away and creating recipes. My twin daughters are off to college so with the help of one of their friends and my son, we had a blast cooking, baking and of course lots of taste testing. We started our day at 7:30 am apple and raspberry picking and then we came home to bake the night away. We made so many recipes the kitchen look like it exploded at one time. We not only created this delicious Gooey Trail Mix, but we baked a few apple pies, we made homemade raspberry muffins, a caramel apple cupcake and birthday cupcakes for my twins, then we added in banana bread for another blog post I need to get done before I left on vacation and well when it came dinner time we had so many sweets, we had to find some left overs in the refrigerator to eat. It was SUCH a fabulous day and so many amazing things came out of the kitchen yesterday, that I can tell you it was a blast and we can wait to get together again soon. This CRAZY mom was still going strong when the kids checked out.

Gooey Candy Trail Mix

2 (12 oz) boxes of your favorite cereal
1 (7 oz) bag shredded coconut
4 to 6 oz of your favorite nuts (we used peanuts)
1-1/2 cups butter (yep, that is 3 whole sticks of butter)
2 cups sugar
2 cups corn syrup
1 tbsp Sea Salt (optional)
2 bags Nestle Toll House Morsels (any flavor, we used Peanut Butter & Chocolate and Mini)

Combine cereal, coconut and nuts in a large mixing bowl. Stir to combine.

In a large sauce pan, cook butter, sugar and corn syrup to a soft ball stage, this is best with a candy thermometer, cook until about 234 degrees. Pour the syrup mixture over cereal mixture and stir until all is well coated. Then wait until mixture has cooled down a bit before adding in chocolate chips, you don't want them to melt. Then add in one bag of the chocolate chips and fold in carefully.

Line 2 large cookie sheets with parchment paper and pour out mixture flat, add the second bag (the mini morsels at this time on top of the flat mixture), then let cool. Stir it around occasionally to prevent clumping. Store in an airtight container.

This post is sponsored by Nestlé® Toll House® Morsels, the perfect special ingredient for all of your family’s favorite treats!