So, this past weekend was July 4th and we had a full house all weekend. We threw a party saturday night and had a big cookout to kick it off - tons of cheddarwurst, hot dogs (turkey and beef!), and homemade burgers (mmm, brian's idea to toss in some chopped olives was BRILLIANT), as well as homemade pasta, tuna pasta, and potato egg salads! But the best part of the feast was this beauty.
Sadly, no sexy pictures as we were all much too ravenous for me to even think of getting my camera - but luckily my palm was near by and so that's just what we've got. It was an apple nectarine pie, and it was my first pie ever (at least to my recollection). I cheated and bought the crusts because the reason I never make pie is that dough and I don't get along well, but everything else was made by me and melanie. We peeled and cut up 10 apples and 5 or so nectarines. Put the apples on the stove with some soy butter, lots of cinammon, maybe two tbsps of brown sugar, a tsp or so of vanilla and a pinch of nutmeg and clove. As they cooked I threw the peeled (pop them in a pot of boiling water for 50sec and and run them under cold water, skin comes right off!) necatrines in a small pot with a little brown sugar, vanilla, nutmeg and clove and covered them, letting them cook down to a sauce. Once the apples were cooked just right, we threw the apples into the pie crust (piled nice and high) and then poured the nectarine sauce all over the top. I cut up the second crust into strips and covered the pie. Baked it at 400 for 15 or so minutes, then down to 350 for 25+. The pie cooked but wasn't browning right, so anna had the brilliant idea to broil it for a few minutes. And that was perfect! It came out golden brown and shiny - although looking back I wish I had painted some sauce on top of the pie for a really beautiful finish.
After stuffing our faces and drinking a thousand beers we all went up to the roof (safe, yes!) and watched the Boston fireworks, which were awesome.
The rest of the weekend was fantastic - mel and den took me to my first red sox game (first baseball game ever!) and we had a BLAST. Sunday night old friends of mine in a trillion gallons of gas came in for a visit on their way to Maine and we had a really wonderful time catching up and just being with each other.
Okay, so there's update #1 after laziness hiatus. Watch out, #2 is coming momentarily!
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