Adele’s Aerie

The first pumpkins of the season have arrived at my local grocery store. Little albino mini-pumpkins, mounds of decorative oddball gourds of every shade and degree of warty bumpiness, oodles of different shapes and colors of squash. And one little bushel basket of sweet pie-sized pumpkins.

Oh, yes, fall is here!

Oh, and just to get further into the mood, here’s a link to a childhood book that I absolutely adored, The Witches’ Catalog. Now, if only I had bat fat and flea tears to rub my order form with, and a hollow tree to hide it in… *grin* I always wanted to order two pet dragons: one small enough to fit into my cupped hands, who would live indoors with me, and one about the size of a horse, big enough to ride, who would live in the backyard. I never could settle on what colors I wanted, though!

It’s time to think about making pumpkin bread and apple pie, to mull cider and wine, to reminisce about Halloween preparations from my childhood, to make ghost-shaped sugar cookies with Mom’s recipe, and to decide how I’ll celebrate both modern Halloween and my personal Samhain, the new year holiday celebrated by many of the earth faiths.

The veil between past and present is thinner this time of year. Like the mysteries popping up through the grass in springtime and the joy of planting, there’s magic sparkling in the deepening shadows, in the chill in the air, in the harvest and in the preparations individuals, families and communities make for the coming winter.

One of my best friends taught me this recipe a few years back, and now autumn just isn’t autumn without baked apples. I’m still experimenting with what I add to the mixture.

Preheat the oven. Depending on how baked you want them, either change the oven temp or the baking time. I usually do these at 250 degrees.

Slice off the tops of the apples so the result is caps and cups.

Scoop out the apples caps and cups with a mellon baller, making sure to leave enough of the fruit so that the skin of the apple retains its shape. Be careful not to poke holes through the bottom of the apple when you scoop out the core bits. Save the fruit bits you’ve scooped out, and discard the seeds and core bits.

Take the apple fruit bits that you’ve scooped out and chop them into small pieces. Combine with homemade (or storebought, but it won’t taste as good) granola. You can use anywhere from 1 part apple with 2 parts granola, to 2 parts apple with 1 part granola according to taste. Toss in some brown sugar according to your own sweet tooth level. If you’d like to add cinnamon and/or nutmeg, go for it. Consider adding fresh or frozen blueberries, cranberries, or currants.

Take that mixture and stuff it back into your apple cups. Put the caps back on, and place each apple upright onto the center of a square of aluminum foil. Wrap the foil up around the apple, completely covering it.

Place the foil-wrapped apples upright on a cookie sheet or into a baking pan. Bake until you get the softness you desire. I usually try for 20 to 25 minutes, then pull the pan out and gently squeeze one of the apples with an oven-mitted hand to see if they’re getting done.

Oh, and you may end up with extra of the apple/granola mixture when you’re done stuffing the apples. That’s fine, just bundle it up in a foil package and bake it with the apples. It will probably be done slightly before them.

Note that this recipe will make your kitchen, and probably your whole home, smell wonderful. Mmmmm.

Thanks, Janis.

Adapted by Virginia and Adele Shakal from a recipe found in a 1970’s version of The Mother’s Almanac by Margarite Kelly and Elia Parsons.

Depending on whether you like chewy or crispy granola, preheat your oven to 250 or 300 degrees.

Heat 1/2 cup canola or olive oil, 1/2 cup honey, and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

I usually use a Pyrex 1 cup measuring cup and 15 seconds in the microwave. You can use any kind of honey… clover’s good but others will add nuances to the flavor. Use natural rather than synthetic vanilla flavoring.

In a 13×9″ pan, gently mix 4 cups rolled oats, 1 cup wheat germ, 4 ounces of nuts, and 3 tablespoons of flour. You can also add some oat bran or pine nuts at this point.

I use a metal pan but whatever you’ve got handy works.

Mom usually chooses either pecans, almonds, or walnuts, or a mixture of those three. Nuts usually are available in 4 our 6 ounce bags, and tossing in an extra 2 ounces is OK, too. You can chop them with a nut grinder or leave them whole. I usually use whole wheat flour, but white flour is OK too.

Add the honey mixture to the dry ingredients in the pan. Stir gently with a big wooden spoon.

Bake for 10 minutes, then pull out the pan and stir gently with the big wooden spoon.

Bake for another 10 minutes, then pull out the pan and stir it again.

Bake for another 10 minutes, then pull the pan out of the oven and let the granola cool.

If you want to add any dried fruits, you can add them at either the first or second stirring, depending on your taste. I’ve experimented with dried cranberries, blueberries, apricots, raisins, golden raisins, and dates.

Spoon some of the warm granola into a bowl for a real treat. Store your granola in an airtight container. Serve it with milk as morning cereal, or over vanilla ice cream for dessert. Or use it to stuff baked apples, the recipe I’ll be sharing tomorrow.

If some members of your family like chewy granola and others want crunchy, preheat your oven to 250, and after the 30 minutes of baking are done, spoon half of the warm granola into your container to cool there with the container open. Bake the remaining granola, stirred and spread out so it makes a thinner layer in the now-emptier pan, for 10 minutes. Store this crunchier granola in a second air-tight container after it is completely cooled in the pan.

Note that with careful supervision, children as young as two or three years old can help with this granola recipe, either measuring the dry ingredients or grinding the nuts, or doing the first stirring before the pan is put into the oven the first time. Kindergardeners can do all the stirring if they’re outfitted with a sturdy apron and an oven mitt for the hand which steadies the hot pan, and if your wooden spoon has a good handle. Some elementary schoolers and most middle schoolers can make it themselves if you’re nearby to keep an eye on them.

And college students love getting a big double-bagged Ziplock of homemade granola in the mail (yes, it ships well, especially in the cooler weather of fall and winter).

Thanks, Mom.

I bought plane tickets home for Fathers Day this year without telling Dad. Mom was in on it, and we didn’t tell him until shortly before I arrived. Hearing me say, “See you in a week and a half, Dad!” over the phone really made his day.

While I was home, they let me play with their marble runs. The more vertical set was a Bargersville flea market special; the ones that are compatible with Duplo blocks I found at the KCET Store of Knowledge a few Christmases back for them. The two sets are not inherently compatible… but I work in a mixed UNIX/Windows computing environment, and told Dad boldly that the marble runs could be integrated, or at least interoperate! And Mom was generous enough to lend me a few marbles from her collection… the blue ones were especially brave Test Marbles who were the first to try out each newly designed piece of the run.
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Houses are built; homes are made.

Homemaking is art and science and magic.

My parents have made, and are making, a wonderful home. Part of their magic is not yielding up the wonder most people associate only with childhood. There are plenty of times and places for maturity and responsibility, but there is room for wonder, too.

Thanks, you two, you’re amazing!

Playing in the snow...