Seasonal apple-smushin'

Martha Month continues in full force here! I think my last post misled some people into thinking I was jokily failing to follow my own aspirational calendar, so I just wanted to reiterate that I do not have enough ambition to even imagine a life with weekend horseback rides. For the record.

I do have exactly enough ambition to put scallops in a pan for a few minutes.

I am a huge fan of "make this thing hot and then eat it"-style recipes.

To Martha's Month!

October 7th: "Pilates." Not only did I do this, I went to a proper class with a teacher so that I could pull terrible faces in front of people instead of just at my computer screen.

October 8th: "Clean and refill bird feeders." We took care of this last weekend, actually.

"We."

Martha understands that sometimes you have to rearrange the schedule a little bit for convenience.

Not really, Martha does not understand this, please don't tell Martha.

October 9th: "Cardio and core." Dang girl, we just did Pilates TWO DAYS AGO. Fine, a couple of miles and ten half-hearted crunches, that's all you get. Have to save some energy for "pick apples, press some for cider and make applesauce."

What can I tell you guys, they came off the tree this way.

 When the applesauce recipe says "large pot," it's being serious.

I mean, it also says to cook "partially covered." So do what you have to do.

I don't have a food mill, so I chose the "push it through a sieve" method. Unfortunately, my strainer is more "fine mesh" than "medium mesh" so it took "all freaking day" to get two large jars of applesauce out of it. Worth it though, because my applesauce is kind of watery SILKY SMOOTH.

Tastes like applesauce! Probably not worth the work, I dunno, you'll have to ask Ivy.

Seriously though, she is the slowest.

Here is the face I made upon completing a Pilates session:

And completing an apple-straining session:

Good thing I have access to Martha's Product Recommendation #1:  WRINKLE CREAMS! Turns out, I had just finished a tube of one recommendation and already replaced it with something very similar to another recommendation, so M and I are on the same page here.

DO YOU HEAR THAT, TIME AND ELEMENTS? YOU CAN'T TOUCH MEEEEEEEE

Anna is really fascinated/repelled by the encostumed Martha on the back cover of this issue. I keep having to tell her that it's just makeup and a wig. "She's not scary in real-life," I lied reassuringly.

I don't think she's buying it.