Baked Stuffed Apples

I used to love these when I was a little girl! They look so pretty and are like your very own special little apple pie! Well, I happened to have 3 apples left and a sheet of frozen pie pastry in the freezer to use up quickly before the apples got forgotten and turned to applesauce…on their own.

There’s nothing more sad when fruit gets misplaced and goes bad and you have to pitch it to the birds. The birds of course are appreciative, but there’s nothing I hate more than food waste.

Besides giving me a terrible guilt complex, it’s a shameful waste of money! Yes, I’ve been known to pinch pennies until Lincoln’s eyeballs are popping out, and being wasteful is just plain a pet peeve!

So what to do with them? Dinner was already planned. Actual homemade applesauce seemed silly with only 3 apples, our internet was down all day and I had searched about every cookbook I own for ideas and nothing sounded good. So, hours later, that sheet of pastry in the freezer that kept getting shoved to the back was finally looking like a darned good idea!



Finally an idea hit me…Eureka! Baked stuffed apples!! I re-opened about a dozen cookbooks for a recipe and baking times/temps but couldn’t find a single one! So I stubbornly gave up and decided to just wing-it. I was tired of racking my brain, no internet all day was frustrating enough, and I just wanted my quest to finally be done! Put a plan into some kind of action and finally have fun! 


So after hollowing out the cores, I just eyeballed the space and figured the brown sugar to a "T". I was determined by now that this was not only going to work, it was going to be perfect and fabulous.  If I messed up coring them…. I'd chop them. If I tore the pastry beyond use…I’d make rustic tarts. The day was going to turn around and I was going to make it happen! 


And they turned out beautiful! Just like the ones I remembered from when I was a little girl at my Grandma’s house on a hot summer day! The only things missing was some homemade, hand-churned ice cream, and her. And Grandpa, who would whistle soft songs to the birds and toss a few small pieces out to them to enjoy, too.

Sitting on the porch with my Grandparents and my own little perfect “apple pie.”. Such warm, wonderful memories.

I hope these remind you of your fondest childhood memories, too! And don’t forget to pick up, or make, some good vanilla ice cream!

Source: wildflourskitchen

April Post / A Knife With A Pearl Handle

If you never had an older brother you may have felt that your life wasn't complete. Well I did and most of the time I wished that I didn't.

When I was little they said my older brother was so proud of me. That anywhere he went he carried me and set me down where I could watch him and his friends play. Everyone said that we were insuperable.

Someone had asked my brother would he take anything for his little brother and he quickly spoke up. No I want swap my little brother for anything. Well as this made my parents proud and it really made my grandmother proud as she told all of her friends and family members the story about my big brother and his little brother.

My Uncle Clifford had heard the story and so he thought that he would see if he could get my big brother to change his mind. So this one day when he came over my mother's mother (Grandma B.) was there and he
asked Oliver (my brother) if he would give him my little brother. He quickly replied, "No." Then Uncle Clifford asked him would he trade him his little brother for something. And again his reply was, "No." My grandmother was smiling all the while knowing he wouldn't trade away his little brother. Then out Uncle upped the ante and said, "Would you trade him for a knife?" and again Oliver said, "No." That's when Uncle Clifford took out the knife and asked him again the second time.  "Would you trade your brother with me for this knife?" That when Oliver asked him, "Does it have two blades." And his reply was, "Not only does it have two blades but it has a Pearl Handle as well." Then my brother said,  "Sure I will trade you even Steven."

Palmer Waters

March Post / Go Fly A Kite

When I was little I loved it when March came around. My grandmother had taught us how to make a kite out of the hollow sticks that we could find in the woods. We would take two sticks one longer that the other and tie them in a cross pattern with cotton twin. We would then take the twin and loop it around the four ends of the sticks making sides for our paper to be glued over for our kites. We would take newspaper and glue it over the strings around the outside of our kites. After it dried we would make a tail out of panty hose or old cloth strips and load up a stick with a large bolt of cotton twine. After hooking the other end to our kite we set out for a large field to fly our kite.

We would fly our kite as high as our strings would go out and we could do this all afternoon. Just before it got dark we would reel it back in rewinding our twine on our stick so that the next day we could do it all over again.

I remember like it was yesterday walking by Harper's 5 & 10 Store and seeing a Box Kite advertised in the window. For a quarter you could buy a ready made box kite and add your own string and fly the all new Box Kite. I quickly got a quarter from my dad so that I could be one of the first in our subdivision to have a box kite to fly. It was a lot harder to get into the air than a regular kite but the pleasure of having a store bought kite made it all the more special.

Palmer Waters

February Post / Going To Atlanta With My Dad

This was always a "Special Time" each Tuesday during the summer or on school Holidays.

My dad had a grocery store and a Furniture and Appliance Store and he would go to Atlanta each week to buy new stock for the stores.

We would go to the Farmers Market to get bushels and pecks of fresh fruits and vegetables for the grocery store. And we would got to Westinghouse, Norge, Crosley, Hotpoint, Beck and Gregg, Lee Products, and Charles Martin to get furniture and appliances for the Furniture and Appliance Store.

It was always like an adventure whenever we went because dad would make it seem like one. He would get us involved with the trip, that we were looking for items along the route, that we forgot the time it took to get there. We never asked how much farther because we didn't want the trip to end. He would take us along as he made his purchases and we would learn how to negotiate a deal. Or shop for quality over quantity, how to buy the best deals and to look for the latest new thing for our customers.

We would either stop at Zesto's for a huge hamburger or go to Davis Bros. Cafeteria when we went to the Farmers Market. If it was a pretty day and we were eating at Zesto's we would sit under a picnic table around the building. There was a drive thru car wash next to Zesto's and you could watch as the 1950's cars pulled in dirty and soon see them come out sparkling clean and shiny as good looking as new cars all over again. I think that this is when I fell in love with cars.

Whenever we would go to Davis Bros Cafeteria it was "Special" as well. We went through a cafeteria line and got to choose the food that we wanted. It all looked so good and delicious and you wanted to try some of it all but you just picked out what you could eat. When it came to deserts they had some of every pie or cake that you had ever heard of and you got a a scoop of ice cream of your choice with it.

My dad would stack the items onto the truck as high as possible and if he thought that it was going to rain we would cover it with a canvas. But the most fun of all was that he would let us ride on the back home from Atlanta with all of our cargo. You got to sit up high and see in every ones car as you rode by and you felt like you were the "King of the Road."

Palmer Waters

Happy New Year!

A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I've played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.
~ Edgar Guest ~

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

The Wreath Is On The Door

The wreath is on the door
And the snow is on the tree
God has laid His holy hands
On all that we can see.

Be quick to raise your voice
And praise what He has brought.
Keep now His love in every choice
And Christmas in every thought.

Merry Christmas

December Post / Christmas At Our House

We never had a tree at our house for Christmas or decorated the house with lights but Christmas still came to our house all the same.

It wasn't an extravagant time where we got piles of gifts but what we got we were glad to have.

We would all hang a sock on the mantle and hope that it was filled with things for Christmas and not coals like we probably deserved.

In our stocking we usually got an apple, an orange, a grapefruit and a selection of nuts, a peppermint candy stick and a small toy. Our parents would give us two gifts, one being some type of clothes and the other would be a toy. We looked forward to Christmas every year and we enjoyed the Christmas Spirit that we shared together.

We usually had our Christmas Meeting around the holidays and we would get visiting workers from other states come and spend the night and visit with us in our homes. We loved this because of the experiences that they would share with us of their past year in the fields that they were in. We would have our "Special Meeting" on Sunday and then get ready for the coming New Year.

Palmer Waters