Yvonne's Done-to-death Apple Bread

Yvonne's Done-to-death Apple Bread From the 2Peas Board

Set oven 325, bakes in about 1 hour and 10 minutes

3 eggs, slightly beaten

2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon vanilla
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 cups chopped, pared, cored apples (about 3-4)

1 cup chopped pecans

Topping:
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to slow 325. Grease and flour two 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 x 2 1/2 inch loaf pans (or I use those mini loaf pans)

2. Stir together the eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla in medium sized bowl until well mixed.

3. Combine the flour, soda and cinnamon on piece of waxed paper, and then then stir into liquid ingredients until just evenly mixed. Stir in the apples and pecans. The mixture will be very thick and gloppy.Divide between the loaf pans.

4: Prepare the topping: combine the sugar and cinnamon in a small cup, and sprinkle over the loaves.

5: Bake in preheated slow oven at 325 for 1 hour and 10 minutes, approximately. Check it carefully with a tester inserted in center comes out CLEAN. Make sure it's done. Sometimes in my oven they take longer than the time specified. Make sure they are done. Nothing worse than raw middle.

Let the breads cool in the pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Run a thin knife around the edges of the pans. Remove the breads from the pans to wire racks to cool.The breads are better the second day. Wrap them tightly in plastic wrap or foil and store at room temperature.

Candied Peanuts

Candied Peanuts
 
 
 
 
Ingredients
  • 1 cup sugar
  • ½ cup water
  • 2 cups raw peanuts (skin on)
 Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 300. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar and water. Place over medium heat and stir until sugar dissolves.
  2. Add peanuts to sugar water and continue to cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the peanuts are completely sugar coated and no sugar syrup remains, about thirty minutes.
  3. Pour out onto ungreased cookie sheet and spread out a bit. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring every ten minutes. Allow to cool on cookie sheet and then store in sealed container.

Wreaths Across America - Quantico National Cemetery

I went to Quantico National Cemetery yesterday to visit my dad and brother and took these pictures. The wreaths were laid this past weekend as part of the nationwide "Wreaths Across America"event to honor and remember our lost veterans during the holidays.
 
For those who do not live local, Quantico National Cemetery is a military cemetery located outside Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia and was created to be the back-up to Arlington National Cemetery. As I grew up here many of my childhood friends have family that also rest here. If you are ever in the area please visit. It is a touching, beautiful place and makes you really feel and think.
 

Christmas "Family" Picture

We had not taken a "Christmas" picture together in three year so I really wanted to get one taken this year.  Since I have a pretty nice camera (Olympus EM-1) we decided we could do them ourselves to save us time and money.  Just last weekend I realized time was running short to get these taken and printed if we wanted to give them to family over the Christmas weekend so Sunday evening just as it was getting dark I decided tonight is the night so I curled the hair, threw on some makeup (I don't wear it on weekends), we both changed tops (we were doing waist up shots) and got busy.  I was using my iPhone as a remote to the camera so we could see the photos as I was taking them. Even doing that we had quite a few outtakes. So bad I decided to share them here:
All that to get us to these two which were the "winners"This just makes me happy whenever I look at it.We will have to try again next year to see if we can get one with both Riley and Sydney looking at the camera.Merry Christmas everyone! 

"Sparkly" Secret Santa

The SES girls of which I am a proud member have a secret Santa exchange each year. This year Debra was my SS and sent me so many wonderful gifts including handcrafted notecards using my photography on them . Deb also knows that Jiminy Cricket is my favorite Disney character and she got me the most perfect Jiminy statue that I will treasure forever.  Thanks so much to all the SES for another year of love and friendship.