Time for some serious celebrating!

Guess why?

...My 2012 jewelry collection is done! The designing part of it, at least. Most of the items are already in my possession (and boy, am I wowed by the results), only a few items still need to be produced. If everything goes well, the whole collection is complete and ready to sell (including decent pictures, updated website, web shop and all that stuff) halfway around November. Lots of work to do of which I can't wait to start with.

To celebrate, I bought myself a few 'congratulations!' presents. Okay, I'll admit it was just an excuse to buy some of the new products in the shop where I work, really. The place has been remodelled recently and the collection has expanded with loads of awesome goodies, I just want all of them! Life ain't easy working there, way too much temptation ;).

A tiny baking tin for pies: because everything I bake has to be eaten by only two people and I want to bake quite often, normal pie tins are often too big. Even the best apple pie or cake gets boring after eating it for several days in a row... So this size is perfect!

Le Creuset (you probably know them from their cast iron cookware) has some fantastic (oven-resistant) ceramic mugs. I already have two big mugs and two espresso mugs in my possession, but since a few weeks we also have mid-size mugs in the store. I couldn't resist!

I made some apple sauce, so easy to make and so incredibly tasty!

And I've been walking around again hunting for mushrooms. And I found them...

...even though most had already been destroyed unfortunately.

...except for this humongous fungus! (yes, I just hád to say that).

Okay, recipes!

For the tiny apple pie, I took half of the following (Dutch) apple pie recipe:

- 250 gr flour
- 175 gr butter
- 80 gr sugar
- 2 eggs (1 1/2 for the dough, 1/2 egg for on the pie)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- a pinch of salt might be a good addition

The dough is made by mixing everything by hand (less dish washing to worry about) and letting it chill in the fridge for half an hour while you peel and prepare the apples. Apparently, the cooling is necessary because the butter in the dough needs to be cold when you put it in the oven. The warmer it is, the earlier it will melt during baking, resulting in a less crisp crust. At least, that's what I read and I think it makes sense ;).

For the pie filling, you'll need to mix:

- 1 kg apples, peeled and cut in parts or slices
- 50 gr sugar
- 70 gr raisins (I usually leave those out because J. is not a big fan of them)
- 3 teaspoons cinnamon

Put the 2/3 of the dough in the baking tin, put the apple mixture in, then use the remaining dough to make small, diagonally crossing stripes on top of the pie. Brush the remaining egg over the stripes, and bake the pie in a preheated oven for about an hour on 170 degrees Celsius. Yum!

For the apple sauce, peel and cut several apples in pieces, put them in a pan with a layer of water (I fill the pan with water up to about halfway the apples, but usually less water is used). Add sugar and cinnamon (for 1 kg of apples: 100 gr sugar, one big teaspoon cinnamon), let the apples boil until they have become soft (usually about 20 minutes). Use a masher (Dutch: pureestamper of stamppotstamper) to make the apple sauce less lumpy -that is, if you want it to be.