Apples and tomatoes and pears, oh my.

Paul peeled while I cooked and crushed about a half bushel of apples into apple sauce. Our first failure of this canning season happened when the apple jelly wouldn't gel. Four eight ounce jars of what has the consistency of maple syrup instead of toast ready jelly. We might try it on pancakes this weekend. The whole apple cooking and canning endeavor kept us busy for several hours and still, we've barely made a dent in the fruits of our harvest. As much as we've given away is replenished daily. I'll miss the bounty when it's gone but for now it's slightly overwhelming.

All this talk about apples probably has you wondering what's up with the pizza picture. There was no time for flipping open The Silver Palate last night. It was pizza right out of the Almost Homemade cookbook instead. One of our local bakeries sells great dough for two bucks, add a jar of supermarket sauce, a handful of shredded mozzarella, crumbled goat cheese, a few fresh toppings from the garden - baby spinach leaves, halved cherry tomatoes and sauted green Cuban peppers, toss on some thin sliced pepperoni and voila! Almost homemade pizza was ready for the oven at 375 degrees F for 20 minutes. Dinner was served and I took this picture to prove it.

Between putting the finishing touches on a work project, returning phone calls and then all that processing apples when Paul came in from his day at the courthouse, and I was too pooped to even mix up a pitcher of White Sangria (The Silver Palate Cookbook, page 329) with the half bottle of Pinot Grigio leftover from Tuesday night. Instead, I turned the television on to Comedy Central, popped open a bottle of diet gingerale and called it a night. Nobody's perfect.