Pecked by Ducks

Sometimes I impress even myself. Yep sometimes, I am that good.

So, I am a Martha Stewart devote/wannabe. So much so, that I like to equate myself with a Martha Stewart wannabe on par with Jennifer Garner (who named her dog Martha Stewart and has been on her show four times that I have seen.)

Actually, I am not so much a creative genius/domestic goddess devote type as I am a creative fixer/enhancer. I (pathetic I know) love to watch MS and read Living. Since I am confessing should I also mention that I am pathetically in love with my minivan? No? Okay never mind. Anyhoo, I just always think, I could do that…only better. That is to say that my ideas aren’t usually original, just better ;).

For example, MS made homemade baby applesauce on her show. It had water and a little bit of sugar in it and she put the cored sections in with the skins on to add that rich reddish tint to the sauce and then picked out all the skins after with chopsticks. It looked really good. So I decided to Karen-ize it.

I grew up in Vermont, (last 10 years in Boston, then moved to NC last year) so instead of water I used cider and instead of sugar I used maple syrup and instead of picking out all of those peels with chopsticks, I made a little drawstring bag out of cheese cloth, put the peels in there, and cooked the applesauce with the little bag in it. This way, I still got the reddish tint to my sauce and I just pulled the bag of peels out at the end. Then I just threw them away and tossed the bag into the laundry. (The cheese cloth was also MS’s idea, but for cider mulling spices. I just translated the idea to applesauce. See? Better!)

The sauce came out amazing and so I decided to freeze some in those little tiny ice cube trays. What for you ask? For my kids’ hot cereal, which is always too hot and always needs some fruit or something. Voila! Cool cereal, and a little something. BTW frozen, wild (i.e. really small no choking and organic) blueberries work really well also. See… look at all the tips and tricks.