Apple Dumplings

Ingredients:
2 Prepared pie crust (or home made from scratch)
6 - 8 apples, peeled, cut in halves (whole and cored or chopped) I used Fuji and Golden Delicious

Sauce:
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
2 cups water
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla

Sprinkle Topping:
2/3 cup granulated sugar (can use less sugar when using a sweeter apple)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 to 1/2 cup butter or margarine for putting on top of apple

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9x13 baking pan. Combine sauce ingredients in a sauce pan on medium to high heat and stirring constantly to bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer - check and stir, for approximately 10 minutes. Then set aside.

Mix the Sprinkle Topping ingredients of granulated sugar and cinnamon.

Roll out dough to cut in to squares so they are approximately 4-5 inches. Place half an apple (or chopped apples) on each square in the center then sprinkle with sugar mixture and place a bit of butter on top. Wet edges of dough and press into a ball around the apple to close and seal on the top. Cut out small leaf shapes (or shapes of your choice) of any extra dough to top of each apple dumpling. Put dumplings in a pan. Pour sauce over all and bake for 40 minutes or until dough is golden brown.

Apple Crisp

Ingredients:
4 cups peeled, chopped apples (4 to 5 large apples)
1/2 to 1 cup granulated sugar (depending how how much you want to use)
1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Topping:
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 to 1 tsp cinnamon (optional)
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup flour
1 cup butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel and chop apples, then layer in a greased 9x13 inch pan or a 9x9 inch pan for thicker portions. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over the apples. Mix together the brown sugar, cinnamon, rolled oats, flour and finally add the softened butter. Mix until it becomes coarse and crumbly. Put on top of apples. Bake for 45 minutes until golden brown.

A few of our other favorite apple recipes are Crockpot Applesauce and Cream Cheese Apple Crisp.

Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.
All its allotted length of days
The flower ripens in its place,
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.

~Alfred Lord Tennyson~
from The Lotus-Eaters

We eat apples throughout the year because they're one of our favorite fruits but during autumn and the winter we tend to bake with them more. With so many different varieties I tend to stick with the ones I'm familiar with -- the ones my mother, aunt, and grandmother used. I recently tried a Honey Crisp and it is on my list now.

These are some of my favorite apples and how I use them. A lot of times I end up using a combination of different varieties in my recipes.

Since I haven't tried any of these varieties, I'd like to try Honey Crisp, Jonagold, Jonamac, Empire, Cortland and Goldrush. What are your favorite varieties?

The Apple Dumpling
~Maud Lindsay~

There was once upon a time an old woman who wanted an apple dumpling for supper. She had plenty of flour and plenty of butter, plenty of sugar and plenty of spice for a dozen dumplings, but there was one thing she did not have and that was an apple.

She had plums, a tree full of them, the roundest and reddest that you can imagine but though you can make butter from cream and raisins of grapes, you cannot make an apple dumpling with plums, and there is no use trying. The more the old woman thought of the dumpling the more she wanted it, and at last she dressed herself in her Sunday best and started out to seek an apple. Before she left home, however, she filled a basket with plums from her plum-tree and, covering it over with a white cloth, hung it on her arm, for she said to herself: "There may be those in the world who have apples, and need plums."

She had not gone very far when she came to a poultry yard filled with fine hens and geese and guineas. Ca-ca, quawk, quawk, poterack! What a noise they made; and in the midst of them stood a young woman who was feeding them with yellow corn. She nodded pleasantly to the old woman, and the old woman nodded to her; and soon the two were talking as if they had known each other always. The young woman told the old woman about her fowls and the old woman told the young woman about the dumpling and the basket of plums for which she hoped to get apples.

"Dear me," said the young woman when she heard this, "there is nothing my husband likes better than plum jelly with goose for his Sunday dinner, but unless you will take a bag of feathers for your plums he must do without, for that is the best I can offer you."

"One pleased is better than two disappointed," said the old woman then; and she emptied the plums into the young woman's apron and putting the bag of feathers into her basket trudged on as merrily as before; for she said to herself: "If I am no nearer the dumpling than when I left home, I am at least no farther from it; and that feathers are lighter to carry than plums nobody can deny."

Trudge, trudge, up hill and down she went, and presently she came to a garden of sweet flowers; lilies, lilacs, violets, roses—oh, never was there a lovelier garden! The old woman stopped at the gate to look at the flowers; and as she looked she heard a man and a woman, who sat on the door-step of a house that stood in the garden, quarreling.

"Cotton," said the woman.

"Straw," said the man.

"'Tis not—"

"It is," they cried, and so it went between them, till they spied the old woman at the gate.

"Here is one who will settle the matter," said the woman then; and she called to the old woman: "Good mother, answer me this: If you were making a cushion for your grandfather's chair would you not stuff it with cotton?"

"No," said the old woman.

"I told you so," cried the man. "Straw is the thing, and no need to go farther than the barn for it;" but the old woman shook her head.

"I would not stuff the cushion with straw," said she; and it would have been hard to tell which one was the more cast down by her answers, the man or the woman.

But the old woman made haste to take the bag of feathers out of her basket, and give it to them. "A feather cushion is fit for a king," she said, "and as for me, an apple for a dumpling, or a nosegay from your garden will serve me as well as what I give."

The man and the woman had no apples, but they were glad to exchange a nosegay from their garden for a bag of fine feathers, you may be sure.

"There is nothing nicer for a cushion than feathers," said the woman.

"My mother had one made of them," said the man; and they laughed like children as they hurried into the garden to fill the old woman's basket with the loveliest posies, lilies, lilacs, violets, roses—oh! never was there a sweeter nosegay.

"A good bargain, and not all of it in the basket," said the old woman, for she was pleased to have stopped the quarrel, and when she had wished the two good fortune and a long life, she went upon her way again.

Now her way was the king's highway, and as she walked there she met a young lord who was dressed in his finest clothes, for he was going to see his lady love. He would have been as handsome a young man as ever the sun shone on had it not been that his forehead was wrinkled into a terrible frown, and the corners of his mouth drawn down as if he had not a friend left in the whole world.

"A fair day and a good road," said the old woman, stopping to drop him a courtesy.

"Fair or foul, good or bad, 'tis all one to me," said he, "when the court jeweler has forgotten to send the ring he promised, and I must go to my lady with empty hands."

"Empty hands are better than an empty heart," said the old woman; "but then we are young only once; so you shall have a gift for your lady though I may never have an apple dumpling." And she took the nosegay from her basket and gave it to the young lord which pleased him so much that the frown smoothed away from his forehead, and his mouth spread itself in a smile, and he was as handsome a young man as ever the sun shone on.

"Fair exchange is no robbery," said he, and he unfastened a golden chain from round his neck and gave it to the old woman, and went away holding his nosegay with great care.

The old woman was delighted. "With this golden chain I might buy all the apples in the king's market, and then have something to spare," she said to herself, as she hurried away toward town as fast as her feet could carry her. But she had gone no farther than the turn of the road when she came upon a mother and children, standing in a doorway, whose faces were as sorrowful as her own was happy.

"What is the matter?" she asked as soon as she reached them.

"Matter enough," answered the mother, "when the last crust of bread is eaten and not a farthing in the house to buy more."

"Well-a-day," cried the old woman when this was told her. "Never shall it be said of me that I eat apple dumpling for supper while my neighbors lack bread" and she put the golden chain into the mother's hands and hurried on without waiting for thanks. She was not out of sight of the house, though, when the mother and children, every one of them laughing and talking as if it were Christmas or Candlemas day, overtook her.

"Little have we to give you," said the mother who was the happiest of all, "for that you have done for us, but here is a little dog, whose barking will keep loneliness from your house, and a blessing goes with it."

The old woman did not have the heart to say them nay, so into the basket went the little dog, and very snugly he lay there. "A bag of feathers for a basket of plums; a nosegay of flowers for a bag of feathers; a golden chain for a nosegay of flowers; a dog and a blessing for a golden chain; all the world is give and take, and who knows but that I may have my apple yet," said the old woman as she hurried on.

And sure enough she had not gone a half dozen yards when, right before her, she saw an apple-tree as full of apples as her plum-tree was full of plums. It grew in front of a house as much like her own as if the two were peas in the same pod and on the porch of the house sat a little old man.

"A fine tree of apples!" called the old woman as soon as she was in speaking distance of him.

"Aye, but apple-trees and apples are poor company when a man is growing old," said the old man" and I would give them all if I had even so much as a little dog to bark on my door-step."

"Bow-wow!" called the dog in the old woman's basket, and in less time than it takes to read this story he was barking on the old man's door-step, and the old woman was on her way home with a basket of apples on her arm. She got there in plenty of time to make the dumpling for supper, and it was as sweet and brown a dumpling as heart could desire. "If you try long enough and hard enough you can always have an apple dumpling for supper," said the old woman; and she ate the dumpling to the very last crumb and enjoyed it, too.



Image above of illustration by F. Liley-Young and cover to the left from my copy of The Story-Teller by Maud Lindsay, c1915, Lothrop, Lee & Shephard Co.

Now comes the sunset of the verdant year,
Chemic fires, still and slow,
Burn in the leaves, till trees and groves appear
Dipped in the sunset's glow.

Through many-stained windows of the wood
The day sends down its beams,
Till all the acorn-punctured solitude
Of sunshine softly dreams.

I take my way where sentry cedars stand
Along the bushy lane,
And whitethroats stir and call on every hand,
Or lift their wavering strain.

The hazel-bush holds up its crinkled gold
And scents the loit’ring breeze-
A nuptial wreath amid its leafage old
That laughs at frost’s decrees.

A purple bloom is creeping o’er the ash-
Dull wine against the day,
While dusky cedars where a crimson sash
Of woodbine’s kindled spray.

I see the stolid oak tree’s smould’ring fire
Sullen against emerald rye;
And yonder sugar maple’s wild desire
To match the sunset sky.

On hedge and tree the bittersweet has hung
Its fruits that looks a flower;
While alder spray with coral berries strung
Is part of autumn’s dower.

The plaintive calls of bluebirds fill the air,
Wand’ring voices in the morn;
The ruby kinglet, flitting here and there,
Winds again his elfin horn.

Now Downy shyly drills his winter cell,
His white chips strew the ground;
While squirrels bark from hill or acorned dell —
A true autumnal sound.

I hear the feathered thunder of the grouse
Soft rolling through the wood,
Or pause to note where hurrying mole or mouse
Just stirs the solitude.

Anon the furtive flock-call of the quail
Comes up from weedy fields;
Afar the mellow thud of lonely flail
Its homely music yields.

Behold the orchards piled with pointed spheres
Now plucked from bending trees;
And bronzèd huskers toissing golden ears
In genial sun and breeze.

Once more the tranquil days brood o're the hills,
And sooth earth's toiling breast;
A benediction all the landscape fills
That breathes of peace and rest.

~John Burroughs~

Walking through rows of apple trees and picking my own apples is one of the most enjoyable experiences of autumn for me. It is not some thing we get to do each autumn but this past weekend my daughters and I visited an apple orchard and vineyard on our trip to the southern part of the state. The deep October blue sky held a few wispy clouds. It wasn't too warm or too cool, a temperature of 65 degrees was just the right. Each tree was abundant with ripened apples and the ground beneath was blanketed with fallen apples.

This apple orchard is a seven generation family owned farm which was started when the first of the family came from Germany to settle here in 1843. They have ten varieties of apples: Gala, Jonathan, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Jonagold, Mutzu, Stayman Winesap, Granny Smith, Fuji, and Goldrush. In addition to apples they also grow Christmas trees,
a variety of berries – strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, black raspberries, and blackberries. Plus the summer vegetables of corn, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, and all the pumpkins, squash, and gourds. At this time of the season they had only three varieties at their peak left for picking: Fuji, Golden Delicious, and Goldrush. The owner, who drove us out to the orchard with his tractor and trailer, recommended the Golden Delicious and told us to try an apple right off the tree to see if we liked it. We were not disappointed. They were just as he said, at their peak and a most juicy, semi-sweet to sweet apple. This is an apple where the yellower the better. After trying one from the tree, we decided to buy mostly this variety.

The Fuji apples were just as good. Not quite as sweet but delicious and the Fuji orchard was the most picturesque of the three orchards. Fuji apples were originally developed in Japan in the 1930s by crossing their American parents Red Delicious and Ralls Janet -- an antique apple with a history, which dates back to the late 18th century and was reportedly named by Thomas Jefferson around 1793. Their outer skin is a mottled red over a yellow background -- the redder the skin, the more direct sunlight the apple was exposed to while growing. Even though we bought more of the Golden Delicious than the Fuji apples, we still bought enough to give some to my mom and sister. They love apples too but couldn't make the trip with us.


While walking through the rows of apples, close in view are some of the vineyards -- some of the eighteen varieties of grapes grown on the farm for their winery. In their restored 1938 barn there is an underground Wine Cellar where the old world art of wine making combines the most modern equipment and technology to make their vintage wines. We didn't have time to take a tour of the Wine Cellar but I bought two bottles to bring home: the Concord grape wine made and named in honor of the their grandmother Sweet Marcella and also their "Wine of the Month" the Spiced Apple. I registered with them and took their gift catalog so now I have some different ideas for gift giving.

We've already eaten some of the apples we bought but we saving the rest for making Apple Crisp and other baked dishes. Apple dishes (desserts) are a favorite and are on the menu quite often in the autumn especially having fresh apples.

After Apple Picking

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still.
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples; I am drowsing off.
I cannot shake the shimmer from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the water-trough,
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and reappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.

~Robert Frost~ from "After Apple Picking"

"It is rare that the summer lets an apple go without streaking or spotting it on some part of its sphere. It will have some red stains, commemorating the mornings and evenings it has witnessed; some dark and rusty blotches, in memory of the clouds and foggy, mildewy days that have passed over it; and a spacious field of green reflecting the general face of Nature, — green even as the fields; or a yellow ground, which implies a milder flavor, — yellow as the harvest, or russet as the hills.

Apples, these I mean, unspeakably fair, — apples not of Discord, but of Concord! Yet not so rare but that the homeliest may have a share. Painted by the frosts, some a uniform clear bright yellow, or red, or crimson, as if their spheres had regularly revolved, and enjoyed the influence of the sun on all sides alike, — some with the faintest pink blush imaginable, — some brindled with deep red streaks like a cow, or with hundreds of fine blood-red rays running regularly from the stem-dimple to the blossom-end, like meridional lines, on a straw-colored ground,— some touched with a greenish rust, like a fine lichen, here and there, with crimson blotches or eyes more or less confluent and fiery when wet, — and others gnarly, and freckled or peppered all over on the stem side with fine crimson spots on a white ground, as if accidentally sprinkled from the brush of Him who paints the autumn leaves. Others, again, are sometimes red inside, perfused with a beautiful blush, fairy food, too beautiful to eat, — apple of the Hesperides, apple of the evening sky! But like shells and pebbles on the sea-shore, they must be seen as they sparkle amid the withering leaves in some dell in the woods, in the autumnal air, or as they lie in the wet grass, and not when they have wilted and faded in the house."

~Henry David Thoreau~ "Wild Apples"

As the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and the blessing of Almighty God, and the national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him, but a duty whose natural influence is favorable to the promotion of that morality and piety without which social happiness can not exist nor the blessings of a free government be enjoyed; and as this duty, at all times incumbent, is so especially in seasons of difficulty or of danger, when existing or threatening calamities, the just judgments of God against prevalent iniquity, are a loud call to repentance and reformation; and as the United States of America are at present placed in a hazardous and afflictive situation by the unfriendly disposition, conduct, and demands of a foreign power, evinced by repeated refusals to receive our messengers of reconciliation and peace, by depredation on our commerce, and the infliction of injuries on very many of our fellow-citizens while engaged in their lawful business on the seas--under these considerations it has appeared to me that the duty of imploring the mercy and benediction of Heaven on our country demands at this time a special attention from its inhabitants.

I have therefore thought fit to recommend, and I do hereby recommend, that Wednesday, the 9th day of May next, be observed throughout the United States as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens of these States, abstaining on that day from their customary worldly occupations, offer their devout addresses to the Father of Mercies agreeably to those forms or methods which they have severally adopted as the most suitable and becoming; that all religious congregations do, with the deepest humility, acknowledge before God the manifold sins and transgressions with which we are justly chargeable as individuals and as a nation, beseeching Him at the same time, of His infinite grace, through the Redeemer of the World, freely to remit all our offenses, and to incline us by His Holy Spirit to that sincere repentance and reformation which may afford us reason to hope for his inestimable favor and heavenly benediction; that it be made the subject of particular and earnest supplication that our country may be protected from all the dangers which threaten it; that our civil and religious privileges may be preserved inviolate and perpetuated to the latest generations; that our public councils and magistrates may be especially enlightened and directed at this critical period; that the American people may be united in those bonds of amity and mutual confidence and inspired with that vigor and fortitude by which they have in times past been so highly distinguished and by which they have obtained such invaluable advantages; that the health of the inhabitants of our land may be preserved, and their agriculture, commerce, fisheries, arts, and manufactures be blessed and prospered; that the principles of genuine piety and sound morality may influence the minds and govern the lives of every description of our citizens, and that the blessings of peace, freedom, and pure religion may be speedily extended to all the nations of the earth.

And finally, I recommend that on the said day the duties of humiliation and prayer be accompanied by fervent thanksgiving to the Bestower of Every Good Gift, not only for His having hitherto protected and preserved the people of these United States in the independent enjoyment of their religious and civil freedom, but also for having prospered them in a wonderful progress of population, and for conferring on them many and great favors conducive to the happiness and prosperity of a nation.

Given under my hand and the seal of the United States of America, at Philadelphia, this 23d day of March, A. D. 1798, and of the Independence of the said States the twenty-second.

JOHN ADAMS.

By the President,
TIMOTHY PICKERING, Secretary of State.

Image from Library of Congress, "VI. Religion and the Federal Government" Part 1 -- scroll down to bottom of page for link: "Adam's Fast Day Proclamation".

for the second time in six weeks. We seem to have a short break for about a week and just long enough to think we're done with it, then it's back for another round. We've all had colds and coughs. I went to the doctor yesterday and just as I thought, I have more than a cold and a cough. I have an upper respiratory infection and bronchitis so I am on an antibiotic. Only having one dose last night hasn't made much of a difference so hopefully by tomorrow I begin to feel better. The nurse told me any time I wanted to stop in and get a flu shot I could. Hmmmmm, I've never considered that before and I'm not sure what I think about it.

1 Praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD, O my soul.
2 I will praise the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
3 Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortal men, who cannot save.
4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.
5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,
6 the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them—
the LORD, who remains faithful forever.
7 He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets prisoners free,
8 the LORD gives sight to the blind,
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,
the LORD loves the righteous.
9 The LORD watches over the alien
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
10 The LORD reigns forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the LORD.

In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate--look to his character as a man of known principle, of tried integrity, and undoubted ability for the office .... Scriptures teach .... they direct that rulers should be men who rule in the fear of God, able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness. But if we had no divine instruction on the subject, our own interest would demand of us a strict observance of the principle of these injunctions. And it is to the neglect of this rule of conduct in our citizens, that we must ascribe the multiplied frauds, breaches of trust, peculations and embezzlements of public property which astonish even ourselves; which tarnish the character of our country; which disgrace a republican government; and which will tend to reconcile men to monarchy in other countries and even in our own.

When a citizen gives his suffrage to a man of known immorality, he abuses his trust; he sacrifices not only his own interest, but that of his neighbor; he betrays the interest of his country. Nor is it of slight importance, that men elected to office should be able men, men of talents equal to their stations, men of mature age, experience, and judgement; men of firmness and' impartiality. This is particularly true with regard to men who constitute tribunals of justice — the main bulwark of our rights — the citadel that maintains the last struggle of freedom against the inroads of corruption and tyranny. In this citadel should be stationed no raw, inexperienced soldier, no weak temporizing defender, who will obsequiously bend to power, or parley with corruption ....

It may be held as generally true, that respect spontaneously attaches itself to real worth; and the man of respectable virtues, never has occasion to run after respect. Whenever a man is known to seek promotion by intrigue, by temporizing, or by resorting to the haunts of vulgarity and vice for support, it may be inferred, with moral certainty, that he is not a man of real respectability, nor is he entitled to public confidence. As a general rule, it may be affirmed, that the man who never intrigues for office, may be most safely entrusted with office; for the same noble qualities, his pride, or his integrity and sense of dignity, which make him disdain the mean arts of flattery and intrigue, will restrain him from debasing himself by betraying his trust. Such a man cannot desire promotion, unless he receives it from the respectable part of the community; for he considers no other promotion to be honorable."

~Noah Webster~ Letters to a Young Gentleman Commencing His Education, New Haven: Howe & Spalding, 1823, p18

Read quote here from entire book in etext form from Google books: Letters to a Young Gentleman Commencing His Education.

Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments. Let men be good and the government cannot be bad. . . . But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn. . . .[T]hough good laws do well, good men do better; for good laws may want good men and be abolished or invaded by ill men; but good men will never want good laws nor suffer ill ones."

~William Penn~ Thomas Clarkson, Memoirs of the Private and Public Life of William Penn, S. C. Stevens, 1827, p117

Read quote here from entire book online in etext form at Google books: Thomas Clarkson, Memoirs of the Private and Public Life of William Penn.

When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, "just men who will rule in the fear of God." The preservation of government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be sqandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded. If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws. Intriguing men can never be safely trusted"

~Noah Webster~ History of the United States, New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832, pp. 307-308

Read quote here, from his entire book online in etext form at Google books: History of the United States.