I almost forgot

I also made my own applesauce!  A couple weekends ago, I went with my family to pick apples at this cute little farm in Draper.  We brought home 3 bushels of red and golden delicious apples for a really reasonable price, and the best part is that the farm doesn't spray with pesticide, so the applesauce is totally safe for my baby to eat (what's that you say?  I still haven't blogged about the baby?  Patience, little ones).  We decided that last Saturday during conference would be the perfect time to cook, process, and bottle our creation.  Bad idea, by the way.  Never plan a large scale cooking or craft project during conference if you had planned on listening to it.  Don't even worry, we also made that mistake during the Relief Society general meeting.  Anyway, back to the story.  So my mom and my sister and I gathered together and what we made was pure magic.  It was so easy, you just have to have the right equipment- like a special strainer that separates the stem, seeds, and peel from the flesh of the apple.  It was a bit messy, so hopefully my mom won't remember that next year when it's time to bottle applesauce again!  I feel so domestic these days.

I battled the pot roast...

...And I won!  I've been wanting to branch out and try new methods of cooking for a while, but have been a little skiddish.  Until now.  Matt bought this awesome cookbook for me that's all about braising, so I thought I'd give the pot roast recipe a try.  Nothing like a 4 pound slab of slow-cooked beef to usher in the fall, right?  Yummy!  I didn't have all of the fancy cookware the recipe specified, like a Le Creuset enameled dutch oven, but I figured my good old stock pot would do the trick.  I also had to make lots of substitutions, because I didn't have some of the ingredients (like beer), so by the time I put it in the oven I was pretty nervous about how it would turn out (especially since we were serving it to company).  I spent the whole afternoon session of conference fretting about whether or not I should turn over the meat halfway through cooking, if I should baste it, and if it was going to be cooked all the way through in time for our guests' arrival.  Well, worry no more my friends!  That was the best hunk of meat I've had in a long time. It had a tomato based sauce, which was kind of different for a pot roast, but it was seriously so delicious.  Perfectly tender and flavorful, not too much fat.  If anybody wants a killer pot roast recipe, let me know.  I'd make it for everybody if I could, but that sucker was expensive.  It's going to have to be a special occasion thing, I think.