"I didn't even know it!"

Well, Happy late Thanksgiving and welcome to the time of "almost" Christmas! It is such an exciting time of the year with lots of things going on: parties, traveling, family, decorating and cooking! In all the exhaustion, I think it's important to sit down and think about what does this time of year mean to you?

Our family had a wonderful time in Branson! We had some R&R in a beautiful cabin between riding rides at Silver Dollar City, the AWESOME SIX show (look them up on youtube: SIX [They are an acapella group]), and shopping! A lot of the time we were in the cabin, it was nice to just "be" with my family: talking, laughing, watching movies and playing board games. It made me realize how blessed I am to have such a loving and fun family. No matter how simple the act, I love just being with them. Also, what a blessing it was to see my Grandmother celebrate her 87th birthday. She is truly a beautiful woman inside and out. Now to add my my immediate family, this year I have been extra blessed to adopt my "family by marriage." I love them so much and I am so excited to celebrate Christmas with them! I can't help but ask what I did to deserve TWO awesome families. Here are some photos from the weekend!

Now, I bet you might be wondering where the title is coming from. Well tonight, as I was honing my wifely skills. I decided I didn't have what I needed for a particular recipe so I thought I would simple use one as a guideline. I began to throw all these ingredients together, sliced up some apples and just threw the final touches of cinnamon and brown sugar. Into the oven it went. It smelt AWESOME! I looked at the recipe that was originally called "Cinnamon Peach Kuchen." I assumed I had simply changed it to "Cinnamon Apple Kuchen." But then I thought, what is kuchen? So, in true MelRoe fashion... I googled it. Kuchen is actually the German word for cake. I was feeling particularly proud of my ethnic creation because my handsome hubby speaks German quite well and we hope to make it one of our many homes one day (haha military can say that right?). I ran up and immediately told him and to my delight, he seemed to impressed but of course in my southern draw of "KOO-CHIN," he corrected it to "Kue-chen."  Oh well, I hope it tastes as good as it smells because it looks a little sad. Haha. "I made a German dish and 'I didn't even know it!'"

For this lovely recipe, you will combine 2 cups of flour, 2 Tbsp of sugar, 1/2 tsp of salt, 1/4 tsp of baking power; cut in butter and mix until crumbly. Now, if I had the redo, I would use my kitchen aid mixer rather than the hand mixer I used. Also, I might add a little more moisture because the crumbly dough was hard to ply to the pan. Speaking of pan, the recipe calls for a springform pan. I didn't have one, so I just used a cake round pan. Either or, ply the dough around the pan all underneath and about 1/2in to 1 inch up the side

I cut up apples from 2 large apples into thin slices and laid a layer down, sprinkled a little cinnamon and brown sugar. I repeated that probably 2 more times. Throw it in the oven at 350 degrees for a good 20 mins and you will notice the cinnamon and brown sugar caramelizing on top. Meantime, lightly beat 2 egg yolks and 1 cup heavy whipping cream to use after the 20 minutes are up. If time is up, pour over the apples and put back in the oven. Bake it for about 25-30 more minutes, or until you see that the top is set and take it on out! Let it cool and enjoy (which I am about to do! yay!) but make sure to refrigerate afterward!

Now, I am going to enjoy my German treat that I didn't even know I could make but I will leave you with a little something to get you in the Christmas mood! I introduce the first Roe Christmas tree... Enjoy!

Live. Laugh. Love. and Kuchen :)

Mel Roe