Sugar Free Apple Pie

So my dad is a diabetic but doesn’t really follow the rules. One of his favorite rules to break is getting the apple pies from McDonald’s (where he also gets cheeseburgers and fries). I love making him sugar free apple pies so that he can still eat his favorite dessert but it isn’t as bad for him.

It’s hard to find good sugar free recipes, but this apple pie one is my favorite.

Ingredients
2 (9 inch) pie shell
3 tbsp. cornstarch
1 tbsp. ground cinnamon
1 (12 fluid ounce) can unsweetened apple juice concentrate, thawed
6 cups sliced green apples

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Peel and cut apples into cubes.

2. In a small bowl whisk together cornstarch, cinnamon, and 1/3 cup of the apple juice concentrate. Set aside.
3. In a large saucepan simmer apples with remaining apple juice concentrate until apples are tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in cornstarch mixture and continue to simmer until thickened. Remove from heat.

4. Spoon apple mixture into pastry-lined pie plate. Cover with top crust. Seal and flute edges. Cut steam vents in top.


5. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.

And there you have it! So simple to make and it tastes wonderful. Add some vanilla ice cream or my favorite Bird’s Custard for a little extra.

Design Time

Wanted to showcase some past design work I have done! Looking back at past events I really wish I had taken more pictures of the stuff I designed but now I know going forward.

First is my friend Marissa. I helped design for her bridal shower and also for her wedding. The shower I designed the invitations and recipe cards that went with them. I also did the design on the stickers we put on the favors. For her wedding I designed their logo which was on their program and the card box I made them (no pictures of it!). I also designed a personalized guestbook for people to sign when they went in. I had so much fun helping her. Made me almost switch my career field to weddings (still might happen).

I also have done some stuff for my friends, family and freelance. I design a bunch of invitations (usually look for design inspiration online but I had make everything myself after the fact). I only have one more wedding I am in coming up in May. The bride’s mom won’t let us help with the shower which makes me sad but oh well. I want to help with stuff for the reception (I did their Save the Date cards) but we will see.

I need to start converting my images to RGB they come out so bright from CMYK when they are uploaded!

Braiding

I love braiding hair, but it’s so difficult to try new styles on myself. I have found some really great ones I wanted to try. I attempted the wrap around french braid on myself last week and it was an epic fail. I can’t see what I am doing. I need one of those mirrors that have 3 panels that fold so I can see the back of my head! My sister let me try out the wrap around french braid on her when she went to work in DC last friday. I think it was a success!

Designs

I love designing things, but with work I crash sometimes. When I look at the same ad or layout over and over I start to hate it and then give up and go with it.

Lately I have been trying to do more creative designs that don’t involve work to keep my love for it alive. I have been designing more albums and cards at the photo studio that I work at as my second job (I’m busy). My friend got married in July and for my Christmas/Birthday present she bought me a Groupon for a canvas. She just got all her photos from the photographer (we don’t usually do that at the studio until after a year). She let me take them so I could design a collage for the canvas. It took me a good 2 hours and 4 designs, but I finally figured out the way I wanted it to look (with a little help from my sister).

I really like the way it came out and I can’t wait to get it in the mail!

PS in RGB it doesn’t look as good as it does in CMYK. I will upload a pic when I hang it.

Welcome to 2012

So my New Years was quite an event this year. My friend from college decided she wanted to marry the love of her life on New Year’s Eve. At first I was iffy about New Years because the weather could be so unpredictable but it was an amazing day.

My friend planned everything out beautifully. She had the reception at the local fire hall. The decorations were great. The theme was snowflakes. From the icicle lights all around the hall to the snowflake ornaments holding places cards on a tree everything was thought out and executed brilliantly.

It was a very long day. We started getting ready at 9:30am. I loved my hair it came out great! The church was at 2:30 followed by pictures and the reception started at 5pm. The reception went until after midnight so it was a long night, but so much fun. We danced and drank all night and at midnight they had balloons come down from the ceiling.

Here I am with the beautiful bride :)

Christmas Time

So Christmas came and went and I made a few goodies for my family. I found them on Pinterest. The original snowman cookies didn’t have a link, just an image, so I improvised. I used leftover icing from my snowman cake pops to cover the sugar cookies. I didn’t have large marshmallows just miniatures, but I smushed them together to make the head and used mini m&m’s and edible gel to make them look cute.

The cake pops I found on Bakerella along with all the other cake pops I want to learn to make. I got white chocolate to melt and I used mini oreo halves and miniature marshmallows for the hats. Not only did they turn out cute they tasted amazing as well!

I also had a lot of fun decorating some gingerbread cookies my mom made.