What's a holiday without crescent rolls?

For most of the year, I can avoid buying those seductive cans of crescent rolls with the Pillsbury Dough Boy in the baker's hat on the label.  When November holidays roll around, however, my resolve to eat healthy goes out the window, and I find myself buying crescent rolls by the double pack (they go fast!)

Tradition in our household has it that we serve crescent rolls wrapped around little smokie sausages for at least one holiday breakfast.  And I must admit they are delicious.  But with the dire warnings about smoked meats nowadays and my increasing dislike of meat products, a recipe that appeared recently on Flipboard for 4-Ingredient Mini Apple Pies using crescent rolls caught my attention. Anything made with apples can't be that bad a food choice, can it?

The recipe was easy.  You take a can of crescent rolls and cut each of the eight pieces of dough in half so that you have sixteen triangles. Then you cut one to two apples into bite-size pieces.  Many varieties of apples are plentiful in the Southwest during fall, so you can choose from Granny Smith apples, which have a tart taste, or Fuji apples, which are sweeter.

Next combine 1/4 cup brown sugar (I used Splenda  Brown Sugar Blend, so the amount was really 1/8 cup), and 2 tablespoons cinnamon.  Melt about half a stick of butter, and you are ready to assemble the mini-pies.  

Place a piece of apple on each crescent roll, brush with butter, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, and roll up, adding more butter and cinnamon sugar mixture on top. Here are the mini-pies ready to go into the oven.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes.  Let cool before eating if you can resist popping one into your mouth. (My husband and I couldn't wait; hence, I couldn't take a picture of the finished product.) The crescent rolls were as satisfying as ever, and the baked apple bite was a surprising taste addition.

I'm getting hungry just writing about the apple mini-pies.  It's a good thing I bought that double package of crescent rolls yesterday!

Stargazing in the Southwest

I have a new hobby in life  - Stargazing! Like most newbies, I am no doubt overly enthusiastic. But on October 24 before sunrise, I trundled outside to pick up the newspaper from the driveway and, just by chance, looked up in the sky to the east.  What a sight.  Three beautiful spots of light framed by the still black sky greeted me. The planet Venus was the brightest, accompanied by a slightly dimmer Jupiter, and a smaller Mars.  Forgive me for saying the sight took my breath away.

From Sky and Telescope

I began looking forward to getting up before dawn so that I could check on the movement of the three planets.  (Yes, stargazing may change your sleeping habits!)

From Sky and Telescope

Every morning, Venus would drop a little more in the sky to a position below Jupiter, until on November 3, Venus and Mars were near each other and Jupiter appeared above them.

From Sky and Telescope

I was hooked on the possibilities for stargazing in the Desert Southwest.  Our area of the United States has temperate weather almost year round and lots of wide, open spaces. optimum viewing conditions if one can escape the city lights. 

Now it was time to gather my resources for stargazing.  First I put a Star Walk app on the iPhone and the iPad. Then I checked out books on astronomy (rather too technical) and stargazing from the public library.   And then I signed up to receive emails from Sky and Telescope and Cosmic Pursuits. Flipboard on the iPad also has several sources on Astronomy that I am now following. Talk about TMI!  It was a flood of information.

My plans for the future include investigating Stargazing Parties in West Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.  And my husband Wayne keeps asking me if I am ready for a telescope for the bedroom balcony.  Thanks, but not yet, I say.

I am still enjoying just looking up at the sky before dawn and after sunrise to see what sights I can discover.