A Was Once An Apple Pie

"A was once an apple pie,
Pidy
Widy
Tidy
Pidy
Nice insidy
Apple Pie!"

"A Was Once An Apple Pie" by Edward Lear, is one of my favorite books for kids. In one sense the book is a typical alphabet book - a picture and a word for each letter of the alphabet - but in another sense it's nonsense. Actually the subtitle of it is "a nonsense alphabet".

There are not many alphabet books that I could stand reading to a young child over and over - except this one. I love the rhythmic-ness of it all.

Yesterday my dd made an apple pie all by herself. She belongs to a girls' club where you earn badges for various things and right now she is working on her cooking badge.

Thinking of her and apple pie reminded me of the Edward Lear poem, because when she was about 4 - she read the book aloud to our extended family, during a Thanksgiving family reunion talent show :)

We used this recipe - a bit different method than I'm used to...the butter/sugar mixture is boiled on the stove and then poured over the top crust before baking. It's wonderful!

"Mexican" Cinnamon Apple Burritos

You know how good the baked apple pies taste at McDonalds? Well actually they don't taste nearly as great as they used to when they fixed them the "old fashioned" way (were they deep fat fried???) - but my kids love them just the way they are.

Here is a low fat, quick and easy, healthier alternative to McDonalds' apple pie...or any apple pie. You don't need to fix a crust (which I've never succeeded at anyway) and the kids can help you prepare the treat.

A couple of years ago I found a recipe in a "Family Fun" magazine - the topic was "Desserts from Around the World". Cinnamon Apple Burritos. Don't know if they actually fix these in Mexico - but if they don't, they are missing out.

Ds asked first if he could be my helper...sometimes both help (which gets tricky)

This recipe, like most recipes I choose - is super simple. Both kids think not only are these delicious, but that they are fun to make ...especially if mom lets them "lick the pot" afterwards (don't worry we actually cleaned out the pot with spoons - I'm not completely lacking in decorum...though my mom might disagree).

I do deviate from the recipe a bit to make these a bit more "healthy".

Apple mixture placed in the middle of the tortilla.

When we made them for supper last night - I used whole wheat tortillas, and instead of "brush each tortilla generously with melted butter, then sprinkle on sugar"...I sprayed with fat free cooking spray and skipped the sprinkle of sugar on the outside - I still added the sugar to the apple mixture (someone emailed me and asked if they were not sour w/o the sugar). Sometimes we include the nuts - sometimes we skip them.

Folding it up and making it stay can be tricky - I had fears the whole wheat tortillas would break apart (since they sometimes do when we use them for tacos) - but they turned out fine (pop them in the microwave for about 15 seconds before beginning work on the tortilla to make them more malleable.

So if you are craving the taste of homemade apple pie - but don't have much time, give these a try. The apple mixture is delicious all by itself...a chunky version of applesauce.