We are scheduled to fly out to Texas this afternoon at 5pm from JFK!! Fingers crossed that everything actually goes as planned! If you and I never had a real discussion about this, my mom is a flight attendant so every now and then we use her pass to try and fly home. This means we fly stand-by, and if there is an open seat we can get on. If the flight is full, we don't, and try and wait for the next flight or just give up and go home. It is a really cool perk, but it is almost impossible to do now that we both work full time and have to ask off in advance and plan our vacation days. Because if we don't get on the flight...we are stuck! We've only used it once since we moved here, but as we will only be there for about 36 hours, we are chancing it!!
Growing up with a mom as a flight attendant allowed me to have some pretty unique experiences. We traveled anywhere and everywhere, as long as the flights were open. This worked extremely well in the 90s, but since the 00s (and particularly 9/11 obviously), it has gotten a lot harder to fly stand-by for us freeloaders who have a good connection.
For example, when Kyle and I were still dating my family took him with us on a mini vacation to Aruba. We had never taken Kyle with us on vacation, so I knew this would pretty much be a final test for him to see if he still wanted to marry into my family after spending so many days with them on a secluded island (haha!). After having a wonderful few days at the beach, eating lots of food and relaxing, we all made the flight back to Miami. Our next connecting flight from there was to a Texas airport, and as it turned out, there were 5 open seats, but there were SIX of us. Every other flight we checked into any other nearby city, WAS COMPLETELY FULL. The worst nightmares of stand-by had come to reality!! We all had work/class/school the next day, and had to make it back that next morning, so what did we do? We rented a huge SUV, and drove overnight, 20 hours straight, to central Texas. We took turns driving, and everyone was grumpy, complaining, and cramped in a small space, for far too long. But! We made it! And Kyle survived, and still loved my family afterwards, and we still got married, so it was all okay in the end.
To me this apple cake embodies the flavors of fall. It is best served warm, but I brought some into work (cooled) and received a lot of compliments on it! It is very easy to put together and simply delicious!
Easy Applesauce Apple Cake
Ingredients:
- 1 cup flour
- 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 4 tbl. softened butter
- 1/3 cup apple sauce
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar; plus 2 tbl.
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon, plus 1/2 tsp. for sprinkling
- 3-4 apples (Granny Smith is best!), peeled, cored, and sliced
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a square baking dish (8-9 inch). Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. In a larger bowl, cream together butter and the sugars. Combine the eggs, apple sauce, and vanilla to butter mixture. Add the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients and mix until evenly combined. Pour batter into cake pan.
In a separate bowl, combine the 2 tbl. of brown sugar with the apples. Arrange apples on top of cake mixture, pressing lightly into batter. Sprinkle extra cinnamon on top. Bake in oven for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.
