Pie!

This past weekend I had a fun fall day full of apple picking and farm animal ogling with friends at Honey Pot Hill Orchards in Stow. While there were no cows or sheep, we still had a great day and came home with a ton of apples. I had way more apples that one human should have in a 150 sq. ft. apartment, so I decided to make a pie for our weekly dinner date. I used a basic crust recipe and improvised for the filling. One of my goals this season is to perfect my crust making skills… not wholly accomplished in this instance, but I think I’m close. I wasn’t too adventurous with this one. I want to experiment by using butter in addition to shortening in the crust, adding a bit of sugar, crystallizing the top of the pie, taking over the world, etc.

Pie!
serves 8

Here's what I used:

Filling

• 5 apples, medium to large
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar (saw the addition of cider vinegar in a random recipe and wanted to try it)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Crust

• 1 ¼ cup flour
• ½ cup vegetable shortening (this scares me a lot but ‘tevs)
• Pinch of salt
• 4-5 tablespoons cold water

Here's what I did:

Filling

1. Peel, core and slice apples (keep them in a bowl with water and the lemon juice until you are ready to mix the remaining ingredients).
2. Drain apples and mix with the sugar, cinnamon, flour and cider vinegar.

Crust

1. Measure flour and salt into a mixing bowl and cut in the shortening with a pastry mixer.
2. Add cold water, one tablespoon at a time.
3. Chill dough for 20 – 30 minutes before rolling (I used this time to make the filling).
4. Remove dough from fridge and separate into two pieces.
5. Roll on floured surface to desired size (my pie plate is 9 inches).
6. Place bottom crust into plate and fill with apple mixture.
7. Place top crust over filling.
8. Decorate like crazy (or at least cut two small air vents in top of pie).
9. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour or until brown and bubbling and amazing.
10. Top with some ice cream if you so choose and eat it!