It was pie...

I couldn't help myself. I needed some right now goodness of pie. So I put off the apple butter and made a pie. And it was good. It was good right out of the oven. It was good with ice cream on top. It was good cold late at night. And it was gone too quickly. Luckily there are still approximately 1 1/2 bushels of apples left so I see a few more pies in our future.


Common Apple Pie

• 8 or 9 large apples of several different cooking varieties (I like Granny Smith and Golden Delicious for this), peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
• Juice of 1 large lemon
• Sugar
• Ground cinnamon
• Pinch of both ground cloves and ground nutmeg
• Unsalted butter
• 1 large egg white beaten with a little water, for brushing
• 2 refrigerated pie crusts, or feel free to make your own
  

To make the pie:
Preheat oven to 450° F.

Prepare the crust (I save time and usually use Pillsbury refrigerated crust). Line a 9-inch pie pan with half of the pastry and set aside in the refrigerator, along with the unrolled half, while you make the filling. Taste a few slices of the apples to gauge how much sugar you'll need to make them sweet. In a large bowl, mix the apple slices in the lemon juice. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon to taste, then add the cloves and nutmeg. Pour the apple mixture into the prepared pastry shell. Mound toward the center and dot with butter. Roll out the remaining pastry and carefully lay it over the apples. Seal the edges, cut vent holes, and decorate with extra pieces of dough cut into decorative shapes. Or if you're feeling particularly fancy you can do a lattice top. Brush the egg wash over the surface of the pastry. Place the pie pan on a baking sheet (to catch any spill over) and cook in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes. Turn the oven down to 350° F. and continue to cook for about another hour, until the top crust is a beautiful golden brown. If the edges start to darken too much, cover with a ribbon of aluminum foil.