Nothing as American as apple pie...

     Unless your German.  Or English.  Or Danish.  Or any of the other countries that bake apple pie.  In addition to the penne with pumpkin, I also baked a homemade apple pie.  This was my second time making it.  Ironically, the first time was when Christian came over for our first scary movie-a-thon.

Apple pie 

     First of all, I have to admit, this is not completely from scratch.  The pie dough was actually bought from Trader Joe's.  What is the reason behind this?  Basically, it was to save a step.  I have made pie dough from scratch before.  With the help of a food processor, it is quite easy and actually fun.  There's nothing like rolling out your own dough.  However, I found that I wasn't making any pie at all because this step seemed so large in my mind.  Which was quite a shame as quite a few apples went to waste while I tried to overcome this mental block.  I finally decided to just get frozen pie crusts so I can make a pie whenever I want.  In the future, I will definitely freeze my own crusts and save myself a step.
     This recipe is based off of my Aunt Helen's apple pie.  When Scott and I first visited her in Connecticut, she served us some delicious apple pie.  I asked for the recipe and she was kind enough to write it down and give it to me.  I have been dying to try that recipe ever since, but somehow never got around to it.  Finally, a month or so ago, our neighbor/co-worker Marie let me pick a whole bunch of apples from her tree.  She said that they made a delicious pie.  And she was right!  That was pie attempt number 1. 
     Scott picked a lot of apples off of Marie's tree a couple of weeks ago.  Unfortunately, these were the apples that mostly ended up rotting.  I salvaged a few of those apples and some Pippin apples that Scott bought at the farmer's market and used them to make my pie (as it turns out, Marie's apples were also pippin).  Here is my (slightly modified) recipe:

2 frozen pie crusts, thawed to room temperature
4-6 Pippin apples, peeled and cored
1/2 cup sugar
nutmeg to taste
cinnamon to taste
yogurt or milk

     Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Lay the pie crust on the bottom of a pyrex pie pan.  Put the apples in an even layer on the bottom.  I layered them twice.  Cover with the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Lay the other crust on top of the pie and crimp the edges together.  Cover the top with a little bit of yogurt or milk and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  Cut a few slices on the top of the crust to let out the steam.  Put it in the oven for 40-45 min.  Remove when it appears brown on both the top and bottom.  Remove, let cool, and enjoy!

     What a delicious and easy recipe!  It was the first time I had cooked it in my pyrex pie pan.  I found I should have put the bottom crust a little more on the edge so they could have met the top crust.  I also should have re-rolled the top crust as it split while I was putting it on.  It ended up having a puzzle-piece appearance and leaked from a few of these cracks but it came out delicious.  A bit strong on the nutmeg (Scott thought it was fine), but delicious.  We served it with some vanilla gelato.  Yum!