Mom's Apple Pie

Oh my goodness.. what a production it was for us to make an apple pie!!  I say "us" because Dayle used a vintage corer/peeler/slicer "machine" to produce the apple filling.  He worked out on the deck with this contraption clamped onto the kids picnic table while I was in the kitchen endeavoring to accomplish the home-made crust.  As you can see from this "lead" photo that we did indeed succeed in this project.  But, let's start at the beginning, shall we? :-)

My daughter Amy suggested we get this item to help in the making of "the pie".  I was looking online and Dayle said.. we have one of those.  I said.. no we don't.  He said, yes we do.  I said.. okay, where is it?  He goes beavering through a lower kitchen cabinet and triumphantly returns with said item.  Whatever!  This is obviously a vintage item.  White Mountain is famous for their well-made ice cream freezers, the old fashioned kind with wood bucket and a hand crank.  

The contraption looks like it was never used.  Ask Dayle why that might be.  :-)

Never-the-less, he brought in the bowl of sliced apples that were tossed in sugar, spices and some flour.  I, meantime, was wrestling my demons trying to make this two crust pie.  I made a recipe that was supposed to make a top and bottom crust.. and was only able to get the bottom crust out of the one recipe.  And then, I had to make a whole other recipe for the top!  Of course we were out of shortening by then and I had to use 2 cubes of butter (cold and hard to cut into the flour) for the second batch.  Dayle was now by my side telling me I was doing everything wrong.  He offered to make the second batch - not using a bowl, right on the counter.. at which point my voice got a bit .... shrill?.. and he was ushered OUT of the kitchen.  :-)  He brought the camera back to take a picture of me decorating the top crust just exactly how my mom used to do it.  In fact, since I am an artist, she had me do many of them for her.  The cuts allow steam to escape.  Her design was always wheat stalks.

The books, and my daughter, recommended that we put a strip of foil around the edge of the crust so it would not get too brown while the pie baked.

While he was "helping" me in the kitchen he was complaining about the mess I was making.  Heaven help me.  LOL.. it is a big old mess, isn't it?

One hour of baking and me checking and checking so it didn't get too brown.. and then.. TA DAH!!!!!!

While it was baking.. Caleb put the cape from his new pajamas on Buddy.. how cute is this? 

While the pie was going on, Dayle had a whole chicken in the pellet grill and produced THIS BBQ'd beauty for our dinner.  He used a beer can cooking rack - but he used apple cider in the can instead of beer.  Then glazed it with BBQ sauce in the final stages.  He served it with mashed potatoes, gravy, cornbread dressing and corn.  Oh yes, we had quite the feast!

After the dishes were cleared from the table I put the pie there to finish cooling.  Yes, it was pretty, but the final test would be in how it all tasted.

The boys had to go to bed so we cut them a small slice of pie and put vanilla ice cream on top.. and they liked it!

So, a bit later, we cut two slices of pie, added some Umpqua vanilla bean ice cream and settled in front of the TV to watch NCIS and perform a proper taste evaluation.

Want a bite?  The spices we used in the pie were cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice.  Does that help you envision the aroma of this?  It was yummy!  One thing I'll change next time is use a red apple and not green granny smiths.  They stayed firm, I like apples that cook down better.  All in all.. a very time-consuming effort but I'm glad we did it, next we'll tackle pumpkin pie.  :-)

My daughter sent a digital image of our oldest granddaughter's school photo - isn't that adorable?  She's doing very well in 3rd grade.

Today I'm going to swim some of that pie off.  :-)  A question for you - what is your favorite pie?  Do you make the crust from scratch?  When I showed that photo of the finished pie to my younger sister, Denise, she said.. "it looks just like mom's".  What a sweetheart, that is just what I was going for.   ((hugs)), Teresa :-)