Homemade Apple Pie

Fresh from the oven homemade apple pie!

Some of my favorite memories as a kid happened at the kitchen counter while my mom baked. At the time, those moments felt like just another day, but looking back, that’s where I learned so many important things about life:

-Always wash your hands.

-Everything in moderation, not just food, but in everything you do.

-Time spent with family is never wasted.

-And you can fix anything with a delicious meal!

So welcome to my mom‘s kitchen, where every Saturday we will share a delicious recipe with you. Everything from long held family delicacies to foods from our favorite cookbooks!

Our first recipe is one that makes me think of my wonderful grandma, the woman who mastered slowing down a crazy busy family with a good meal.

My grandma, my mom’s mom, worked in a kitchen making pies for a while, so her pies were some of the best. Today, we took her long held tricks of the trade and combined them with two great recipes to make an easy, from scratch, apple pie with locally grown apples.

It was delicious served warm with vanilla ice cream.

The Crust:

We tried a new crust from The Peach Truck Cookbook (one of my mom's favorite new cookbooks, we highly recommend it), Millie's Crust.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

• 1 tablespoon sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 1/4 cups cubed cold vegetable shortening

• 5 tablespoons ice water

• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

• 1 large egg

1. Sift together the flour, sugar, and salt into a medium bowl.

2. Cut the shortening with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles large peas.

3. Whisk together the ice water, vinegar, and egg in a small bowl. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir with a fork until just combined.

4. Divide the dough in half; flatten each half into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for 2 hours or up to overnight.

Filling:

For the filling, we used a family favorite. Betty Crocker's Fresh Apply Pie recipe. From the feel of the sticky, well-worn pages, you can tell many of pies have been made using this recipe in our house.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup sugar

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• Dash of salt

• 6 cups thinly sliced pared tart apples (about 6 medium)

• 2 tablespoons butter

1. Heat oven to 425°. Prepare pastry.

2. Mix sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in apples.

3. Place into pastry-lined pie plate; dot with butter.

4. Cover with top crust that has slits cut in it; seal crusts together.

5. Bake until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust, 40 to 50 minutes.