Apple Pie

Welcome to my new follower, Diane from Food, Fun and Life in the Charente. 

So glad to have you as my 50th follower ;-)

Don't get fancy. Have you cooked an apple pie? You don't know what you did wrong? Do this: Take two or three apples. Put them on a table. Study them.

Paul Prudhomme

Is there anything as good and comforting and joyful as a simple, home made apple pie?  

I still don't have a pie pan so I made do with a spring form cake pan. I used this one because it is much smaller than the enamel dish I used last time I made pie. I think I'm going to have to invest in a pie plate if I'm going to continue to practise making pies. Overall though this pie crust was much flakier than the last one I made since I didn't have to roll the dough out so thin.

I took the pie dough recipe from the internet.


Pie Filling

1 double pie crust recipe 

5 to 6 cups apples, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (to your taste and depends on the sweetness of the apples)
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
dash salt
2 tablespoons cold butter

Preheat the oven to 425ºF.

Lay 1/2 the pastry, rolled out to about 1/8" thickness, in the bottom of the pie pan and press it in gently to lay flat in the pan. Leave the excess crust hanging over the edges for now.

Place peeled, sliced apples in a bowl. Mix together the sugar, flour, salt and cinnamon. Pour over sliced apples and mix. Fill the pie pan with the apples and pat down with a spoon. Dot the filling with pieces of butter.

Moisten the lip of the pie pan with water. Place the top layer of rolled out crust over the filling, making sure crust reaches outer edges of the pie pan all around. Seal the edge and flute all around (see notes below for how to flute a pie edge).

Take a fork and prick the pie top in several places to create vents for steam to escape. I cut out some vent holes instead of pricking the dough. Bake for 50 minutes, until pastry is golden and the filling is bubbling through the vents. 

Let cool a bit before cutting to allow the filling to settle.

Makes 1 - 9" pie.

It was delicious.

In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

Carl Sagan

Blue Buttons ~ Blue Monday, October 25, 2010

 "Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."

Robert Brault

One day I was sorting all my buttons by colour. I found this set of blues and near blues. Now I wonder what I'll use them for as I have buttons in several colours! I could make some crafts with them I guess as I don't make enough garments that will require so many buttons.  Whatever I decide to do with them, I know the buttons in various colours including these blue ones, are ready to be used.

At first blush you may wonder what my selected quotation has to do with buttons.  It just strikes me that life is made up of so many little things and that we need to enjoy the journey that we call life. This journey that is made up of many little steps and little events and some big ones now and then. Some people have trouble enjoying what they feel are the mundane things of life. Things like sorting buttons or organizing the desk, the household, the car, etc. I feel fortunate to find JOY 
not just in the doing of these things but in the contentedness that comes from having accomplished these small goals.

How do you feel about these mundane tasks like sorting buttons? Do you have a lot of buttons too? How do you organize them?  What do you do with them?

Join Smiling Sally and friends here for more Blue Monday.