All American Apple Pie

It all begins here, with this old recipe (I know, the pages are totally gross)...

The book has long fallen apart, but it's the only apple pie recipe I've ever used. The sad thing about this book is that it was not even mine. Back in the day when I was a waitress in Clovis, CA, at Bob's Big Boy, an older waitress loaned it to me so that I could impress my boyfriend with a homemade apple pie. The woman got fired one morning, and I still had her cookbook...still do, as you can see. That was 30 years ago. Oh! And that boyfriend was so impressed with my apple pie that he married me! (There might've been other reasons, but I don't think so.)

So, here's how you do it:
1. Pam your pie dish, unroll the pie crust into the dish, poke it with a fork. You will notice that my pie crust is a big, fat mess. Um, that's for a very good reason. See, I use the already-formed Pillsbury pie crusts in the red box. I let this one sit out for hours, ignoring their directions for 15 min, and it all kind of glued together, instead of rolling out nicely, as usual. As I learned the hard way, instructions are there for a reason....

2. In your preheated oven (400*) place this bottom pie crust. Bake for 9 minutes. Set aside.
















3. Peel and core your apples. You will want 4-6 cups of them. (My recipe calls for 4 cups, and I always use 6. Which means that I have to adjust my recipe. So, if you are only using 4 cups of sliced apples, just follow the recipe exactly.) I use any apples that are on sale.

If you do not have this handy apple peeler-slicer-corer contraption, then you will have to take a paring knife and do all the work by hand. It takes longer, but is not difficult.















4. Squeeze half a lemon over the sliced apples; it keeps them from turning brown.



















5. Add these ingredients to the apple slices, and stir really well - 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp salt
















6. Pour this mixture onto the baked pie crust.
















7. Dot with 2 tablespoons butter. Unroll unbaked crust over the mound of apples. Press a cookie cutter lightly into the crust to make vent holes with of a cute design. Or, just poke the top with a paring knife. VERY IMPORTANT: To keep the outer edges of your crust from browning too quickly, wrap strips of foil over them... or better, place one of these over the edges....
















8. Bake for 38 minutes, turn the oven off and let sit in there for 10 more minutes, then remove from oven. Ta-daaaaaaaaa!