Day 24 – where I live

Day 24 – I changed this up a bit to what I love about where I live and that would be the community of local farmers that open up their farms for all to pick whatever produce is in season.  Every weekend during the fall there is music, food, and other fun festivities going on!  We've love going up there all the time; here is my husband in 2008 picking raspberries.

apple pie

I need to catch up on weekend posts, but first things first, I made this apple pie on Thursday for our Aunt and Uncle who had a very short visit. I used this crust I already had in the freezer, which I loved because the recipe makes 2 double crusts, freezes easily and is really flaky.  I watched this video a while back with tips on how to make the pie dough.  I loved the spices in the pie filling too!

Apple Pie
Recipe from Sugar Plum

2 1/2 lbs. Honey Crisp apples, peeled, cored, very thinly sliced
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (optional)
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon clove
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, for dotting pie

Cream, for brushing
Turbinado sugar, for sprinkling

1 double crust pie dough, or see Sugar Plum's site for her pie dough recipe

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together apples, lemon juice, brown sugar, 1/4 cup flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and clove until well combined.

Remove pie dough rounds from refrigerator, and allow to warm up a bit before you start rolling. Roll out one of your pie dough rounds, thinly, on a floured surface, and fit into a 9-inch pie plate; pour 1/2 of the apples into pie plate, and dot with remaining 2 tablespoons butter. Cover with remaining apples.
Roll out the second pie dough round and slice it into wide strips, using a pizza cutter. Weave strips into a lattice, covering pie. Trim away the excess dough, and make the crust look all pretty. Brush cream evenly over lattice-top, and sprinkle with turbinado sugar.

Bake pie for 1 hour and 10-20 minutes, or until crust is golden brown, and apples are bubbly. Do NOT underbake - you want the apples tender. If your crust starts to brown too quickly, cover with foil.

Cool pie on a wire rack, to room temperature (or still a little warm!), before slicing.

Yield: 8-10 slices

Pumpkin Patch!

Hubs and I bundled up (it was 40 out) and drove over to the pumpkin patch to pick out some decorations for the front of our house this fall! Although it was chilly and windy out, we still had lots of fun!