Our pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving was so very delicious, but who can resist the thought of an apple pie? Not me, so that's what I'm making this morning.
Our apples this year are HUGE. I feel they could have used a little more time on the tree to fully mature, but Mother Nature doesn't always give us that. Supposedly, some varieties will actually ripen a bit more in storage. Fingers crossed.
Papa Pea can't tolerate a mushy apple so is very happy munching on one that is hard and crisp. (One that I would call a smidge unripe.)
I'm the opposite in that his kind of apple gives me an instant tummy ache so when I came across one (that he would call) mushy apple this morning while peeling and paring the apples for the pie, I saved it for myself and happily ate it while finishing the pie preparation at the counter. (Aren't we all different?)
I always measure out my apples in the pie plate to make sure I have enough for a nicely packed piece of pie. Who wants an apple pie with two crusts but only a sliver of apples?
All set to go into the oven. Top crust brushed with milk and sprinkled with a sugar/cinnamon mix. Between the turkey stock simmering and the apple pie baking there's gonna be a lovely aroma wafting through the house.
The apples always settle down in baking but this pie looks as though it will still make adequately thick pieces. Here it's cooling on the back unheated porch. (Hope all the bears have gone into hibernation 'cause the pie is scenting the whole back yard.)
Remember the new sloppy joe recipe I tried several days ago that we didn't care for? Well, never being one to waste any part of a pound of pricey ground beef, I put the remainder of the batch in the freezer. Yesterday afternoon I wanted a quick, easy dinner for us so defrosted and reheated the remainder of that mix. Guess what? We both thought it was much better! Matter of fact, there is enough left that we're eating it again for breakfast this morning. (I'm still not keeping the recipe though.)
Last night I finished the Christmas-y X-stitch I've been working on. Well, perhaps finished is not a totally accurate word as I'm going to make it into a small pillow as decoration during the holiday season. The design itself is only 8" x 8". I've needed some new Christmas decorations for a while now (years?) so it feels good to be creating some. Less than a month now until we'll be putting out a plate of cookies for dear old Santa!
18 comments:
I think some foods made with tomatoes are better warmed up as opposed to freshly made. Like chili. The pie looks very good. Blessings to you, xoxo, Susie
The only pie better than apple is a nice sweet-sour cherry! Yours looks scrumptious! What kind of apples are they? I am lucky enough to have great friends with a small orchard, and a variety of trees...I love to mix them up in a pie, but since they ripen at slightly different times, I really have to plan. I’ve a freezer full of fruit and it makes me happy! Apple pies just waiting to become pies!
Susie - Oh, you're so right about chili being better the second day. Actually, most any soup gets better with time. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving Weekend. Now on to December. In one more day.
Kim - I do love cherry pie, too. But we really can't grow cherries as far north as we are. Growing up we had a huge cherry tree in our back yard but the birds always beat us to the cherries. :o( My pie was a mixture of apple varieties that my husband brought up from the root cellar. I didn't think to ask him which ones they were. But it was gooood! Half of it is gone now. (We had a little company to help with the first half.)
The pie looks great! I haven't had the motivation to get back to baking since Dad passed, but I do have a pie recipe to try soon. Your handiwork looks lovely too.
Oh, that cross stitch looks lovely! I wonder if I could copy it from the picture, hmmm.
My guy will be right over to share that pie. Apple is his absolute favorite and yours looks delicious! Today I’m going to make turkey soup and share it with some neighbors that I know didn’t make their own bird. I have a huge pot of stock so there will be plenty and maybe I can reclaim some space in my refrigerator. It’s a wet raw day. Perfect for soup.
Your pie looks delicious and your crust too! I'm not a very good "crimper" but yours looks perfect! Yes, nice and high too with the apples. I bet your house does smell good! I made a turkey breast and it does not fill the house with good smells. I missed that.
Your cross stitch is precious and will make a darling pillow!
Like Papa, I like my apples crisp for fresh eating. I always add an extra apple than I think I'll need for a pie to munch on. Overripe apples do not make good pies. They turn into mush. But then, overripe apples make excellent apple butter and applesauce.
Kristina - You need a time of mourning. Perhaps the time of pie baking will be a good time to remember all those wonderful times about your dad.
Katie C. - Turkey soup is on my schedule today, too. I'm going to simmer the broth just a little more and then make a big batch of Wild Rice Soup with Turkey for the freezer. The apple pie got sampled last night. It was a teeny bit sloopy but I'm thinking will have set up more today. Flavor was yummy which is, I guess, what counts.
Sam - I got my "pillow" started yesterday and I'm liking the way it looks. Thanks for the compliment as you are a X-stitch maven!
Cockeyed Jo - We've come across very few of the mushy apples so I'm just saving them for my munching! But they do make great applesauce and I want to make a second batch of that, perhaps right after the first of the year.
My husband has the same obsession with hard apples. During Apple season we scour the countryside for just the right one. Right now the only variety that makes him happy is Fuji. Honeycrisp is OK too. He used to always buy Matsu, but finally agrees with me that they are tasteless. They don't stay hard long either so they all went into the dehydrator. I myself appreciate a lot of different apple characteristics, but I never find his choices appealing.
SmartAlex - Well, as they say, live and let live! We truly are all different and our taste buds really prove that point. I so remember when I was growing up how very, very DELICIOUS the Red Delicious variety was. Now? Meh. If you can even find them, absolutely no flavor at all.
I love apple pie! I like it better than pumpkin, hands down. It's true about flavor though. I just bought some galas because I'm going to try a recipe for fermented cranberry relish and it calls for apples. I should make a pie with some too.
Regarding the Red Delicious: The old Stark Bros Red Delicious apples are not anything like the big, oblong, dull skinned, yellow fleshed, mealy apples the stores now call Red Delicious. I'm not even sure how closely related they are anymore. The Red Delicious trees in both my grandfather's orchards tasted different. The skins were more striped not as uniformly red but the skins were still fairly hard and they always had a slightly starchy taste. My Dad is currently in love with Cornell's Snapdragon apples that remind me a lot of the old Stark Red Delicious, but not in a good way, although they don't appear to be related. They also have a thick bitter skin and tall, oblong shape.
That pie looks absolutely delicious, and so pretty to boot! Love your little X-stitch.
We seem to be 'awash' in pumpkin pies of late...time to make an apple one. You have inspired me, and its a good time to do it. We are being snowed on, big time. What a Christmasy look the world has right now. So glad we don't have to go anywhere....
Leigh - I'll be eager to read about your experimentation with the fermented cranberry relish. 'Tis appropriate to the season!
SmartAlex - Well, I've read some things that maintain that the old varieties are being hybridized so they have more of a perfect appearance (color and shape) and are more adapted to long-term storage and shipping all the while sacrificing the flavor. Ugh. This seems to be the case for the newly developed varieties, too, including the ones that are supposed to grow in areas not particularly friendly to apple growing. Like the far north where the season is short. Double ugh.
Rosalea - Thank you! Oh, I'm jealous of Christmasy world with all the snow. We had a temp of 14° this morning, but no snow. Just brrrr cold! Enjoy the next day or so tucked into your cozy, warm, safe, snow-covered environment!
What a splended looking apple pie! I love all pies, but Apple is a favorite.
That is a beauty contest pie! I love pie but living single it is not on the menu as I don’t need to eat a whole pie even one piece as at a time!
Love your cross stitch. Whenever you post a new one I get the itch. I do have a few in the fiber stash.
I may come visit. After seeing that pie it would be worth the air fare!
Retired Knitter - Isn't it funny that apple pie is such a common one, and yet a favorite of many folks? When we had the restaurant and I baked all the pies, I never made apple because of the time involved in peeling and prepping the apples. A shame, but I had to figure in my time in cranking out the pies!
Goatldi - Oh, even with just the TWO of us I always hesitate to bake a pie (although as you can readily see, I do it alot as pies are my own personal favorite dessert) because I think of all the calories we consume "getting rid" of it ourselves. However, most of the time, there seems to be a person or two popping in who is willing to make the sacrifice to help "get rid" of any pie hanging around.
Since being bitten by the X-stitching bug about a year ago, I've somehow found a few new projects mysteriously appearing (that Internet ordering is just too easy) in my stash also.
If only pies could be shipped across the nation as easily as a tin of cookies, eh?
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