Apple Pie. Or, why today is launch day.

These are apples and pears.

They’re pretty, right?

I know, it’s a phonecamera.  We’ll upgrade to a real camera some other day.

So I surfed for apple pie recipes, because, well, I’ve never made a sweet pie.  I’ve made tons of pork pies, and some cornish pasties, and a few weeks ago I made a crisp, but that’s rather different entirely.

There are like 90 million ways to make the fillings for apple pie.  But only a few ways to make the crust.  So I worked out the necessaries for a crust and then threw in a twist.

The basics of a crust include shortening or butter, (but I used lard + butter,) flour, water, salt.

Here’s my crust, which needs perfecting.  But I’m being honest, so I’ll just tell you

1/4 c almonds smashed to dust (i used mortar and pestle)

almost 1 c lard + 3 tbsp butter

1 3/4 c flour (all purpose, but I’m don’t ken all the differences)

1-6 tbsp water (no one agrees)

1/4 c brown sugar (it took a lot of deciding upon this)

salt

cinnamon

Notes: the rolling of the crust did not work.  I wound up pressing it into the pie dish and i couldn’t get the top right so i crumbled bits upon the filling in order to bake it.   I am a completely novice baker, I admit freely and without shame.  My inclination is that there wasn’t enough flour, but I am happy happy happy to entertain anyone’s actual reason this is the case.

That said, it was fucktastically tasty.  The almonds and brown sugar were excellent additions.
Fillin’

Peel and slice 3 lbs of apples, douse with lemon juice.  (I did this thusly: peel, slice, throw in bowl that has lemon juice awaiting apples and pears slices.)  This way they don’t brown.  But you knew that.

For the filling I browsed and browsed and came up with the following:

3lbs apples (mine included pears)

1/4c flour

1/2c brown sugar

1/4c sugar

some whiskey (i don’t usually have bourbon on hand, but bourbon was in the recipe from which I sprang.)

2 tbs cinnamon

a little milk

mix dry ingredies, add wet stuff, add to apples, toss.
So we talked about the crust.

Here’s how it looked when it was finished:

 

 

And the lesson from this little pie?

 

You have to start somewhere.  If not today, when you have three pounds of apples and pears just sitting there, when?  If not today, when you have the luxury of perusing the interwebz for all kinds of advice on apple pies, which day?

If I don’t start now, when do I?

Does planning really need more than a nod?  Sometimes it doesn’t.

Must a launch date be set in order to get on with life?   Then launch today, haytch. Get your shit together, smear on the eyeliner and mascara, dress up in that bigdaddy suit that epa gave you and fucking go for it.

Or, don the apron, dive in, and fuck it if the crust doesn’t roll so well: it still tastes good.

 

Love,
mitda