Sunday, October 26, 2008

Pie

Even when you're kind of blue, and a little bit down, there's always pie. Pie can be better than a stiff drink.

I turned on the TV the other night, and John McCain was yelling at me. "GROW THE PIE", he demanded. Well, I may not be a McCain supporter, but I definitely consider myself pro-pie. So tonight MizBubs peeled up the last of the Honey Crisp apples from southern Michigan, and we grew ourselves a pie.


Compound apple crumb pie



Ingredients:

1 pie crust of your choosing (Both my mom and MizBubs have made absolutely brilliant, flaky, melt-in-your-mouth pie crusts in the past, but tonight I used one of those rolled Pillsbury crusts.)

5 apples, peeled and cut into eight slices each
1/2 cup sugar mixed with 1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 chopped pecans (Unbelievably, I forgot to add pecans to the pie you see pictured above. It was a delicious, and yet sadly incomplete, pie.)

  • Preheat oven to 450
  • Place crust in pie pan
  • Slice apples and arrange in pie crust
  • Pour the 1/2 cup sugar/cinnamon mix evenly over the apples in the crust
  • Mix 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2/3 cup flour, 1 tsp cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Use a pastry blender to mix in the butter until the mixture is crumbly. This will be your topping.
  • Mix the chopped pecans into the topping. Spread the topping over the apples.
  • Bake at 450 for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake for about 40-45 minutes until it's dark and bubbly.
  • Enjoy your pie.
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While I'm at it, this is as good a time as any to remind everyone about the Big Wicked Online Pageant over at A Cup of Coffey (Coffey goes great with pie!)

On Monday evening, post a picture of yourself as a kid in your adorable/scary/unfortunate/dorky Halloween costume on your blog, and email Beth with your link. If you can't find a picture of yourself as a kid, pick something suitably mortifying from your more recent past and post that. The pageant is being co-hosted by yours truly and Florida expert Dale.

All the cool kids are doing it. My favorite procrastinating noir writer Cormac chipped in with an early contribution just to help everyone get in the spirit.

It's going to be very scary!

4 comments:

jin said...

Pie happens to be one of the dirtiest words in a pastry shoppe.
(Well... if you have a sick mind like I do! *snicker*)

You have no idea how hard it is for me NOT to laugh when an elderly woman walks in and tells me, "Jennifer! Your pie is so juicy! It's the best I've ever tasted!"

Erik Donald France said...

Damn, that looks good.

Best I could do back in the day was Shoe-fly pie and Poor Man's cake. Even those were better than a stick in the eye.

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

Mmmmmm, pie.

dguzman said...

Wish I would've been there for a slice! Thanks for the recipe!