Before I delve into another yummy recipe, let’s just take a moment to talk about how awesome 70s rock is.  For those of you younger than thirty, I’m talking about the 1970s…y’all may have to Google some of this information.  Let me just name a few of my favorites.  Let’s start with Michael McDonald, oh, for the love of it.  I could listen to his sultry voice all the day long.  Swoon.  Then there’s Christopher Cross, oh, sail me away!  Gerry Rafferty.  Yes.  Rupert Holmes, please, let’s go have a Pina Colada.  Steely Dan.  Smooth as silk.  This is the kind of music that can just take you away.  So, to sum it up, I need to be sailing with Christopher Cross, drinking a Pina Colada with Rupert Holmes, while Michael McDonald serenades me.  Ahhhh….I feel better just thinking about it.  

Let’s bake an apple pie, crust from scratch, of course!

First, the crust…

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter, very cold, go ahead and dice it up

1/2 cup of ice water

This makes two crusts, and I use a food processor because it’s easier. Why make it hard?

Directions:

Add everything except the water to the food processor and pulse it until it’s crumbly. Slowly, add the water (not the ice!) to form a dough. Then, place it on a floured surface and roll into a ball. Cut the ball in half and wrap each one in plastic wrap. Smash the wrapped balls into flat(ish) disks and put in the fridge no less than 4 hours, preferably overnight. This recipe was adapted from http://www.allrecipes.com

Now, for the yummy, yummy pie! (adapted from http://www.tasteofhome.com)

Ingredients

6 or so Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced decently thin

1/2 cup brown sugar (doesn’t matter if it’s light or dark, but I used light)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 tbl flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon (I probably used about 2)

1/4 tsp ginger (I used a little less because I ran out)

1/4 nutmeg (I used more because, yummy)

1 tbl lemon juice (I used one lemon)

1 egg white, whip it good

some sugar for sprinkling

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375. Mix the sugars, spices, and flour together. I used my glass pie plate so I wouldn’t have extra dishes. Brilliant, I know.

In another bowl, toss the lemon juice and apples together. Just use your hands, clean hands, I hope. It’s easier. Then add the sugar and spice, and everything nice to the apples and mix…with your hands.

Now to the fun-feel-like-you’re-a-pro part. Roll out one dough disk on a floured surface and then press it into the pie plate. Then put the filling (apples and such) in there. Roll out the other dough disk and place it on top. I don’t trim my edges. I just pinch them together so they’re really thick. Then, add some fancy schmancy slits in the middle so it’ll vent. Brush the top with the whipped up egg white and sprinkle with a little bit of sugar. LOOSELY, for the love of all things Americana, do it loosely…cover the edges with foil. If you don’t, it’ll stick. I know. Now, pop that pretty pie in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes, then take off the foil and bake it for about 20 more minutes. After mine was baked, I turned the oven off and let the pie sit in the oven for 5 more minutes. Take it out and cool on a wire rack until it’s cool. Oh, the smell of freshly baked apple pie. It makes me want to wave an American flag and rock in an over-sized rocking chair on my front porch. I don’t have a chair or porch. But, if I did!