I like pie.

That, right there, is my motto. I discovered it thanks to a link on a message board to weebl and bob. Nothing better than pie.

Last weekend, it was really, really cold. We harvested all our basil and tomatoes on Saturday night in order to get some use out of them because it was supposed to freeze. Dan made homemade pasta sauce and I baked an apple pie. Actually, I baked an apple pie and an apple turnover type thing because I prepared too many apples. For some reason, the apples all disintegrated (first time that's ever happened to me!) during baking and so the pie is more like an applesauce pie, but it still tastes really good. Here's how it went.

Filling:
7 large granny smith apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
1/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
lemon juice to prevent browning

Prepare apples and toss with the other stuff.

This made too many apples for the pie so I decided to make extra crust and bake them into a pie pan-less pie turnover-y thing. Next time I'll use only 5 or 6 apples.

Crust (I winged it, increasing proportions of my usual pie crust recipe, and also using some whole wheat flour):

2 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
whatever spices sound good (I used some cinnamon and some nutmeg)
5 1/3 tbsp butter-flavored vegetable shortening (I keep mine in the freezer)
1 stick cold unsalted butter
enough cold water to get it to stick together

Sift flour/spices together, then use a pastry blender to cut in fat until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add cold water by tablespoon and toss with fork until the dough all starts to stick together a little. This was hard to work with. There's probably a reason why you're only supposed to make 2 crusts' worth at a time (and I essentially made 3).

Divide into thirds. Roll out each third on a floured surface, adding flour to dough and rolling pin as necessary. Put bottom crust in deep dish pie pan. Add apples until pie is brimming. Add top crust and pinch sides to seal crust. Poke some holes in the top. With remaining crust, put remaining apples on one side of third crust and fold over the top, sealing edges with a fork. Bake both pies at 350 for 45 minutes or until top of pie is browning and it smells done.

Luckily, though I winged the crust and came up with the crazy turnover idea for the leftover apples, it turned out to be really tasty. I may start using whole wheat flour in my crusts from now on because the crust had a lot more flavor than when I've just used white flour.