just you and me baby...

Sunday, January 1, 2012

A taste of home: Apple Crisp Pie

First day of 2012, first pie ever...I'm thinking that it's a fitting start?

If this pie turns out it'll be a miracle. I think I should have tried something simple to start with. I couldn't find just the right recipe so I combined parts of 3 different recipes. One I found online, one was in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, and one was from my mother.

Of course the commissary was closed today so I had to make due with what we had on hand (and my neighbor Jennifer had on hand, thanks by the way!) We used 4 granny smith apples and a huge red and yellow one (see how much I know about apples...) My husband was sweet enough to peel them and cut them up for me while I made the crust. FROM SCRATCH!! Yeah, that's right. No store bought crust for MY first pie! Ha ha!

Here's what I did...

1 1/4 C Flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 C Crisco

4 Tbsp cold water

I blended the flour, salt and crisco until the lumps were pea sized. Then I added the cold water 1 Tbsp at a time mixing it with a fork and pushing against the sides of the bowl until it was all mixed in and I could shape a ball. I rolled it out on a lightly floured pastry sheet. Then I wrapped the dough around my rolling pin to transfer it to the pie plate. (My new Polish Pottery pie plate whoot whoot!!) It went pretty well.

Then I made a coating for the apples. ..

3/4 C Sugar

2 Tbsp Flour

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

2 Tbsp butter cut into tiny cubes

I mixed all these together and then added in the apples stirring well to coat them. Then I put the apples into the pie plate and started making the crumb crust.

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 C oatmeal

1/3 C melted margarine

3/4 C Flour

3/4 C brown sugar

I mixed all this together until it was crumbly and then carefully poured it over the pie. I'm baked it at 375 degrees F for an hour then covered it with foil and baked another 20 minutes..

and voila!

I started typing this up as it baked so I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. We're eating it RIGHT now and it is AMAZING! Warm apple crisp pie with vanilla ice cream... it's going to be a good year :)

Luxembourg American Cemetery & Memorial (Our New Year's Eve)

The Luxembourg American Cemetery & Memorial is located in Luxembourg, Luxembourg. The only days they are closed is Christmas Day and New Years Day so we decided to make our New Year's Eve trip to Luxembourg this year for some history and shopping. Unfortunately we didn't realize most of the stores downtown would be closing early in observance of New Years Eve so our shopping consisted of us finding parking, walking to the shop I meant to stop at, finding the doors locks, making a realization and heading back to the car! It's OK. It's only an hour and a half drive from our home so we can go back on another weekend. I hope you enjoy the pictures from the trip.