Fresh From the Orchard Apple Pie

It's Friday y'all and what a great day to share a yummy recipe that you can try over the weekend! 

A few weeks ago Daniel's parents came to visit and we met them in Asheville, NC for the weekend.  Speaking of. . .  I need to post on it so be looking for that soon!  One of the things we did in Asheville was go to an apple orchard!  Picking your own peaches, apples, berries, etc. is always fun and a unique experience.  This particular orchard was mostly apples and boy did they have the apples!!  There were row after row of any and every kind of apple you have ever heard of and many that I hadn't heard of before!  They even had maps telling you which rows were which variety of apple- pretty spiffy! 

I like apples but I wouldn't say I love apples, at least not just grabbing one by itself for a snack so my first thought was "let's get some so I can make an apple pie from scratch!"  Without ever having made an apple pie from scratch before how was I supposed to know which of the hundred kinds of apples I should use?  I asked one of the employees and she mapped out the rows for apples to make a sweet apple pie or a tart apple pie.  With a sweet tooth the size of Texas, I definitely went with the sweet ones!  We ended up getting a peck of a few different kinds, but for my pie I used all Golden Delicious. 

Once we got back to Nashville, I looked up several recipes and with their help came up with my own little concoction.  I do have to say that I used a store bought pie crust, but that's still homemade, right?

Fresh From the Orchard Apple Pie

6 medium thinly sliced peeled apples
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbls flour
3/4 tea cinnamon
1/4 tea salt
1/8 tea nutmeg
1 tbls lemon juice
stick of butter (you won't need it all)
1 box refrigerated rolled pie crust (comes with 2 crusts and you'll need both)

Start by laying out your pie crusts so they will soften a bit.

Peel, core, and slice your apples and place them in a large mixing bowl.  Stir them around with the lemon juice to keep them from turning. 

Next, simply stir all the ingredients in with the apples.

Take one of the rolled pie crusts: unroll it and press it out firmly in the bottom of a greased glass pie plate.  Take the stick of butter by one end and butter the inside of your crust all over.  (Doesn't have to be thick or completely even)

Pour the apple mixture in the pie plate on top of the crust and spread it out with a spoon. 

Dot a few dots of butter on top of the apple mixture.

For the top crust you can either place the whole crust over the pie and cut a few slits in it so it will be able to breath or you can cut the crust in 1inch strips and create a lattice top by weaving the strips over and under each other.  Let me know if you have questions about this, it is easier than it sounds!

Bake your pie at 425 degrees for 40-45 minutes.  I usually put foil around the edges after 25 minutes to keep them from getting too brown.

Let it cool a bit so the filling will set up and enjoy!  Apple pie is always SOO good with vanilla ice cream too!

I added a crumble on top of mine because the hubs loves the crust and that is simply:

3 tbl flour

1tbl sugar

dash salt

folded in with 1 tbl softened butter

Happy Baking and Have a wonderful weekend!

Ashley :)