Apple Pie

 Not really a recipe, just some helpful hints:

1. Apples: Choose large fresh crisp apples.  Good apples make good pies and large apples require less effort than small apples.

2. My wife makes crust portions ahead of time and puts them in the fridge.  So, step one is to take out enough crust for one pie.  It will be too hard to roll out if you try to do this right out of the fridge.

3.  Peel and cut up apples into pieces similar in size to what you are used to seeing when you eat apple pie.

4.  Add granulated white sugar to the apples in a large bowl--The amount is to taste, but as a general guide, I put 1/2 cup for a pie which would serve 8-10 portions.  This is also where you would add cinnamon, if you like cinnamon.  A teaspoon or so, to taste.  I mix by tossing the bowl to mix the sugar into the apples.  The sugar will draw moisture out of the apples and become wet, this is good and why you add the sugar now and the flour later.

5. Roll out the crust portions:  Put one into the baking dish, save one for the top crust.

6. Now add the flour to the filling.  For the same size pie as above, I use about 1/3 cup of flour.  Dump it on top of the filling and toss the bowl to mix.  At the end you may use your hands.  Keep using them to fill the pie dish.

7. Attach the top crust, trim excess, crimp the top and bottom crusts together and pierce the top decoratively.

8. If you are freezing the pie for later, just put it into a plastic bag and put it into the freezer.  Otherwise garnish the pie with a sprinkle of sugar and bake at 375 F for about an hour or till the top looks lightly brown and you can see good bubbling from under the crust.