Dutch Apple Pie

Happy (almost) Thanksgiving! I have the PERFECT apple pie recipe for all of you who are looking for a fabulous dessert to bring to your Thanksgiving table. This recipe for Dutch Apple Pie is my absolute favorite. I found it last fall, when I was desperate to get rid of the remaining apples I had picked. No lie - I made this pie on 4 separate occasions last year, and I have made it twice this year already. It's that good!

Ingredients:

For filling:

• 1 pre-packaged pie crust, or your own
• 6 cups sliced apples
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 Tbs flour
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice

For topping:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

How to:

•  Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
• In a large bowl, combine all of the 'filling' ingredients. 
• Gently toss apples by turning them with a spatula until they are evenly coated.
• Pour coated apples into a 9 inch* prepared pie crust. 
• To make the topping, combine flour, brown sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl and mix.
• Cut in butter and use a pastry blender or your hands (which work fabulously, I might add) to create the crumble topping. 
• Sprinkle crumbles over apples.
• Bake for 40-45 minutes. 20 minutes into cooking, turn your oven down to 350 degrees and continue cooking at this temperature. This will prevent your crust from getting too brown.

*Note: I've also used a 9.5 inch pie pan instead of a 9 inch pie pan, and this recipe still turned out just fine. It seems most pre-packaged pie crusts are 9 inches. I'm not sure if my 9.5 inch pie pan is abnormal, or most pie pans generally are slightly larger than pre-packaged pie crusts.

I kid you not, this will be the best apple pie you've ever eaten. I don't like a lot of crust, which may be why I love this recipe so much. The crumble topping is amazing!

I followed this recipe exactly as it's written by Krissy (who happens to be a friend of mine!). Her suggestions are right on. You should also click through her blog - she has some really great recipes!

Crockpot Applesauce

Yum!

It's October 1st. Which means fall has officially started. I should mention that I love all things fall-related. I'm from Massachusetts originally - the home of Salem witches and some seriously awesome foliage. As any native Mass-hole will tell you, fall is the best season of the year. A time where pumpkin and apple flavors are crammed into every food-related item you can imagine. Which is why apple picking is a must on my fall to-do list. As is pumpkin picking - but we'll get to that at a later date.

A few weekends ago, my girlfriend Jessica was visiting, and we decided to head to Lohr's Orchard to do some apple picking. We picked some of the biggest apples I've ever seen. EVER. Why is it that people always pick more apples than they'll ever eat? That happened to me & Jess. After 2 weeks of eating apples, I decided it was time to do something with what I had left.

Check out the size of that apple on Jess's head!

I stumbled across a crockpot applesauce recipe that seemed very simple, and I happened to have all ingredients on hand. I figured I'd give it a shot.

The recipe I worked off of can be found here. It looks like she grabbed this recipe from Skinnytaste - one of my favorite places to find new recipes!

Ingredients:

• 7 large apples* (enough to fill a crockpot) of any variety, peeled, cored, & diced
• 1 strip of lemon peel (I used a vegetable peeler)
• 1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 5 tsp light brown sugar (unpacked)

How to:

• Combine all ingredients in your crockpot
• Cover and cook on low for 6 hours. Stir periodically

How easy is that?

*Keep in mind, my apples were enormous. The original recipe called for 8 medium apples, or 20 small apples. As long as you have enough to fill up your crockpot, you should be good to go!

Your apples will reduce down to a delicious blend of apples & cinnamon as they cook. I found that the consistency of the applesauce was perfect - there were small apple pieces that gave the applesauce a great texture. I used a mixture of granny smith and macintosh apples. In the future, I'd use a less tart apple than granny smith - my applesauce has a little bite to it. But overall, this recipe turned out close to perfect. And best of all - the house smelled amazing all day! 

Here's the finished product. Enjoy!