Pie!

Who doesn't like pie, right?  Well, me, actually.  Did I already talk about this?  Am I the only one in the world that doesn't like pie crust?

Yesterday was my mother-in-law's birthday so we all went to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's (and the doodlebugs') house for dinner.  She does not like a big fuss made for her birthday and does not like us all spending any money on her for a present, but usually gives in to our pleas for something that she might like for her birthday.  And that something is usually very practical.  This year it was a shower head.  At Christmas is was a 10" nonstick pan and a fireproof box for important papers.  She also didn't even want us to have a dinner for her but gave in saying she wanted hotdogs and hamburgers (so it would be easy) and not cake, but an apple pie.

So, I decided I would try to make the apple pie myself.  I had tried to make a pie many years ago but let's just say it didn't work out.  Not sure what went wrong but a person in the know (someone who liked pie crust) didn't think it worked out either.  Needless to say, since I don't like pie crust, it was not high on my priority to try and perfect my recipe, so I haven't made it since.  And yesterday, apparently, was no different.  I chickened out.  Since I only had one shot at it, and had no way of testing if the pie was fine once it was cooked, I ended up buying a pre-made Pillsbury crust.

I used Martha Stewart's Old Fashioned Apple Pie recipe (minus the pate brisee - fancy schmancy term for pie crust dough).  As an aside, I love Martha.  Some day I will go on and on about her and Ina Garten in one blog post....

The recipe said to use "12 granny smith apples".  Didn't say how big.  Didn't say how small.  I bought 12 apples and only cut up 9:

The avocado and the vanilla are apparently there to
see if you are paying attention. No, they didn't
go in the pie.

....because only 9 seemed to fit in the dish. 

Sort of.  It was tall.  I know it is supposed to be tall to begin with because the apples cook down, but this looked really tall.

I have to say that refrigerated pie crust works out pretty well:

It certainly looked really pretty.  Most everyone liked the pie, although it was a tad on the not-sweet-enough side.  Not sure if that was because I really had too many apples so the sugar ratio wasn't right, or if it was because it said to put the juice of one lemon and the rind of one lemon in there and that made it too tart along with the Granny Smith apples being pretty tart to begin with.  Sorry for the run-on sentence. 

The crust turned out fine, being nicely browned on the top and the bottom and the bottom not being soggy.

There was that huge gap between the top of the dough and the apples, since the apples cooked down, but Mrs. C fixed that by doing what her mother always did:  smashing pushing it gently down onto the top of the apples so it would be easier to cut.

And now, because it was a relative success (Ha!  See what I did there?  "relative" success - since I tried it out on my relatives?),  I'm a tiny bit obsessed with trying my own pie crust again.  Even though I don't like it.