Apple Pie Kinda Day

I awoke this morning to a freezing house, a huge pile of laundry, and a lingering sweet tooth. So as far as I was concerned, my plan for the day was pretty clear: laundry and baking. Although I can't remember all of my dreams from last night, I do know that an apple pie had a leading role in one of them. Luckily, this week my CSA box contained quite a few apples. More apples, actually, than my little family would probably eat. Since I had all the ingredients on hand, an apple pie was born.

Now apple pies are one of the few baked items that I don't usually use a true recipe for. The ingredients are pretty basic, and the proportions really depend on a couple of variables; 1. what type of apples are you baking? This will change the amount of sugar to use, and 2. what type of crust? Double crust, lattice top, single crust, or dutch topping? Today I chose to make a Dutch apple pie. I have to admit I cheated and used a frozen pie crust for the bottom. Pie crusts are tricky, and until I have treated myself with a pastry cutter I don't intend to make any. Actually, I should have thought of my current lack of a pastry cutter before I decided to make a dutch apple pie, since the topping really requires the use of this tool. I was forced to resort to using a fork and a whisk which made the job about 1000 times harder. Anyway, for my pie I had a mix of a couple of different types of heirloom apples, all of which were pretty sweet, so I used only about 1/4 cup sugar in the filling. The topping uses 1/2 cup, so overall this pie should be plenty sweet.

Apple Pie
 1 thaw pie crust, either home made or store bought.

Filling:
Around 6 cups apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1/4 cup brown sugar (adjust amount depending on sweetness of apples)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice (I like the clove and nutmeg in this)
3 tbsp flour
1 tbsp lemon

Mix apples and lemon juice in a large bowl and let sit. The lemon juice helps the apples "sweat" some of their juice out. This will help keep the bottom pie crust from getting too soggy. Drain out excess liquid. Mix in remaining ingredients and fill pie crust.

Topping:
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup oats
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup salted butter, cold (if using unsalted add a pinch of salt to dry ingredients)
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Mix together four and sugar and cinnamon. Using a pastry cutter, cut cold butter into the mixture until it looks crumbly. Mix in chopped walnuts and oats. If you want to get fancy shred some sharp chedder cheese into the topping. YUM!

Crumble struesel topping onto pie.  Cook for around 50 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Done!