The beautiful harvest moon we saw last night inspired me to celebrate this harvest season with a favorite fall fruit: Apples! And, what better way to enjoy them than warm, spiced, and sweet, nestled inside a flaky homemade pie crust? Umm, umm, good…

Anytime I mention that I make my own pie crust, for some unknown reason, people seem surprised. Almost as if a homemade pie crust was something that only existed during the Little House on the Prairie era or on The Waltons. (okay, who else remembers these classic TV shows?) Truth is, I’ve been making homemade pies since I was tall enough to reach the top of the kitchen counter!

Growing up, our family made seasonal pilgrimages to a farm in eastern Ohio to pick and purchase whatever fruit was in season. Peaches, cherries, strawberries, apples – we picked them all…LOTS of them! Once we returned home, it was time to process whatever we had picked. Strawberries were cleaned, hulled, sliced, mixed with sugar, and stored in the freezer for future strawberry shortcake. Peaches, cherries and apples were all converted into par-baked homemade pies. Invariably, my father would suddenly remember he needed go into town to pick up something from the store, leaving my mother, brother, and me on the front porch surrounded with baskets of fresh fruit, paring knives, and large bowls. Such fun…

Once the fruit had been processed, my mother would line practically every horizontal surface in the kitchen and dining room with disposable foil pie tins. (Of course, they were only disposed after they had been used, washed, and reused until they were no longer round. We also reused twist ties, rubber bands, scraps of aluminum foil, bags, boxes, etc. We were a frugal family, to say the least.) Anyway, back to the pies…

Mom had stumbled across a pie crust recipe ‘way back when Crisco Oil was first a thing. Apparently, there was a pie crust recipe on the bottle and that became the de facto standard in our home. Truth be told, it’s ridiculously easy to make and our pies are always flaky and delicious. Mom and I would mix the flour, salt, oil and water and roll out the dough between sheets of wax paper to form a pseudo-circle which would then be flipped into a pie tin. Mix, mix, mix; roll, roll, roll; crust, crust, crust. Next would come whatever filling we were fixing that day, topped with dollops of butter. Then, crust, crust, crust, flute/seal the edges and into the oven they would go for partial baking before being covered, labeled, and transferred to shelves in the basement freezer. Then, we would have freshly baked homemade fruit pies all winter long. YUM!

My pie adventure today wasn’t nearly as time consuming. I picked up some fresh Rome beauties at the local farmer’s market earlier in the week (that someone else had graciously pulled from a tree somewhere.) Usually, it takes 6 or 7 apples to make a nice pie but these babies were HUGE so I only needed 5. Then it was time to make the crust using 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, a tsp of salt, 2/3 cup of oil and 1/4 cup of cold H2O. The bottom crust was installed and the apples (which had been peeled, cored, sliced and mixed with some flour, salt, sweetener, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and vanilla) were then piled into the crust-lined pie pan. Good ol’ butter topped the fruit before adding the top crust, sealing it, and cutting slits for steam to escape. Into a 425 degree oven it went for 20 minutes, then it baked for an additional 40 minutes at 350. Our house smelled divine…

Out of the oven it came to cool and then I cut a slice for each of us and we enjoyed it while it was still warm. Tasty stuff, I tell ya.

Happy fall, y’all!