Ms. Knit-Whit had a grand appley adventure today. We started by gathering up some apples from the University of Minnesota Horticultural Research Center Apple House. The Apple House is my favorite place to buy apples because they've always got some new, unnamed varieties to discover and they're always just picked fresh plus buying their apples means they'll have more funding to develop yummy new ones--the Honeycrisp was invented there!

It's still early in the season, so they didn't have many varieties harvested yet but we picked up some Zestar!, Paula Red, and #1606's (that'd be the new and unnamed part), and then it was back to my place to get cooking.

A couple of months ago Ms. Knit-Whit shocked me with the words "I've never baked a pie or made pie crust". When I finished gasping and caught my breath, I insisted on scheduling a pie lesson ASAP because a world just can't possibly be complete without homemade pie and it's one of my favorite treats to bake.
So we started with the pastry, which as I would have expected, she did a smashing job with. Then while she ran a pile of apples through the peeler/slicer/corer (which, btw is the most amazingly fabulous invention ever) and tossed them with sugar and spices, I made us a quick lunch of apple, Brie and bacon pannini sandwiches. (Can you say YUM?)
We let our piecrust chill while we ate, so after lunch it was back to work rolling out dough and piling as many apples into the pie plates as we could. Ever the kind and patient teacher, Carrie even tried to teach the inquisitive M-Ah about pie baking.

Fortunately, I had whipped us up a little apple tart with the leftovers so we wouldn't suffer the agony of having to wait the hour it took our pies to bake to indulge, but that didn't keep me from having a slice of the real thing as soon as it was cool...because I had to show you the insides of the finished product and my famous apple cave...duh. Pie for diner. YUM.



P.S. Isn't her handmade apron just FAB? I think it might be the most photogenic apron ever!