Are you looking for something to do on date night?  Have you baked a pie together?  We are always looking for things to do together at home after the kids go to bed, it seems that we get stuck doing the same things every week.  But this week was a little different, this week we baked an apple pie.  When I was out pedaling the excess plums around our neighbourhood, one neighbour insisted that we take apples in exchange for the plums.  So with a basket of local apples we set to work.  My husband is an excellent cook, but we rarely cook together because we have two little kids.  Its hard enough for one person to cook in our house never mind both of us together, someone needs to keep the kids from terrorizing each other.   So it was a nice treat to be able to be in the kitchen together without someone holding on to my arm, sitting on my foot or yelling at me.  Even if you don’t have kids cooking or baking together can be a nice change if you don’t do it often.

My husband cleaned the apples and prepared the filling while I made the crust.  This is a dairy free apple pie because we have one little person who has an issue with dairy, but you can easily substitute butter in the same quantity below.

Rolling out the crust

Crust in the pie plate

Pie Crust

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 cups flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chilled margarine (margarine was in the freezer for about 10 minutes)
• 1/3 cup ice water

Instructions

1. Mix flour, sugar, and salt together
2. Using a pastry cutter blend margarine into flour mixture until it looks like small peas.  I used my Kitchenaid mixer without an issue.
3. Sprinkle water mixture while mixing until the dough forms into a ball.  You don’t want the dough to be too soft.
4. Cut the dough into 2 balls, a larger one for the bottom and a slightly smaller one for the top.
5. Put the balls into the fridge.
6. Grease a 9″ or 9.5″ pie plate.
7. Prepare the surface for rolling out the pie crust with flour, and flour the rolling-pin.
8. Take the larger ball from the fridge and roll it out, and place the rolled dough into the pie plate.
9. Fill the crust with the apple filling
10. Roll out the top of the pie crust and place over the apples.
11. Pinch the edges closed, and make holes in the top with a fork for the heat to escape while baking.
12. Bake at 425 degrees for 40 minutes or until the top is lightly browned.

Ready to eat

Preparing the apples

Apple goodness

Pie Filling

Ingredients

• 8 medium apples
• 1/3 cup melted margarine
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• cinnamon – as much or little as you like
• Chocolate chips, or chopped nuts – as many or few as you like
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar

Directions

1. Wash, peel and core the apples
2. Melt the margarine
3. Toss apples in margarine, sugar and cinnamon
4. Mix in chocolate chips, or nuts as you wish
5. Pour the apple mixture into the prepared pie crust

Keep cooking, and dating.