as american as.

Apple pie. 

 

 {photo by jordan humphreys}

Since we are on the autumn and winter fruit cycle, we have lots of apples and not a whole lotta anything else. This morning I woke up with a pie-making urge, probably left over from the pie recipes I drooled over last night. I've been reading about cherries everywhere lately. Oh, how long has it been since I've eaten a cherry? It feels like it's been more than a year, though I remember eating freshly picked cherries while we were in Turkey last (northern hemisphere) summer. It's just that the cherry bushels never make their way this far south. 

I imagined the pie I would make, before I even tumbled hopped out of bed. Serkan skipped to the corner store for butter, while I started to prepare my first apple pie ever. It's another Smitten Kitchen recipe. I poured fresh lemon juice over the sliced apples before fanning them out inside the crust and then I added a bunch of cinnamon. The crust is not completely pie like. I guess because it's more of a tart, and the crust is more like the savory galette crust I made the other day. I chose this method because we don't have a pie-sized tin/glass. Going freestyle was the easiest way! Another scrumptious kitchen success! Not cherries, but still festive and American-esque.

Also, Instead of making a glaze as called for in the recipe, I boiled down all the cores and peels (and some extra apple filling for slicing too many apples) with some sugar, a cinnamon stick and a few cloves for a few hours to make a delicious cider, which I'm going to curl up with in bed right now. 


Wishing all you North Americans a colorful, love-filled 4th of July!