Claire Teague, Features Editor
It’s almost November now, can you believe it? I certainly can’t. Halloween and Thanksgiving will be here before we know it. We’re entering the season of changing leaves and holidays, my absolute favorite time of the year. Mid-way through a frantic academic semester, it’s easy to forget about all of the good little things like friends, family and of course, food.
Every Thanksgiving, all 40 members of my extended family cram into my grandmother’s house for a weekend of eating, drinking, laughing and storytelling. Pecan pie and pumpkin pie are kept tucked away in the fridge and you’ll risk getting your hand smacked if you touch them before the coffee is made after Thanksgiving dinner. However, for reasons unknown to me, every year we make a large apple crisp on a massive baking sheet. It’s made a few days before the big holiday and sits on top of the microwave in the kitchen. No one eats this apple crisp with a fork and knife or sitting at the kitchen table. It’s finger food, consumed only in casual moments in the kitchen between making the mashed potatoes, or sliced and perched on a napkin to eat during the football game. My family is big and has a lot of different kinds of people, but we share this weird tradition, this odd little ritual.
This adaptation of a popular Pinterest recipe, apple pie baked into apples, is a small scale substitute for that lovely apple crisp. Swipe some apples from Brooks—or buy the local produce from the Market House—and buy a pre-made pie crust and spend the 15 minutes they take to bake calling a loved one and catching up. Thanksgiving is still a month away, but today we have a lot to be thankful for.
Ingredients:
5-6 apples, no specific type or color
5 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1 pre-made pie crust
*Note: If you don’t have sugar or cinnamon and don’t feel like buying the separate ingredients, I imagine that using a canned apple pie filling would prove to make equally delicious results. Simply cut the tops off of your apples as planned and scrape out the insides and pour in the apple pie filling. Cover the apples with pie crust as planned.
Instructions:
1. Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. Cut the tops off of your apples and use a spoon to scrape the majority of the inside of the apples and the filling aside. Work to remove the core and the seeds. Dice up the inner part of the apples if they didn’t get broken up as they were being removed.
2. Add the chopped up or scraped out insides of your apples to a bowl. Mix in the sugars and the cinnamon. Note, you can also add a half tablespoon of butter if you feel so inclined, but it does not require it. Toss the apples until all of the additions are mixed in thoroughly.
3. Divide the apple mixture as evenly as you can and pour it back into the scraped out apples. They should be filled pretty close to the top.
4. Unroll the pre-made pie crust and lay it flat. Using a knife, slice the pie crust into thin strips. Layer the strips in a lattice pattern across the tops of the apples.
5. Place the apples on a small pan, recommended 8×8, and fill with a quarter inch of water or just enough to cover the entire bottom of the pan. Place in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the crust is a light golden brown.
Bon appétit.
