Home-made APPLE PIE huuuuney!

Yes...I can bake too! I mean, how hard can it be to follow directions, right?

Not hard people. If I can do it, so can you.

And so I present to you the recipe I use to make home-made apple pie....granny apples picked from my tree, no less...

First thing's first though...you gotta get that pie dough going before anything. Here's what you'll need for the dough situation:

- 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

- 2 teaspoons sugar

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1 cup of chilled vegetable shortening

- 5 to 6 tablespoons of ice-cold heavy cream

*crust recipe taken from "Sweety Pies" by Patty Pinner, available from Williams Sonoma.

Sift the sugar, flour and salt together in a large bowl and then cut in the shortening with your fingers until the mixture almost resembles a bowl of peas.

Tossing the mixture quickly, sprinkle in the heavy cream, little by little...I almost NEVER use the full 5-6 tablespoons the recipe requires as you don't want a sopping wet crust...just enough to make it stick together well, fascilitating when the crust is rolled out and needs to be transfered to the baking dish to be baked.

With lightly floured hands, loosely gather the dough into a flat ball, place it a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refridgerate for about 30 minutes or 10 mins in the freezer. Once you take out the ball, roll out the dough to roughly the size of the pie dish, but slightly larger to make sure your crust takes up the whole pie dish.

Crust rolled out and carefully placed into the pie baking dish, flute the edges against the ridges of the dish and then refridgerate the crust to prepare it for baking. Refridgerate for 30 minutes OR you can do it like me and stick her in the freezer for a good 10 minutes....the hard part is OVER! The crust is ready to welcome the sliced apple filling...