French Apple Pie

One of our seasonal traditions is apple picking. We go out into the muddy orchard and the kids going crazy picking tons of apples and throwing them in the bags. It's a blast. This year the weather in NJ really took a beating on the apples and sadly there were not as many to pick as we had hoped. It was hard to find good ripe apples on the trees but we managed to get a few good bags. Every single year there is a favorite tasting apple, and its never the one we picked the most of. We had a great time, and the weather had finally turned crisp, AND My son and I made our first pie together. My kids have really taken to helping me cook and bake. They love it and I love being able to spend quality time with them teaching them about food, and doing something I love. It makes me proud they have taken an interest at such a young age....although when they want to help me every single night I have to restrict it to the weekends when I am not in a rush to get dinner on the table.

I have been making this pie since my high school days of Home Ec. I dont even want to think about how many years that is, but let's just say its a LONG time. We had these ancient cookbooks, and I kept the print out and it was the 1st pie that I actually liked so I saw no reason to ever make any other. I am not the hugest crust fan so I like that it is only a single crust pie. Oh and I can make my own crust, but I chose not too. I know its cheating but again I dont like crust and well, its messy and takes even longer to get to the pie eating!!! Maybe someday I will go back to making the crust too, but that was how I liked to make it when someone else was cleaning their kitchen, now I am that someone who has to clean up

French Apple Pie

Pie

¾ cup sugar

¼ cup flour

½ tsp. nutmeg

½ tsp. cinnamon

dash of salt

6 cups Apples peeled and sliced into segments

Crumb topping

1 cup flour

½ cup (1 stick) Margarine or butter softened

½ cup brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Use a ready made pie crust (or make your own), mix the Pie ingredients together with a big spoon, pour into crust

Mix the crumb topping, the best way to get the crumbles not so big is to use a pastry cutter but you can also use 2 forks and cut into the butter

Pour crumb topping on top of the pie

Bake for 50 minutes @ 375 degrees

Cover with foil for the last 10 min. if it browns too quickly

Excellent Apples to use:

Cortland, McIntosh

Very Good apples:

Golden Delicious, Jersey Red, Lodi, Rome, Star