I’m back from Boston!  I took the red-eye last night and with the added 3 hours, was able to get a full night sleep and feel bright and cheery this Tuesday.  The trip was great.  Sunday and Monday were spent in Boston.  With the day in New Hampshire, it felt liek autumn all the way.

Pretty trees

Farms

And good friends.   We spent a lot of time just walking around the City and and just had a great time.  Oh yeah and the rain I was afraid of?  Never really happened (okay, a little at night, but nothing to deter our plans)

And oh yeah, you know all those apples we picked on Saturday? 

Well we made the most amazing apple pie!  I already said that I’m not one for pie, but this was incredible and completely changed my opinon of pie.  Freshly picked apples+a really good recipe= amazing apple pie.

I couldn’t resist sharing our OH MY GOODNESS APPLE PIE recipe with you:

Ingredients:

• 7 cups of apples, peeled, and thinly sliced.  We used 7 apples, three different flavors
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (and a dash or two more…can never have enough cinnamon)
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced
• Refrigerated pie crust (no, we didn’t make out own…but you could if you wanted to)

Super easy instructions:

1.  Grease pie pan and place one of the refrigerated pie crusts in the bottom.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  In a large bowl, combine the apples, lemon juice, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon,  nutmeg, and vanilla  Toss to combine.

3.  Pour the apple mixture into the dough-lined pan,  making the center higher than the sides.  Place pieces of butter evenly on the top.

4.  Place the other dough round on top over the filling.  Press the sides together. Cut vents into the dough.  Place aluminum foil around the sides.

5.  Bake for 1 hour, removing the foil around 40 minutes into baking.  Let cool for 20-30 minutes before eating.

The results were deee-licious.  We each ate three slices…and I even carried one home on the plane.

If apple pie doesn’t scream FALL, I don’t know what does.

Happy October!

– Do you have a pumpkin yet?
– What’s your favorite city (that you don’t live in)?  Boston and DC are mine
– Do you have a lot of friends who live in different cities from you? (i.e. ones that require long car trips or plane rides?)
– Are you good at keeping in touch with friends who live far away?