Thanksgiving Eve

vegan apple pie

My boyfriend and I are going to be driving to my parents' house for a full vegan Thanksgiving spread tomorrow afternoon, then we will be heading down to his parents' house in the evening for a second dinner. It's going to be a full day of driving, but it's also going to be a full day of family, which makes it all worthwhile.

To contribute to the two dinners, I decided I would stick to the classics and make my lattice-top apple pie. When I went shopping for the apples, I was looking for Golden Delicious and MacIntosh. The MacIntosh had been pretty picked through by the time I got to them...go figure all the good pie apples were gone on Thanksgiving eve... so I only grabbed a few, but then as I was leaving, I noticed that they were restocking them, so I grabbed some more. But because of this I kind of lost count of how many I was buying and ended up getting a lot more than I needed...about twice as many. So instead of the two pies, I ended up making three, and some mini individual-sized pies, and still had enough pie filling left over for at least another pie. I wasn't too upset though, in my opinion, when it comes to apple pies, you can never have too many. And thanks to some good friends, the arduous task of peeling the few dozen apples apples was over before I knew it! It did leave quite  a mess in my sink, though.

Lattice-Top Apple Pie

*The filling for this pie was adapted from 1,000 Vegetarian Recipes by Carol Gelles, and the pie crust recipe is from Better Homes and Gardens

Filling Ingredients:

2/3 cup sugar

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1 1/2 tablespoons corn starch

3 cups sliced, peeled McIntosh apples 

3 cups sliced, peeled Golden Delicious apples

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup firmly packed light brown or dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons butter or margarine 

Pastry Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

0-4 tablespoon sugar (depending on how sweet of a crust you want...I usually use 4)

2/3 cup shortening

8-10 tablespoons cold water

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425˚ F.

Stir together flour, salt, and sugar.  Using a pastry blender or fork, cut in shortening until the pieces are pea-size.

Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the water over part of the mixture; gently toss with a fork.  Push moistened dough to the side of the bowl.  Repeat moistening dough, using 1 tablespoon of the water at the time, until all the dough is moistened.  Form dough into a ball. Note: be careful not to overwork the dough, you want to get it just to a point where all the dough is moistened and you can roll it out. If you overwork it, it will not be as flaky.

pastry crust

Take about half the dough, leaving the other half in the bowl in the bowl covered under a slightly damp dishtowel.  On a slightly floured surface, use your hands to slightly flatten the dough.  Roll dough from center to edges into a circle about 12 inches in diameter.

Using a spatula, lift up the edges gently to loosen from the counter top. Then gently fold the pastry in half (do not press down on it or the halves will stick together). Then unfold the pasty into a 9-inch pie plate. Ease pastry into pie plate being careful not to stretch pastry.

Set the pastry aside and cover with a damp towel. 

In a small bowl or on a piece of waxed paper, stir together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and corn starch. In a large bowl, toss the apples with the lemon juice until completely coated. Add the flour mixture and brown sugar to the apples; toss to combine completely. 

Spoon the filling into the pie pastry and dot with butter. 

Roll the second half of the pastry into a 8x11-inch rectangle.  With a butter knife cut the pastry into strips that are 1x11-inches.  Place 4 strips on the pie vertically, then 4 strips horizontally.  Or you can weave them for a true lattice top.  Press the edges of both crusts to seal, then crimp with your thumb, or press with a fork.

Bake 40-50 minutes or until crust is browned and filling is bubbly. Cool on rack.

Makes one 9-inch pie, 6-8 servings.

the mini apple pies