Catching Up Part 2

So here is my continued effort to catch up to the present day--and tomorrow will hopefully be the post that brings me fully up to date.

The holiday weekend at the beginning of the month gave Scooter and I the perfect opportunity to have another adventure on a day trip. We knew that we would be dealing with 1) the possibility of a lot of traffic because of like-minded people and 2) the definite reality of large crowds at our intended destination. We left extra early to avoid the traffic (and successfully did so, I might add), and debated the whole way to the coast about how many people would be there and how many rides we could expect to ride before 5:00pm.

The brief telling of the story: we got in a lot of rides and had an all-around good time. There were a lot of people where we were. The park we were at was right on the beach, giving us a good view of the crowds of people that had escaped to the coast for the holiday weekend. The vast number of not only people but tarps, umbrellas, and canopies made the beach look like a city of nomads had sprung out of the sand in a matter of hours (which I suppose it did). Scooter likened it to a huge flea market.

We left in the late afternoon to continue our way up the coast, and things made a turn for the worse once we left the park on the beach. I won't go into a lot of detail, just to say that we were tired, frustrated, and irrate by the time we were able to head home.

Independence Day itself was quiet. My parents had my sister and us over for barbecued hot dogs. My contribution to dinner was a homemade apple pie (recipe seen below). The evening was finished with several West Wing episodes--a Saturday night tradition we had to push back since my parents were out of town. We could hear some fireworks going off, which are not allowed in our area (you might call us a "dry" town). The only fireworks Scooter and I saw were some small ones a couple of people set off on the corner across the street.

Now for the recipe: all-American apple pie with crumb topping. The original recipe is from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I'll start with the pie crust first.

What you'll need:
1 1/4 c. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 cup shortening
4 to 5 Tbs. ice-cold water

What you'll need to do:
1. In a medium mixing bowl, add the flour and salt.
2. Add in the shortening. Using your fingertips or a pastry blender, blend it into the flour mixture until it looks like large crumbs.
3. Add in the ice water one tablespoon at a time. Stir each addition into the flour mixture. Stop adding water when all the flour is moistened and the dough holds together.
4. Roll dough into a ball. If you are making the dough ahead of time, you can wrap it in plastic wrap and store it in the fridge up to 24 hours.
5. Lightly flour a flat surface and roll out the dough into a 12-in circle. Move to a 9-in pie pan and lightly press to mold it to all sides of the pie pan. Trim the edges of the dough to the edge of the pie pan.

Now you're ready for the filling and crumb topping.

What you'll need:
1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. brown sugar
3 Tbs. butter
2 Granny Smith apples
4 small Gala apples
3/4 c. sugar
2 Tbs. flour
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

What you'll need to do:
1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a small bowl, add the 1/2 cup flour and the brown sugar. Using your fingers or a pastry blender, mix in the butter until the topping looks like large crumbs. Set aside.
3. Peel, core, and thinly slice the six apples. Set aside.
4. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the sugar, the remaining two tablespoons of flour, the cinnamon, and the nutmeg. Add in the apple slices and stir until the apples are all well-covered.
5. Add the apple mixture to the prepared pie crust. Carefully sprinkle on the crumb topping.
6. Cover the edges with foil and bake in the oven for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 20 minutes or until the filling is bubbly and the apples are tender.
7. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Enjoy!