Have a slice of apple pie while I eat some of this crow!

When we went to Collen and Echo’s house for Crazy Canadian Thanksgiving, we took an apple pie that I baked. It was really good and they both had a second slice. Later, when I sent mini pies to work with Ken for an event, Collen had two of those, too, haha! Since it’s usually just me and Ken, I sometimes forget how nice it is to share something you’ve baked with someone else.

I told him I’d be his class mom and send baked goods in for meetings from now on. He thought that was silly until I sent in those mini-pies and everyone else there thought it was a great idea, lol! Anyway, I digress…the point I wanted to make was that sharing Thanksgiving with Collen and his wife, Echo was really nice, even if it felt so early in the year to me. There’s something about sharing a meal and cooking for each other that makes you feel close to people. So, I share this apple pie with my friends and family the only way I can – virtually. I hope you enjoy this recipe!

Second Helping Apple Pie

• 3 lbs apples (I used a mixture of granny smith and honeycrisp – a total of 7 or 8 med. size apples)
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tsp cinammon (I have found that Vietnamese Saigon Cassia is totally worth the little extra cost if you can find it at a good spice shop)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 3 Tbsp. cornstarch
• 3 Tbsp. vanilla (yes, I said 3!)
• lemon juice

Egg Wash

• 1 egg yolk and 1 Tbsp milk beaten together

Preheat oven to 375F. Core and slice your apples and sprinkle with the lemon juice. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir.

Fill your pie crust and add the top crust- I am not giving a recipe here because I have had a lot of issues with making gluten free pie crust and I don’t have a recipe for a gluten full crust for you.

Bake at 375F for 40 minutes – then brush with an egg wash and bake for 10 minutes more. Voila!

And now, to go with your pie, an entertaining tale of how we become acclimated to our surroundings. Since moving to Calgary, I have had many complaints about the driving here. Most people drive pretty normally, but there are some really crazy things that I see on a regular basis. Most of them involve deciding suddenly to turn left from a far right hand lane or vice-versa, and other seemingly random driving decisions. I also hate the very low speed limits all over Calgary. Most of my complaints involve drivers that cruise along at 10kmph under the posted “maximum” – which in a 50kmph zone, is really slow.

When we were in Montana last week for Thanksgiving, we went to dinner at an inn up the road from Kalispell in Whitefish. Ken had a few beers with dinner and asked me to drive back to the hotel. As I was driving through town, I noticed that I was being followed very closely by a big truck. The guy was so close to me I couldn’t even see his headlights!

I looked down and saw that I was going 5 miles over the speed limit of 35 and was irritated that he was so close. When we passed a sign that showed the limit was increased to 45, I sped up to 50. And he stayed right on my bumper! I couldn’t believe he was riding so close!

A few minutes later, the road widened and he sped past me in the next lane. I commented to Ken that he would get a ticket and I looked down again as I told him that I was already going 5 miles over the limit, so there was no telling how fast that guy was going…only to realize that the entire time, I’d been looking at the inner ring on the speedometer…the one that is measured in kilometers per hour! Hahahaha!  No wonder that guy was right on top of me! When I thought I was going 50 miles an hour in a 45 mph zone, I was really going 50 km per hour (which works out to 30 mph)!! Only 15 mph under! Whoopsie!

I laughed the rest of the way back to the hotel about how I’d been assimilated by the Canadian Borg!