Apple Pie

In order to appease my husband about the other weekend's apple picking escapade, I decided to make him a homemade apple pie. This is the holy grail of desserts for AMP, and I once made a good one (note, once). So, I start cutting and peeling and coring this afternoon, while my three crazy nut job children played outside - check out what they did when left to their own devices in the garage:







All was going along swimmingly (AMP's favorite word - he even tried to put it in his dissertation), until I started digging around in the cabinets for my pie pan. Nada. I went through every cabinet in the kitchen, and .... nada. I thought they might be hiding in the drawer under the stove - the drawer that has been jammed closed for over a year - so my Dad, Papa Chicken (he and Nana Hen are currently visiting the Coop), took apart the drawer with a screw driver, and....nada. So I gave up, we hauled the children inside so Papa Chicken could watch them watch television, and I took the Swagger Wagon to the grocery store. I decided to splurge and buy myself a new ceramic pie pan instead of the disposable kind, because what self-respecting baker uses disposable aluminum pans? An hour after the whole process started, I pull back into the driveway (the house was still standing) and carry my new pan into the house and dump my handbag on the mudroom counter.....right next to a ceramic pie pan. My friend Christina had left it at our house on Sunday night after the girl's party. I had washed it up nicely and put on the back porch so I wouldn't forget it of course! To add insult to injury, the decal on the bottom of her pan is - you guessed it, an apple pie recipe.