To the editor:
No need to bake that apple pie in the fall. You have enough chores with other harvested food.
My solution: Peel, core, and cut your apples for pies in the fall but, there is no need to bake that pie in the fall to put in the freezer.
Preparing the apples you have harvested: Place 6 to 8 cups sliced, peeled apples into a plastic storage bag. Sit the bag on the counter and add the flour, sugar, spices and anything else you use in your recipe except the butter. Seal the bag, pushing all the air out as you seal it. With your hands mix the ingredients in the sealed bag from the outside until all the apples are coated with your pie ingredients.
Flatten the bag and place onto a cookie sheet. I pile five to six on one end of the sheet and layer the other end of the sheet the same way. Place in freezer and, after all are frozen, I either stack them up flat or on edge depending on my freezer space.
Cooking the pie later in the year: When you go to bake the pie place the bag of stored frozen apples flat on the counter as you prepare your crust. Do not open the storage bag. When your crust is ready the bag of apples is mostly thawed and ready for pouring into the crust. With the bag lying flat on the counter, push the apple mixture away from one lower corner of the bag. Cut the one corner off in the cleared area. Empty the apples onto the ready pie crust by using your thumb and forefinger to squeeze out the ingredients onto the ready pie crust. It is very easy to get every bit of the ingredients out this way and you do not have to deal with the “seal edge” of the storage bag impeding your getting out all of the mixture you have in there.
This is when you dot the pie with butter. Bake without all the rush of harvest time. And enjoy!
S. Niznik
Weston
