Happy Fourth!

For the Fourth of July, Kevin and I spent the entire day with my sister and her husband out on the beach here in Huntington. It was a lot of fun, but tiring to spend all day out there. And to think that I used to do this every fourth with Kevin's family. We would go to Cayucos for their annual parade, sand castle competition and then spend all day playing on the beach and boogy boarding. Back then, they allowed fireworks on the beach, but now, no way. Its the same here in HB, but they do have an awesome fireworks show off the pier. This year, since we staked out a spot early, we got a good view. BUT, the walk back to the car with ALL of our stuff was AWFUL!
Anyways, before we had left for the day I had made an apple pie (Only fitting of course!), but instead of the normal lattice work, I used my star cookie cutter and cut out red, white and blue stars from the pie dough and latticed them over the top. Turned out pretty nice, not to mention yummy! Especially warm with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream! Here's some pictures from the day. Hope everyone had a great fourth!!!
Go past the pictures for the recipe for the apple pie!

Apple Pie by Grandma Ople (found online)

CRUST:
                 1 1/4 Cup All purpose flour
                 1/4 Tsp salt
                 1/2 Cup butter, chilled and diced
                 1/4 Cup ice water

       In food processor, mix flour and salt together. While processor is running, add butter, one cube at a time until mixture resembles course crumbs. Add water until mixture forms a ball and isn't sticking to the sides of the bowl. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. When ready, roll out pie to desired thickness (I used a 9 in pie plate). I doubled the recipe to make a top and bottom crust and had a lot left over, so you could probably stretch this to make a top and bottom crust from just this recipe.

APPLE FILLING:
                  1/2 Cup unsalted butter
                  3 Tbs all purpose flour
                  1/4 Cup water
                  1/2 Cup white sugar
                  1/2 Cup packed brown sugar
                  8 Granny Smith apples-peeled, cored and sliced (THIN)*

       1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Melt butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste.** Add water, white sugar and brown sugar and bring mixture to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer.

       2. Place bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples. mounded slightly. Cover with a lattice work crust. Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Make sure you pour slowly because this stuff is HOT and you don't want it to spill over.

       3. Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce the temp to 350 degrees F and continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes, until apples are soft and crust is golden.***

* I only used 6 apples, you can definitely use all 8, but I had enough. Also, cut the apples very thing, if not they will be too hard to cut when serving the pie.
** This is not a thick paste. Its not like a rue. Its still a little thin.
*** If your apples are not tender and your crust is starting to brown too much, cover the edges with foil. I did not have to do this, but depending on your oven, the temperatures might be different.

****AND DON'T FORGET THE VANILLA BEAN ICE CREAM!!! :)