BONDING WITH MY COUSIN JUDY

After we got to San Diego, my cousin Judy told me she wanted to try some fried apple pies while I was visiting. She makes an apple pie that is really good, but she recently found out that her husband Charles didn't like apple pie but loved fried apple pies. She had decided to take a short cut and had bought a package of two rolled pie crusts instead to making her own dough. Our grandma used to make fried apple pies all the time and we remembered enjoying them as kids. She also decided to use the recipe she uses to make her apple pie but just tweak it.

Judy didn't have a cutter big enough, her bowls were too big and her glasses were too small to use as a cutter so we used a funnel she had and just finished the "circle" with a knife. I suggested she roll the pie crust out some to make the dough thinner and then when she started "cutting" them, I reminded her that she hadn't rolled out the crust first. It was a lot more difficult that she thought it would and decided the next time it might be easier to make her own dough. I spent my time trying to rework the scraps to make more circles. We ended up getting 10 pies made.

That night we went to meet one of their daughter's Lee Ann and her family. Judy said we would take the pies for dessert (Charles and my husband Wayne were not too happy about sharing them). Lee Ann and her husband Arjay were pleasantly surprised. Judy and I shared our experience of making them with everyone and Arjay said they were the best fried pies he had ever eaten. (Then he admitted they were the first fried pies he had ever eaten, BUT that he really like them. Sounds like Judy may have started something. 😉)

Click here for a printable version of just the recipe.

FRIED APPLE PIES

Dough for a double crust 9 - inch pie (2 refrigerated rolled pie crusts or your own favorite dough recipe)

3-1/2     cups peeled, thinly sliced apples (I peeled 4 different varieties of apples that she had in her frig.)
3/4        cup sugar
1           tablespoon flour
1           teaspoon ground cinnamon
dash salt
1           tablespoon lemon juice
oil

Peel and slice apples.

Over medium high heat, 

cook apples in a heavy saucepan stirring often

until apples have softened.

Add sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, and lemon juice to cooked apples and stir well.

Reduce heat and continue to cook while cutting the dough in the circles.

Cut the circles out of the thin dough.

Spoon about a heaping tablespoon onto center of circle and

bring one side over to the other side and seal edges with a fork.

Heat olive oil in skillet

and then add pies. Cook about 3 minutes or so until bottom side has browned and 

then carefully flip over and

cook the other side. Drain on paper towel. (I quit taking pictures - sorry.)

Here is a picture of Judy and me on the beach. It was a little cool and a little rainy but we had a good 7 mile hike in the Torrey Pines State Reserve in La Jolla, CA. (2000 acres)