Out for groceries (10 min) and later to dinner at the Mulligans'.
Made apple pie but invented a way to speed up the baking time and make it taste better. Made 2 pies actually, one traditional recipe and the other a "healthy" recipe with no refined sugar just honey and raisins, plus walnuts, plus whole wheat crust. Both turned out excellently.
Dealt with transition from 5 kids making claymations to being in the car ready to get dropped off, put Dave in the driver's seat, and set off on my bike to the Mulligans. Dave beat me by "10 or 15" minutes through rush hour traffic to the far side of Arlington.
We showed each other photos from our canoe trip (we crossed paths our 2nd evening in (their last evening; they did the loop the other way).
Here are some photos from Geoff.
Pie recipes:
I did not have enough time to make these the regular way, so I speeded things up by partially baking the bottom crust, and sauteing the apples in butter - which I learned to do for the apple tart in Paris at our cooking class.
Heat oven to 450.
Peel and slice 5 apples for each pie (I used a mix of Granny Smith and Fuji though I'd prefer Macintosh to Fuji). Saute the apple pieces in butter.
Mix 2C flour, 1C shortening, 1 tsp salt with hands until you get roughly pea-sized pieces. For the healthy (17-point-plan/boiling-frog) pie, use 1C whole wheat and 1C white flour.
Add just enough cold water to be able to press the dough together.
Put half the dough (in a ball) in the fridge. Roll out the other half to make the bottom crust. Put some fork holes in it and maybe brush with beaten egg white. Bake for about 10 min.
Mix sauteed apples with 2T flour, 1t salt, 2t cinnamon, 1/4 t nutmeg, 1T lemon juice and...
NORMAL PIE: 1/2 C refined white sugar
HEALTHY PIE: honey, raisins, concentrated apple juice, chopped walnuts
roll out and put on the top crust; crimp edges; brush with milk; sprinkle with sugar (or cinnamon for healthy pie); protect edges with aluminum foil. Bake at 400-425 for about 30 min; remove foil for last 5-10 min.