Instructions

1. Pastry for a double crust pie:
   2 cups flour
   1 tsp. salt
   2/3 cup lard or shortening
   6 to 7 Tablespoons cold water

   if you don't want to make and prepare your own pie crusts
   just buy a Pillsbury Deep dish pie crusts will work just as good
   and ( lots quicker) (G)!

2. Ready to make that pie now?
   Peel, core and thinly slice apples ( my family likes a tart apple)
   we grow our own on our farm and for the life of me We can't remember
   what the tree is, but its a very tart tasting apple, ( red) a lot
   more than Johnathon which is fine but I don't use them anymore;
   We just use these that are grown on our farm...but experiment that's
   what its all about I do like FUJI too for baking;
   ok back to our pie after slicing up your apples thinly as you do each
   one put them in a LARGE BOWL with the lemon juice in the bottom
   gently stir up the apples so that they all get coated with the lemon
   juice this keeps them from turning brown on you while you prepare
   all the apples; You can add more lemon juice too as you go along
   I do and it just makes that pie all the better ( taste wise);

3. once you get all your apples peeled and ready to fill your pie crust
   now add all the other ingredients as mentioned up above; gently stir
   your apples and mix to make sure all the apples get a nice coating;
   just keep giving them a few stirs , let it set a minute give it time
   for those juices of the apples and lemon juice to kinda get the sugar
   and stuff mixed up good;
   now you are ready to fill your pie crust up mound your mixture and kinda make the center a bit fuller/bigger and dot the pie with the butter, put your top layer crust on , do the fancy edges to make the pie crusts seal up nicely be sure to insert your knife about 4-5 places
   so that the pie has steam vents/hopefully your pie will not bubble over but don't bet on it most all fruit pies make this mess (G)!
   I like to brush a bit of milk on my top pie crust, and sprinkle a little sugar all over the pie;
   you can also brush your pie crusts
   with egg whites either way helps to really darken up your crust;

   bake in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes I also put one of those
   pie rim covers around the edge of my pie for this first round of baking that way my edges don't get too dark, if you don't have a rim use some foil and gently place it all around the pie crusts ends..
   after this first round of baking you can remove the foil or the rim lid;
   I next finish baking my pie at about 350 degrees for maybe another 30 minutes to an hour, keep an eye on your pie, make sure its not getting
   too brown on the crust before the apples get done; you can do a simple
   fork test in through one of the slits to see if the apples are getting
   tender all in all expect the pie to bake at least an hour if not longer;
   just keep an eye on it ok? enjoy the heavenly smell as it bakes too!