Mr. T says, "Happy Balentine's Day"

Yes, as children of the 80's Mr T. still holds great influence over M and me. So, in our house we celebrate Balentine's Day, and spend a good portion of the day saying "Happy Balentine's Day" in bad imitations of Mr T.

In honor of the holiday, I made M a dinner of amber jack, sweet potatoes, and broccoli with apple pie for dessert. Here is my recipe for dried apple pie. ( I was too lazy to run to the store for apples and had orange juice to use up)

Mmm...Apple Pie
(if you actually let it cool before slicing into it, it cuts quite nicely into pieces, if you can't wait that long, it is a little crumbly)

Dried Apple Pie
a recipe developed from a mishmash of cookbooks (Cookwise, 1001 Best Recipes, and Bette Hagman)

mix together and put on stove over low heat:
1 cup (170g) of dried apples
1 1/2 cups orange juice
1 1/2 cups water (next time I think I'll reduce that to 1 cup)
let simmer until apples are puffy and softened and the liquid has reduced and thickened

Puffy apples

take off heat and add:
1/2 cup brown sugar (may increase slightly next time)
1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tbs butter
1/2 tsp salt
mix and allow to cool

What, don't you put cheese in your pie?
I'm a 'sconi girl, everything is better with cheese

I added about 1 1/2 tbs of cornstarch mixed with a little water to the filling after it cooled

While the apples are cooking away, make your favorite pie crust. I used Bette Hagman's featherlight vinegar pie crust. It is by far the best GF pie crust that I have made to date.

Sweets for my sweets
It is also the only day of the year I would put hearts into a pie crust

Heat oven to 500F, with a cookie sheet placed on the bottom rack.

roll out pie crust, fill, top with top crust, put in generous vents (more generous than mine)

Place pie on cookie sheet and turn oven down to 425F. Bake for 25 minutes. Rotate half way and reduce temp to 375. bake until bubbling and golden, another 30-40 minutes.

In actuality, after that first 25 minutes, I'm no sure how long I baked the pie. I was skyping with my brother and forgot to hit start on the timer, suddenly my house was smelling pretty darn good and I realized that it was probably time to take out the pie. It was also at that point that I realized I had not vented the pie enough. Luckily, I'm not so into looks!

The pie, didn't like the hearts so it popped its top.

It still tasted great.