National Pie Day!

This is one of my favorite National food holidays - National Pie Day! I love pies - everything from apple pie and peach pie, to lemon meringue and key lime, to banana cream pie and coconut cream pie and chocolate cream pie. I love pumpkin pie and pecan pie at Thanksgiving, simple pudding and cool whip pies, even shoofly pie. I haven't yet learned to appreciate the flavor and texture of mincemeat (did you know that it has real meat in it? Weird!) but besides that, I pretty much haven't met a type of pie that I didn't like. And the last time I tried mincemeat was years ago before my palate had expanded to enjoy things like beets, Brussels sprouts (yes, I like them), and Hawaiian pizza. So maybe I should give mincemeat another try sometime before I say I don't care for it...

I digress. Today being National Pie Day, I of course decided to make a pie. I tried to find one that didn't include a double pastry crust because of the high calorie content in that kind of crust (yes, this pie day is a special occasion and definitely calls for a splurge but I don't want to go too far). I found this recipe on allrecipes.com and decided to give it a try. It's an apple pie that forms its own crust while baking. The recipe had mixed reviews, most of the complaints being that the filling was kind of dry and bland. So I just increased the cinnamon and didn't go into it expecting a wet, syrupy pie. I don't like my pies to be dripping with juice anyway, so I was okay with that.


Fireman's Apple Pie
1/4 cup margarine, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon (increased to 1 tsp.)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 apples - peeled, cored and sliced

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, cream margarine and sugar. Beat in the egg. Mix in the cinnamon, salt and flour; stir until smooth (it will be firm/dry - similar to cookie dough). Fold in the apples, then pour mixture into a 9 inch pie dish (It didn't say whether the pan was to be greased, so I didn't).

Bake in the preheated oven for one hour.

Servings: 8
Calories per serving: 254


Easy peasy pie! There was no pastry to roll out, no crackers to crush, it was a very simple and straightforward recipe. And the smell coming out of my oven while it was baking was so fabulous!

How did the pie turn out? Kind of like a pie-shaped cake. The top and bottom crust were rather cake-like. But it did have the wonderful flavor of apple pie; it was delicious! It would have been even better with some ice cream or whipped topping, but even by itself it was fantastic. I still prefer a regular double-crust apple pie when there's time and motivation to do the crust, but in a jiffy, this is definitely a pie I'll make again.