Fall Carmel Apple Pie

This weekend, being the last weekend of summer (not literally, but in my mind September really is Fall), I made a delicious apple pie from some apples I picked from a wild apple tree after I ran at Eldorado Springs.

Here is the Recipe:

Heat oven to 375 degrees
Crust:
1 stick of butter
1 1/2 cups king arthur organic white flour
1/8 cup sugar
1 dash salt
ice cold water
Mix all ingredients except water in a cuisinart. After ingredients are mixed continue blending while very slowly pouring ice cold water into the dough. Once the batter pulls away from the sides of the cuisinart bowl stop pouring. It is better a little dry than too wet. Roll the dough into a 1 inch thick disc shape and store it in the fridge for 20-30 minutes. Now make the filling.

Filling:
2 lbs. crunchy apples
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 dash salt
1 stick butter

Peel and slice very crunchy apples into 1/2 thick slices. Warm a medium size sauce pan on the stove over medium low heat. Add the butter and melt. Stir the brown and white sugar as well as the salt into the butter until the sugar is no longer grainy. The sauce will start to thicken and smell like carmel. Take the sauce off of the heat and let it sit a cool a bit.

Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out into two discs. One should be about 3/4 of the dough and 1/4 of the dough. Place the larger disc into a round pie pan and cut the sides or fold the sides for decoration. brush a little bit of egg white over the dough in the pan and place parchment paper over the top, than place weights on the parchment paper. Bake the bottom crust for about 10 minutes. As the bottom crust bakes roll the extra strips of dough into the top crust. Remove the bottom crust from the oven, remove the parchment and weights from the crust as well. Place the sliced apples into the pan evenly. Pour the carmel over the apples. Place the top crust over the apples and brush with egg whites. Bake the pie for about 25 minutes or until the top crust is golden brown at 375 degrees. Remove the pie from the oven and let it cool for 15 minutes before eating with ice cream.

Tilapia with yellow and red lime tomato salsa and basmati. No run today.

Today I did not run, I have a big race called the Pikes Peak Ascent on Saturday, so even though I am as always several days before a race practically pacing back and forth with nerves about it, I am also loving indulging in pasta and breads and cinnamon rolls and whatever else I want for the week:)
Tonight, as I had no company to enjoy dinner with, I made a delicious suprisingly really easy meal. After a small appetizer of sharp cheese with mangos and a glass of cheap malbec wine, I found I was quite hungry and didn't want to take a long time to cook. So I stood in front of the fridge, than the freezer, than the fridge surveying the possibilities for about 5 minutes (enjoying the cool air I must say).
I settled on frozen fish from the freezer. In this case really inexpensive Tilapia a white very light versatile fish. I let the fish thaw while I threw some basmati rice on the stove. Basmati is easy to cook because it needs alot of water so you don't really need to measure your rice or water, its just approximately 6 parts water to 1 part rice. Than I roughly chopped some yellow tomato, red tomato I had left over, 1/2 a very small red onion (make sure the onion is really fresh preferably from the farmers market), fresh cilantro, and 2 cloves minced fresh garlic together. Stir these ingredients in a bowl with a bit of olive oil, balsamic, salt, and jalapenos. I than sauteed the fish in medium high heat olive oil with salt, pepper and fresh lime juice. Scoop the rice on the plate with the fish and than spoon the salsa on top of both with a few fresh slices of avocado and than a squeeze of the lime wedge.
It was really colorful, took me about 20 minutes at most, cost me about $4.00 and also made me feel good.