Thursday Recipe - Apple Blueberry Pie

Time to get patriotic. Baseball, apple pie, peanut butter... Let's stick with apple pie. I adore apple pie. It's my absolute favorite. How about some patriotic apple pies? Make a plain one for the white, a blueberry apple pie for the blue, and a cherry apple pie for the red. With both blueberries and cherries in season right now where I live, and apples available all year round, it's definitely pie time!

A word about the apples - use a variety of apples. They cook differently. Golden delicious pretty much dissolve, so one or two are great to add to thicken up the filling. Granny Smith are very tart and hold their shape. Fuji and Gala are somewhere in between. Honeycrisp are very sweet so you can add less sugar. Red Delicious are red, but I don't consider them delicious. I usually skip them unless they are extremely cheap. Even then, I use them in cooked things like this.

Apple Blueberry Pie

2 T. lemon juice
4-6 apples
1-2 c. fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. cardamom
2 T. cornstarch OR 2 T. tapioca
1 double layer pie crust (or just do a top crust)

Put the lemon juice in a very large bowl. Add 3-4 quarts of cold water. Peel, core, and slice the apples, dropping them into the lemon water as you go. This helps keep them from turning brown.

Once you have the apples prepped, drain them and put them back in the mixing bowl. Add the brown sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, and cornstarch. Toss gently until mixed and apples are coated.

Spoon apples into prepared bottom crust. Add blueberries over the top to fill the pie. Add the top crust. Crimp the edges, place it onto a foil-lined baking sheet, and pop into a 400° oven for about 45-55 minutes. When the crust is browned, the filling is bubbling, and your house smells delicious, it's done. Remove from the oven and let it mostly cool before eating.

If you use tapioca in the filling, it won't set up until it's completely cool which takes 3-4 hours.

For plain apple pie - increase apples to 6-8 and omit blueberries.

For cherry-apple pie - substitute 1-2 c. pitted pie cherries for the blueberries. Toss with sliced apples in the filling. Or use 1 can cherry pie filling spooned over the top of the apples.