Apple Hand Pies

Some parents love to work from home.  While I am incredibly grateful to have the sort of job that allows me to work from home a couple of days a week, I find it difficult to do so with the kids.  When Mommy is out of sight, she is out of mind.  When I'm in the home office (also known as my bedroom), the kids are forever sneaking in to ask me to play with them, give me hugs, and complain about Daddy's parenting (the ask-the-other-parent loophole).  The kids have so far been very tolerant of Mommy's handicap - they have been bringing me my crutches, fetching me this and that when I can't reach it, and giving me extra hugs.  But their comments of "I hope your foot feels better soon" are starting to shade away from sympathetic and into impatient.  Add the indignity of being present in the house full-time but not paying attention to them, and I'm feeling the full force of parental guilt.

Stop working and play with me!!

That and I have the munchies.  What couch-entrapped person wouldn't at the peak of fall?  Pumpkins, apples - I love it all.  Jedi does not bake when not forced to for the business (and who can blame him?), so I'm on my own there.  This evening I decided to combine my two problems into a single solution:

Apple Hand Pies

These are great projects for little hands, and taste (if not look) just like Mom's apple pie.  Of which my mother's is the best on the planet, just so we are clear.  For this project you will need: 

• One pie crust recipe.  I use Simply Recipe's - it works great.  Just make sure you do actually freeze the butter.  Makes all the difference.  You could use pre-made pie crust but it'd be less fun.
• 7-8 medium baking apples, preferably freshly picked by cute children then peeled and sliced
• 3-4 tablespoons of flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• At least one enthusiastic helper, with a workspace and rolling pin for each and extra flour for dusting.

First step is to combine the flour, sugar, and cinnamon in a large Ziplock bag.  MAKE SURE THE BAG IS SEALED  (I cannot stress this enough) and then give to your helper to shake until the apples are coated.

Shaking so hard she's blurry

Shake it shake it!!!!

Next, roll out the pie crust, 1/4 at a time, into large rounds.  As much as possible with kids, try not to overwork the dough.  Place a heaping pile of the coated apples on one side of the rounds, and then fold over turnover style.

Rolling out the dough

Press down the edges of each turnover to seal, and if you trust them to not harm themselves or others doing so, let your child pole holes with a fork in each pie.  Reseal the edges after your child has poked too hard and sprayed out the apple filling again.  It's worth the extra step - kids love stabbing stuff!

Making steam holes

Place on a cookie sheet and into an oven preheated to 400 degrees for 30 minutes, or until the pie crust is lightly browned.  Let cool completely and serve.  We did four large hand pies and each shared one - you could make smaller as well.

I feel better already.....