Midterm mayham, and meanwhile, in the kitchen...

So midterms ruled my life the past two weeks. Countless hours were spent in Paley, and I'm pretty sure I REM'd in Chinese. Now that the scariest part of October is finished, we can focus on more important things, like eating! I spent the majority of my weekend in South Philly, and was able to eat at the Loving Hut, located at 7th and South Street. Along with being a cute place, they are 100% vegan. Items I would urge everyone to try are their smoothies and tofu-nuggets. These treats and many more are made in front of you and served to you by the extremely friendly girls who work there. After my lunch, I was feeling pretty creative myself and decided to attempt gluten-free and egg-free apple pie. I used a basic apple pie recipie and snipped around until I came out with a room mate friendly version of the American classic. As a side note, I can't stand the rice-flour version of the apple pie crust, so feel free to try this with regular flour. I'm currently going to try a more "grain-y" flour to the mix next time. Next time so happens to be tonight, so I'll keep you posted!

Crust for Pie:
2 1/2 c. rice flour
1 c. (2 sticks) butter, chilled and cubed **I used 1/2 c. apple sauce and only 1 stick of butter**
2 tbsp maple syrup (you can use sugar also, but I'm trying to cut down)
1/4 c. ice water

Filling:
3 lbs. apples
3/4 c. sugar **I used a mixture of white and brown sugars, I'm going to try it with less sugar and honey next time**
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. all spice
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. rice flour

non-egg egg wash:
some melted butter (I think I melted around 3 tbsp)
2 tbsp milk

--preheat oven to 375--

In a bowl, place the flour, sugar, and cubes of chilled butter (and also the applesauce if you went that route).
Rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips or a pastry cutter, until largest pieces are pea-sized.
Add ice water little by little while mixing dough. When dough holds together when you squeeze it, it's ready.
Gather dough into a ball and divide it in half, wrap in plastic and chill in fridge while you make the filling (I've heard it's actually ideal to chill dough for 30 min, but since I thought I would be productive, I put the dough balls into the freezer for 10 minutes...the result? Dough was hard to form without breaking)

Peel and cut apples into slices. Toss apples with sugar, cinnamon, allspice, flour, and vanilla. Let sit while you roll out dough.

Take out one ball of dough and roll out into a circle that is as big as your pie pan circumference. Fit into pie pan and mound the shell with apple filling. Take out other ball of dough and roll it into a slightly smaller circle and place over pie. Fold edges over and crimp to seal. Make a few slits/designs in the top crust to let steam out.

Melt butter and mix in milk; brush over top crust of pie (but not the crimped edges)

bake at 375 for 20 minutes, then lower temperature 350 and bake for another 30-40 minutes. Pie is done when juices are bubbling and crust is browned.

I don't have a photo yet, but I can assure you it tastes great! Enjoy with ice cream and friends. (We also enjoyed ours with wine)