For George Washington

This week was George Washington's birthday.  I'm not sure how old he would be, and I'm too lazy to Google it, but we know he'd be over 250 now.  That calls for a pie with cherries in it!  My husband brought home some dried cherries from Utah State University - they call them "Cherry Wrinkles".  Isn't that the cutest name ever for a dried fruit?  It beats "prune" by about 250 miles!  So, I added the cherry wrinkles to the Pink Lady apples on my kitchen counter and made a new kind of pie.  Our faithful friends Mary and Curtis came over with ice cream to try out this new pie, and they both said they liked it.  Vanilla ice cream was a great accent, but we thought cherry vanilla would be extra special with this pie.  Instead of cinnamon I used nutmeg for a new flavor.  I discovered that the battery in my camera was dead, so this week you get a camera phone photo of the pie.  Oh, and here's where you can buy the cherry wrinkles at USU - they also sell a mean cherry vanilla ice cream! Aggie Ice Cream

Here's the recipe for Apple-Cherry Pie:

Pastry for a double crust deep-dish pie
8 cups peeled and sliced apples
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3/4 cup dried cherries
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Mix together the fruit, sugar, lemon juice, flour and nutmeg in a large bowl.  Set aside while you make the pastry and line a deep dish pie pan with half the pastry.
Top with the other half of the rolled out pastry and seal and flute the edges of the pie, cut vents in the top.  Brush the top of the pie with water or milk and sprinkle with granulated sugar.
Bake for 30 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 375 degrees.
Bake an additional 30 minutes.
Serve warm or at room temperature.