What's Cookin': Apple Pie

 Well, it's only been, what, a decade or so since I've done one of these posts... but frankly, I haven't exactly done a lot of exploratory cooking in that time, and this is the first thing I've made in a long while that I've said "I need to hold on to this recipe for later."  That said, my initial attempt's results were less than ideal (due to massive pie crust containment failure), so consider this a starting point for your own experiments.

For pie crust, I'll leave that to you, since you likely already have a favorite double-crust recipe to use.  Again, if I wasn't clear, you probably don't want to try this as your first pie, since you can practice on pies that take less work, like blueberry pie.  That all said, to the recipe!

Ingredients

• 4 lb. (about 6 large) "pie apples" (Granny Smith is the go-to here, but any firm, tart apple works)
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/2 c granulated sugar
• 1/2 c brown sugar
  
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/4 t ginger
• 1/4 t cardamom
• 1/4 t nutmeg
• 2 T cornstarch
• 1 T butter

Equipment

• Large ("bigger than you think you need") bowl for mixing ingredients
• Knives and/or other tools to prepare the apples
  
• Glass pie plate
• Baking sheet
• Parchment paper

Procedure

•  Peel, core, and thinly slice the apples (I used a mandoline slicer for 1/16" slices, but anything up to 1/4" would probably be fine), and put the slices in the bowl.
• Sprinkle the salt, sugars, and spices over the top of the apple slices, then use your hands to mix everything together, coating the slices as thoroughly as possible in the process.
• Let the apple mixture rest at room temperature for one hour.
• While waiting on the apple mixture, prepare the lower half of your pie crust in the pie plate.
• After the hour wait time has passed, add the cornstarch to the bowl and mix again.  You will notice that the apples have shrunk, and there is a large amount of liquid (about 3/4 c) in the bottom of the bowl - this is normal.
• Pack the lower pie crust with the apple slices that will fit, level to the brim of the crust.  Unused slices can be discarded (or, pan-cooked and used as a topping for, say, ice-cream).
• Pour what you can of the collected liquid in the bottom of the bowl over the top of the apples in the pie crust.
• Cover the pie with your upper crust.  In my case, I tried doing this with a standard "full cover with vents cut after" method, which failed fairly spectacularly.  I would suggest doing a lattice crust with plenty of vent room for this pie.
• Line your baking sheet with parchment paper (cooking spray is handy to make it behave), then place the assembled pie on the sheet, to capture any spill-over.
• Bake the pie in a 400F oven for 75 minutes... is what the original recipe called for.  I'm going to say you should start checking on the pie at least 10 minutes beforehand.  The goal is to see filling bubbling up through the vents (or, if you prefer the scientific method, an internal temperature of 195F).  With the long cook time, over-browning is a valid concern, so you may want to employ aluminum foil to help with that.

After a few hours of cool-down time, you should have a very tasty apple pie (as in, even in its imperfect form, the one I cooked is easily top 10 of any apple pie I've had, ever).  It's a shame that prepping the apples is such a chore, otherwise I would strive to make this my go-to pie.

Games and mixed feelings

 Having a backlog of games is less than ideal for a number of reasons, but one of the top reasons has to be that time marches on.  Sometimes, that just means that advancements in technology have rendered elements of any given game stale by the time you get around to playing it (assuming you ever do).  Sometimes, it's a bit darker than that.

In this case, I was looking for something to scratch my itch for exploration, and none of the current crop of Game Pass games was quite what I was looking for.  Looking at my backlog of XBox One games, next up in the queue was Grow Up, a little low-poly affair where you, as a humanoid but not-too-bright little robot, get to roam around a planet-scape, acquiring different abilities while you pursue your goals.  Importantly, you start with the ability to grab things with your hands, with independent controls for each hand, which allows you to climb... basically, whatever you can get your hands on.  Perfect for what I was looking for, I went ahead and installed it and fired it up.

Which is, of course, when I saw that the game was produced by Ubisoft.  Historically, I've generally liked Ubisoft games, some more than others, but they're one of a few game industry companies in the midst of a very public round of employee abuse allegations, where their response has been, basically, to throw a couple of people under the bus, make noises about needing to change, then do little in the way of visibly pursuing the change they need to make, almost as if they're hoping that the news cycle will move on, and they can just get back to business as usual.  Here's a recent Kotaku article, if you want to start digging into details on your own.

So, yeah, I played the game over the course of a couple of days.  It's no masterpiece, but it's a fine little game for what it is.  I wish I could recommend you track down a copy and buy it on the cheap, but I can't, in good conscience, say you should give any money to Ubisoft, or even support the used market for their games, as things stand.  But, if it's in your backlog already, maybe dust it off and give it a go.  I polished off the main thrust of the game over 2 days, had my fun, and now that's one less landmine sitting in my backlog.