Hurricane Apple Pie

This post received its named because it was made back during the "great" hurricane of 2011. Although there was tons of damage done in other places across the east coast, NYC was mostly spared. In order to prepare for the worst, the city took all sorts of precautions, including forcing people to evacuate certain neighborhoods and such. My roommate at the time was out of town, so I invited a couple of my refugee friends over to wait out the storm with me. Equipped with all sorts of supplies, such as bottled water, flashlights, candles, alcohol, and canned food, we made the most out of the situation and turned lemons into lemonade - or in our case, into a sleepover and homemade apple pie.

Pie Ingredients:

• one pie crust (such as the pate sucree recipe featured here)
• 8 (or so) apples (A combo of Granny Smith and Golden Delicious works well, but any firm apple will do - I'd stay away from Red Delicious, which aren't well suited for cooking.)
• juice of 1 lemon
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 4 tbsp flour

Oatmeal Topping:

• 1 stick of butter, cold and cubed
• 1 cup quick cooking oats
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• pinch of nutmeg
• pinch of salt

Procedure:

• Peel and slice the apples.
• Toss with the lemon juice, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla, and sugar. At this point, you can give it a little taste to see if you want to add more sugar depending on the sweetness of your apples. 
• After the sugar content has been adjusted to your liking, toss the apples with the flour. 
• Separately, combine all of the ingredients for the topping together (your hands work well for this).
• Line your pie dish with the pie crust and fill with the apple mixture.
• Cover the pie with the oatmeal topping and bake in a 375 degree oven for about 45 minutes. You want the crust and topping to turn a nice golden brown. If it starts to get too dark (as mine did a little bit...) then cover with foil for the remainder of the cooking time. 
• We ended up with a few too many apples to fill the pie with, so another good dessert idea is to put the fruit in ramekins, cover with the topping, and bake. These take a lot less time since they're so petite.
• Allow to cool before serving.