Our family has a long tradition of gathering and working together to make apple pies each year. They are frozen and then enjoyed at family gatherings. The all time record is a whopping 60 pies. We used to make an annual trip to the Okanagan in late summer to get the fruit for this and other canning. About fifteen years ago we planted three Granvenstein apple trees in our yard. This old fashioned fruit has a tart flavour, and it is used as a cooking apple which is perfect for pies and apple sauce. The harvest from the trees is extra bountiful this year and this week it was time to begin our annual tradition. The grandkids have helped since they were very young and this year was no exception. Becke is the master of the homemade dough, Janis the expert mixer of the filling ingredients. My job is to peel the apples while Peter and the kids slice them up. Today, in a couple hours we made a dozen full sized pies and a couple of mini pies for the kids.
