I play soccer with a bunch of international students on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Sunday, November 11, we’re joining the Alaska Cup, the biggest and most prestigious soccer tournament in the Philippine. Soccer emthusiasts of all colors, ages and sizes from all corners of the Philippines gather for “THE BEAUTIFUL GAME”. We also have baseball games, complete with baseball trophies too, right in our backyard. Though soccer is still my game.
This brings to mind one American student with us several years back, Addie, who tried to join us but couldn’t seem to get the rhythm of the game. So she became our photographer instead. We had a tournament once, and our team emerged champions. So to celebrate the occasion, we had a potluck party with each one bringing a dish from his/her country. We had curry, eggs, pasta salad, pancit, dal and chapati. There were two of us Filipinos, too lazy to cook Filipino food. So we ordered Pancit Malabon from a restaurant here. Those who were not able to cook, brought the drinks. The highlight though were the freshly baked apple pies made by Addie. It was my first time to taste a freshly baked apple pie. Now, that’s really American, I think. Here’s the recipe as she shared it with us.

Oil Pie Crust: about 2 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 3/4 cup oil, 1/3 cup milk stir it up, put half of it between 2 sheets of wax paper and roll it out (or, if you dont have those things, just smush it like i did)

Apple Pie: about 6 apples (i used Gala apples, but tart cooking apples are good too), about 1 1/4 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, 2/4 teaspoons cinnamon, little bit of nutmeg, about 2 tablespoons of butterpeel and slice the apples less than 1 cm thick (THANKS PAUL!!! he did that for me). stir together the dry ingredients. stir apple slices in dry mixture. put the mixture in the crust and cut pieces of butter onto the top. put another layer of crust on top (yes, it should be completely covered, but i had no rolling pin or wax paper to do that—so just smushing works well too)
This is my favorite apple pie recipe which I make on special occasions. I still have to bake this for my current soccer team though. First things first, we’ve got to win some games this Sunday!

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It’s another week of blogging on herbs and vegetables and time for a round-up on Weekend Herb Blogging. Head over to The Expatriate’s Kitchen for this week’s round-up.