Apple pie. Nice. Never made it either. What's the lemon juice do? Brighten the flavors?
My father makes a good one. One thing I think is a critical touch is to have sweetness in the dough. Make the dough sweet enough to eat on its own. You can probably dress them up too. Like adding bourbon or balsamic vinegar.
Lemon juice keeps fresh-peeled-and-cut apples from turning brown (works on bananas, too). While fresh is always best, I just used some of the bottled lemon juice from concentrate. Put about a cup of it in a large bowl with a little water to add volume, and then put the apple slices in as I cut them. Once I was ready to mix the filling with the apples, I just drained off the lemon juice. There was still just a bit of juice left in the bowl, which is fine—tangy.
I forgot to say that I added a bunch of sugar, white and brown, to the spices, flour and salt. The crust doesn’t need anything extra, since the filling is quite sweet, but you can always doctor it up however you like.
Other than cutting the apples, if you use a pre-made pie crust, this is super easy! Don’t forget the garnish of vanilla ice cream or Cool Whip like I did, though. :-)