I just made this for the 5th time since you posted it, and it has been voted by my family the best apple pie in the world. I live in Sonoma County, CA and love making this with the local Gravensteins. I surreptitiously stop by an orchard owned by a local business near my dogwalking route where no one ever harvests the apples. Five minutes work gleaned enough windfall apples for two pies! I do have a question: the recipe says "3.5 to 4 lbs. or 8 cups of apples." I weighed them as I worked, and 4 lbs. of peeled, sliced apples yielded over 16 cups, or 2 pies' worth. What's up with that? And now that I have a second pie's worth of filling, is it better to make up the pie and freeze it unbaked, or just freeze the filling by itself, then put it in a shell when I am ready to bake it? WOW, windfall apples - you're lucky! The 3 1/2 to 4 pounds of apples is before they're peeled and cored; that's part of the discrepancy, I'd wager. The other part may be how packed the apples are in the measuring cup. I'd go by weight rather than volume, as it's much less variable. And, when I freeze a pie I like to make the whole thing - filling in crust - then freeze. You can certainly do it the other way, but it's just so darned easy to pop a completely prepared pie into the oven to bake... Hope this helps - PJH

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