Almonzo's Apple Turnovers

We are intent on promoting a healthy food-culture as a part of our homeschooling days.

Owen and I are reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  In the first chapter, Almonzo Wilder takes a lunch to school and there is a tasty description of his apple turnovers:  "their plump crusts filled with melting slices of apple and spicy brown juice."

 A Farmer Boy Unit I referenced suggested getting a hold of the Little House cookbook to cook some recipes from the book along with your reading.  I knew that it would be perfect for the all-day learning, but not all-day schooling we are trying to do here. Luckily our local library had it.

So after reading about apple turnovers we made apple turnovers.  The recipe in the book was excellent.  I used their dough recipe, and used half butter and half lard.  I always have trouble with pie dough (I think it's solely user error) so I ended up book-folding the dough and re-rolling three or four times.  That seemed to work out OK and the crust was really flaky and delicious.

The best tip the recipe gave was to let the apples and sugar sit aside for a while then lift the apples with a fork leaving the juices behind.  This helped us not have any bubbling-all-over, sticky-explosion messes.  (I saved the sugary juice in the fridge--I'm sure it will be great on something--maybe hot oatmeal?)

Owen's Notes:

I really liked making the apple turnovers, and when we ate them I wanted to eat all of them!