Ms. Cathie Huber has been cooking since the 6th grade, starting with recipes she found on paper. Her favorite things to cook include soup and spaghetti, but her preference is baking. She doesn’t like anything too spicy, and she simply enjoys good food. She typically bakes from scratch. She enjoys going to bake sales, and her peanut butter cookies are always a hit with people!

4 pounds of apples suitable for cooking/baking, peeled and chopped or sliced as you ordinarily would for pie

1 cup packed brown sugar combined with 3 tablespoons of cornstarch (or white sugar and spices)

Gently stir the cornstarch/sugar mixture into apples. Cover bowl with wax paper and cook in microwave on full power for five minutes. Stir: repeat twice more. Cool. If using 3 pounds of apples, reduce cooking time to 4 minutes (times three) and reduce cornstarch to 2 rounded tablespoons.

I have used the technique of cooking the apple pie filling before turning it into the crust since I saw a recipe in a magazine a few years ago. It can be used for an apple crumb pie, apple crisp, or a double-crust pie — you don’t get that awful “dome” when raw apples cook down.