It’s Friday! Here are my 5 favorite fall foods. Just because.

1. homemade apple pie, made from freshly picked Harlson apples and all the cinnamon you can find in a 5-mile radius…

…and made-from-scratch pie crust, mostly because I have an affinity for eating raw pie dough. It’s a strange disorder I inherited.

And now I’m gladly passing it along to my children.

We save enough dough to make the actual pie. Usually.

Mmmmm. Can you smell the cinnamon?

2. Honeycrisp apples — so sweet, so juicy, so uniquely Minnesotan!

3. Candy corn — and those cute little candy pumpkins. Yum!

4. Chex Mix — salty, crunchy, and nearly as addictive as candy corn!

5. “Simply Apple” apple juice — a new discovery this year. I don’t even like regular apple juice, but this is more like cider — only pasteurized. It is so delicious!

Here’s the recipe I use for made-from-scratch pie crust, which rolls out wonderfully when sandwiched between two sheets of generously floured wax paper, and it makes a deliciously flaky crust for nearly any pie.

Pie Crust

2 cups flour

2/3 cup shortening

1 tsp. salt

5-6 tablespoons ice water

Combine dry ingredients and use pastry cutter to mix. Add water and use fork to blend. Makes shell and top.