Adventures in cooking- apple pie

A few years ago I began a tradition of making Chris a dessert from scratch for his birthday. One year it was an orange dreamsicle cake (akin to one of the layers of our wedding cake) and the other years, well, maybe this is only the second year I have made something from scratch. And while I would love to support the local bakeries around here and just purchase something handmade by them- you wouldn't want your husband to have to tell his mom that he didn't have someone painstakingly prepare a dessert for his birthday. So, this year it was apple pie- because I thought that was Chris' favorite dessert (until this conversation):
Erin: "I thought I would make you an apple pie for your birthday with all those delicious apples that your wonderful children picked from the tree for you. While picking the apples they told me how much they loved their dad and that they would like to use these apples to make daddy his favorite dessert, apple pie."
Chris: "Apple pie is my favorite dessert? Hmmm, I don't know if I would say that."
Erin: silence, no words. just a really, really dirty glare
*Chris please note, apple pie IS your favorite dessert when your wife is making it for your birthday. You've got the whole rest of the year before your next birthday to change your mind and convince me of what your favorite dessert really is.

Well, on to the pie. I decided to make the crust from scratch too even though I am perfectly happy with store-bought crust. But if I'm going to become a true domestic diva then I should probably learn how to make crust. I used Martha Stewart's recipe for a pate brisee (http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/ideal-pate-brisee) made mostly in the food processor and it should have been really easy. But, my food processor is super small (3 cups!) and I couldn't fit the whole crust in there. So I tried cutting the butter into the flour by hand (with a fork) and that was pretty unsuccessful so then I made the crust in batches. In the end it got overworked and formed too much gluten. The inside turned out well though and the apples we picked last weekend in the mountains were delicious inside the chewy and flaky crust. It looked fairly pretty too so I am not too ashamed of the finished product. But Santa please note, my Amazon wish list now reflects the food processor that I would love for Christmas!