Memorial Day! It's a day that we come together as Americans to reflect on the many men and women who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. The day really is all American and there are so many different ways to celebrate. My favorite way to reflect is with friends and family over a good old fashioned patriotic party. And what's a party without food? It's just a meeting. I partnered with some amazing ladies to make planning your Memorial Day menu easy with An All American Progressive Dinner! Olivia is mixing up some drinks, Morgan has a delicious entree, and I (in true form) took dessert! When I started thinking about "American" desserts, my mind directly went to summertime memories. I could almost taste the warm apple pie and the cold, creamy homemade ice cream. I just knew I had to include those two things for this Memorial Day Menu! I get a great satisfaction from making things homemade. Like, 100% from scratch. No boxes. No mixes. I find food more personal this way and it's really the only way that I like to feed my friends and family. For the apple pie, the first thing you have to do is prepare the crust. The crust can make or break a pie, truth be told. I contemplated buying a store bought crust for a hot second and then immediately shot that idea down--homemade all the way! As I do for most of my cooking questions, I consulted Jana's blog for her pie dough recipe. I followed her directions explicitly. I used butter, not shortening, and ice cold water to make this delicious dough. While the dough was in the refrigerator, I started the homemade ice cream! Since I was going to such great lengths for the pie, I wanted a simpler homemade ice cream recipe. In the end, I settled on a recipe from my mother-in-law, but of course I tweaked it a bit.[yumprint-recipe id='2']Once my dough was rolled and placed into a pie plate, I began the pie filling! Even the precooked apple pie looked and smelled amazing. I helped myself to a few of the precooked apple slices coated in delicious spices.[yumprint-recipe id='3']You simply cannot go wrong with apple pie and homemade ice cream. That's a winning combination.Don't forget to go check out the other All American Progressive Dinner courses by Morgan and Olivia!