Apple blueberry pie

What do you do with three soft apples and part of a container of blueberries?

Combine them to make pie, of course.

You could also make a crisp; but I felt like pie. I used this pie crust. I peeled and chopped three apples and added a large container of blueberries. To that I added 1 cup of sugar, a few tablespoons of flour, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. I stirred, I poured all that into the pie crust, added the top layer of crust, and brushed it with an egg wash. I baked at 425 for 15 minutes, lowered to 350, and baked for an additional 30 minutes.

Rhubarb pie

Oh, rhubarb. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

It's fully spring in the Pacific Northwest, which means rhubarb is here, but not quite yet strawberries. Which is fine--while strawberry-rhubarb pie is a tremendous thing, a plain ol' rhubarb pie is also tremendous.

The great thing about this pie is that the tartness of the rhubarb is still present--dulled a little by the flour and sugar, but very delicious.

Use this pie crust.

For the filling:

5 cups sliced rhubarb
1 1/4 cups sugar
5 tablespoons flour
2 pinches cinnamon (or ginger, or cardamom)

Mix together, add to bottom pie crust, and add top pie crust. Decorate/cut vents as you see fit. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then lower the oven to 350 and bake for an additional 25-30 minutes.

Blueberry pie!

What says summer like blueberry pie? With this super-easy pie crust?

(Except maybe strawberry-rhubarb pie!)

Standard generic fruit pie recipe: (use two pints blueberries for this one)

pie crust
2 1/2 - 4 cups fruit
1 - 1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons flour
lemon juice (half a lemon's worth)

Mix the fruit and other ingredients together, lay into the bottom crust, and cover with the top crust. Bake at 425 for 20 minutes, then 350 25-30 minutes.

Bourbon pecan pie

I haven't had a great deal of success with pecan pies in the past. But when I was invited to a pie party this week, I decided to give it another shot.

Warning: this is not a sweet pie. The molasses and bourbon give it a really sort of dark flavor. That's not a bad thing, and it is delicious in its own right. But if you want a sweet pie, cut back on the molasses and add more sugar.

1 pie crust
3/4 cup blackstrap molasses
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup bourbon
1 1/2 cups pecan halves

Put the molasses, brown sugar, corn syrup, butter and salt into a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir with a wooden spoon until the butter is melted and the sugar dissolved; turn up to high and let boil 1  minute. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature.

Whisk the eggs, bourbon and vanilla into the cooled molasses mixture. Stir in the pecans, and pour into the pie shell. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until not wobbly in the middle. Let cool completely before serving.

Sweet potato pie

No marshmallows needed or allowed.

I used the standard pumpkin pie recipe, and just substituted roasted, peeled and mashed sweet potatoes for the pumpkin puree. The finished pie was a little lumpy; if you like a smooth pie, puree the sweet potato mash first. I used six small sweet potatoes; roast at 400 until cooked all the way through, then let cool and slip them out of their skins.

I used my standard pie crust recipe, too. No need to pre-bake it.

Apple pie

Good ol' all-American apple pie.

My parents were visiting this weekend, and my mom brought me (as per usual) a carload of food. She gave me a gallon Ziploc bag each of fresh basil, rosemary and oregano, a grocery sack full of fresh-picked apples, another sack full of potatoes, a head of cauliflower, 6 squash, four boxes of shittake mushrooms, two huge bottles of lime juice, and another bottle of fresh homemade peach syrup.

I froze the lime juice, put the peach syrup on pancakes, hung the rosemary and oregano to dry, turned the basil into pesto, and turned half the sack of apples into two pies.

Use this pie crust recipe.

Peel several apples and cut into chunks (enough to slightly overfill your pie dish).

Mix the apples with a cup of sugar, a pinch of salt, a tablespoon or so of cinnamon, another tablespoon of flour, and the juice of a lemon.

Divide the pie dough into two balls. Roll out one, arrange it in the pie dish, and add the apple mixture. Roll out the other half, and cut a few decorative shapes in it. Arrange that over the top, trim the edges, and flute with the edge of a fork.

Mix an egg yolk with a splash of water, and brush that over the top.

Bake at 425 for 20 minutes, then lower to 350 and bake for another hour.

Strawberry-rhubarb pie

Best. Pie. Ever.

What makes it super-fantabulous instead of just regular fantabulous are the fresh strawberries. So please, if at all possible, do not use frozen or supermarket strawberries. Go to your local farmer's market and find a box of tiny, misshapen fresh strawberries. Your taste buds will thank you for it.

I also got a batch of fresh rhubarb in my CSA box this week. So you know I was gonna make a pie with it.

Start with this pie crust.

Filling:
2 pints fresh strawberries, hulls removed, halved
A handful of red rhubarb stalks, sliced
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Big pinch of salt

Press the bottom crust into the pie pan, add the filling, add the top crust (cutting out some sort of pattern in the top crust) and crimp the edges. Brush the top crust with a mixture of one egg yolk and a little water.

Bake at 400 for 20 minutes, then lower to 350 and cook for another hour to an hour and a half (when the top is nicely browned).

Warning: this pie will be gooey and drippy and you may very well eat the whole thing in one sitting.

Lemon meringue pie

My husband had never had lemon meringue pie before. Can you imagine?

The homemade version is a wee bit time-consuming, but is absolutely worth the effort. You will never go back to pre-made versions again.

I used my standard pie crust recipe (2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup each milk and vegetable oil) and pre-baked it. Which means you weight the pie crust down with pie weights or dried uncooked rice or beans (to prevent it from rising or puffing up, though you don't need to do that with my pie crust recipe, as there is nothing to rise) and cook it at 400 until browned and mostly done. Brush with an egg yolk (to seal the pie crust, so the custard filling doesn't make it soggy) and let cool.

From The Joy of Cooking:

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/3 cup cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

Whisk together in a saucepan, add:

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 cup strained fresh lemon juice (2-3 lemons)

2-3 teaspoons lemon zest

Whisk in until no yellow streaks remain:

4 egg yolks

Add:

2-3 tablespoons unsalted butter, in pieces

Stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, bring to a simmer, then cook until mixture is thick. Pour into pre-baked pie shell, and place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the filling. Go make the meringue. Beat on medium until foamy:

4 egg whites at room temperature

Add 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar, and continue beating until soft peaks form.

Add 1/2 cup sugar, gradually, and continue beating until peaks are stiff and glossy.

Add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and immediately remove the plastic wrap from the pie and anchor the meringue to the filling at all points. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool completely.

 

Carl Sagan's apple pie recipe

Here's a link to Carl Sagan's apple pie recipe, from one of my favorite food blogs, www.seriouseats.com.

Lemon chess pie

A chess pie is a custard pie with no top. This can be made with lemon juice, rather than the juice of fresh lemons, meaning you can throw this pie together in the dead of winter with basic pantry ingredients. In fact, with bulk dry ingredients, lemon juice, and a homemade pie shell, you could put this whole pie together for less than $1. Fresh lemons are best, though.

2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons flour
juice of two lemons
1/2 stick melted butter
2 tablespoons cornmeal
1/4 cup milk
3 slightly beaten eggs

Mix sugar, cornmeal and flour. Add eggs. Add rest, pour into an unbaked pie shell. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Pumpkin pie

Mmmmm...pumpkin pie. No holiday would be complete without it. Real pumpkin pie--that is, made from a real pumpkin, and not from a can of pumpkin pie filling--is a revelation. It's a completely different color, flavor and texture than the canned stuff. It's very light, very creamy and almost custardy, and tastes like pumpkin, not like pumpkin pie filling. I will admit making the puree is a bit of a hassle, but the final result is well worth it. You can make the puree any time of year you can find sugar pumpkins (the little ones, not the big jack o'lantern ones), and you can use the puree for pies, muffins, breads, pancakes, curries, soups, you name it. Freeze it and it keeps very well.

To make the puree, take a whole sugar pumpkin (or two, or three, or four). Cut into manageable pieces and remove the insides. Steam the pieces until tender all the way through—this will take a while—and let cool. Scrape the flesh from the rind into a food processor and discard rind. Puree. Freeze or make pie.

3 cups puree
¾ cup sugar
½ teaspoon each salt, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger
3 large lightly beaten eggs
1 cup heavy cream

Combine, pour into two pie shells. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then at 350 for 30-40 minutes. Serve with fresh whipped cream.

Super-easy no-fail pie crust

Forget cutting butter or shortening in. Forget lard. Forget complicated 12-ingredient recipes that ask you to chill the dough first. This is the only pie crust recipe I ever use. It uses 4 ingredients, which can be added in any order, and always turns out a perfect, flaky pie crust. Even if the recipe calls for a different kind of crust, I use this one. It's good for pies, tarts, quiches, whatever. Learn it. Know it. Live it.

2 cups flour
1/2 c milk
1/2 c vegetable oil
pinch of salt

That's it. Mix together until a ball of dough forms. This makes one pie crust, top and bottom, for a standard-size pie pan. If you're making more than one pie, or have deep-dish pie pans, you'll need to increase the recipe. If you just need half (say, you're making a lemon meringue pie and don't need a top crust), you can split this recipe in half--or freeze the extra half. Take your ball of dough and divide in two. Roll out one half, with a little extra flour, and press into your pie pan. Roll out the other half and decorate/cut out shapes as you see fit for the top half.

Cost: maybe 25 cents?