A 2020 Pie Roundup

31 Thursday Dec 2020

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Apple Pie, Berry Pie, Buttermilk Pie, Chess Pie, Coconut Pie, Mini Pie, Mixed Fruit Pie, Original Pies, Summer Fruit Pie

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apple, blueberry, buttermilk, chess, coconut, cranberry, creme brulee, meringue, nectarine, peach, pear, rhubarb, saturn peach

2021 is upon us, and, arbitrary though it may be, it feels good to move forward. It feels good to set new goals and intentions, to re-dedicate ourselves to our core beliefs and values and relationships, to know that any pain and struggles we experienced in 2020 will carve space for deeper joys to come, if we let them.

This is going to be a long post. The format was the most recent guest baker (aka Levi)’s suggestion so if you get too the end of this and think “THIS WAS TOO. MUCH. PIE.,” you can take it up with him. I was intrigued by the idea of starting my blogging life somewhat afresh in 2021, so I went for it. Without further ado, here is a roundup of eight dessert pies I baked in 2020 that had not yet been blogumented.

Yep, I just made that word up.

Indiana Buttermilk Pie

August 2020. First of three pies from when our friend Matt was in California to visit us for slightly over a week. Three pies in a week, that’s well above my usual pace. To put it in perspective, if that was my standard pace, this project would have been over by 2013. This was my first buttermilk pie (there are three buttermilk pie recipes in Pie) but not my last in 2020, as you’ll see. Simple, basic, uncomplicated flavor. 1 teaspoon of vanilla is the only real flavoring agent, and the tartness of the buttermilk shines straight through. I loved this.

“White” Summer Fruit Pie…sort of!

August 2020. Second of three pies in aforementioned week. We really wanted one of them to be a fruit pie, and Matt (Pie Hype Man) really wanted me to make progress in the cookbook, so we chose this “White” Summer Fruit recipe. It called for Rainier cherries and either white peaches or nectarines. As it turned out, we weren’t able to locate Rainiers so late in the summer, so we followed the recipe exactly but used zero cherries, white Saturn peaches, yellow nectarines, and rhubarb (of which I freeze lots each spring). While it was absolutely divine and we ate it with homemade vanilla ice cream (extra divinity points) my overactive conscience won’t allow me to check this pie off my list until I make it again with Rainier cherries. *Avoids eye contact with Matt, who totally thought this one counted.* But look how pretty!!

Little Crème Brûlée Pies

August 2020. Third of three. Unusual and unforgettable mini pies. My first time making Ken’s “Extra Flaky” pie crust recipe, which calls for cake flour. (Also my first time purchasing cake flour! A few of the pies in this post had ingredients outside the typical realm of my pantry, as you’ll see.) The pastry was lovely to work with and yielded enough for four miniature pie pans, pictured below. After these pies are baked, they are topped with a layer of brown sugar and blow-torched to perfection. I mean, what could be better?

Coconut Cream Pie with Coconut Meringue Topping

October 2020. More ingredients I ~~never~~ hardly ever buy: sweetened flaked coconut and cream of coconut (as in, the stuff in piña coladas, not to be confused with coconut cream aka thicker coconut milk). My cousin Martin’s family visited us for a weekend and I wanted to make a great pie to enjoy all together. When we were growing up and on summertime vacations in Vermont, Martin and I were the little kids who would order coconut almond ice cream without fail when we’d all go to our favorite ice cream shop (our grandparents’ treat). Our shared love of coconut led me to choose this pie for the occasion. Decadent. A coconut lover’s dream come true; yet, not overpowering or artificial in any way.

Three Sisters Coconut Buttermilk Pie

October 2020. Remember that sweetened flaked coconut I’d just bought? Me too…so I looked for another recipe that called for it. Since making the Indiana Buttermilk Pie and absolutely adoring it, I had been looking forward to trying a second buttermilk pie – this was an easy pick. Like a coconut custard pie but with the tang of buttermilk to take it to the next level; a real treat. We shared this pie with our good friends Brad and Deb at our big outdoor table. It seats 18, but we’ve been so grateful for the few times this year that we’ve used it to seat even 4. ❤

Homestead Chess Pie

November 2020. I was looking for something very simple, with pantry ingredients, as I decided to put this pie together at the last minute. This fit the bill: eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla, a bit of vinegar and cornmeal. In my last blog post, I mentioned that I made a (correct) executive decision to bake my Tarte au Sucre an extra 15 minutes past the time given in the recipe. I initially took this pie out at 35 minutes (recipe calls for 30-35) but ended up putting it back in the oven later, cause it clearly was underbaked. Yikes. Perhaps my oven does run cold and I am just waking up to this fact? I shall ponder this further. A delightful pie in the end, for all its simplicity. The fifth of the five Chess Pies in Pie – I’ve now exhausted that category. I confess, I did secretly wish this was a Lemon Chess Pie when I was eating it. Levi probably did too because he is Mr. Lemon Dessert.

Crock-Pot Fall Fruit Pie

November 2020. The name above ruins my punch line. Which of the desserts pictured below do you think was my Thanksgiving pie this year? That’s right, it’s the only one that looks nothing like a pie! This oval-shaped semi-imposter, though not what you would expect of me, was a popular and tasty dessert table choice that I’d recommend any of you try. It’s made with baking mix (like Bisquick – I used Birch Benders Organic Classic Pancake and Waffle Mix), fresh cranberries, pears, apples. Super Thanksgiving-y and great with a dollop of homemade whipped cream.

Apple and Blueberry Crumb Pie

December 2020. This was an important pie for me. I didn’t follow a recipe. I made it for my dear Linda (Pippa’s former nanny) and her family. My apple pie is Linda’s favorite, my blueberry pie is her daughter’s favorite, and they both love crumb topping. Linda had filled a pie dish with homemade tamales for us shortly before Thanksgiving. After the tamales sustained us for several days, I was left with this empty dish (it says Blessed on the bottom – I’d actually given it to her as a gift the last week she worked for us). I couldn’t picture giving it back like that, so I made this pie while Pippa took an afternoon nap one day. This has been a season of grief, and that was an afternoon when the grief was more present than I realized. There was something so visceral in making that pie with my hands, both painful and healing at the same time. I didn’t expect to react the way I did to peeling and coring the apples, to breaking up clumps of butter with my floury fingers – each familiar step generating a physical heartache – but perhaps I should have. Linda said her whole family agreed it was the best pie they have ever had.

Through that experience, I recognized that pie making has become a way to let my heart speak what is on is mind. It is a path I can walk any time, in any weather. And it is a way I can return blessings on the givers in my life, of whom there truly are many.

Be blessed in 2021, my friends, though it may look different than you expect. Happy New Year!

A few editorial notes:

You probably got this already, but a pie named in bold type is a pie from Ken Haedrich’s Pie baked for the first time. The two fruit pie titles are not in bold, denoting that they aren’t counting towards my count to 300.
While at this moment I’m feeling 96.5% sure that I covered all of 2020’s sweet pies, there were also a couple savory pies I’d like to tell you a bit more about another day. Also, there are still some pies of yesteryear that will occasionally pop into my mind or out of old photos which have yet to claim their rightful place in the gallery. So, if you had any fear that I was completely done with flashbacks…fear not.

Quarantine Pie: A Story Told Through Correspondence

28 Wednesday Oct 2020

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Berry Pie, Guest Post, Summer Fruit Pie

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

cherry, maple, peach, strawberry, travel

Part One: An email from Jess to Matt

Mr. M. Drabenstott —
It has come to my attention that you are secluded in a lonely yet beautiful cabin in the Quebecois wilderness and are in need of immediate advice regarding the making of a pie, which, it is presumed, you and only you will be consuming. In addition, your access to provisions is ample but limited; any single recipe I would share might not be able to be followed with precision. I shall hereto set out to provide some guidelines and advice in straightforward and simple language in order to assist you in eating* your quarantine pie as soon as possible, leaving you with a copious amount of time for academic pursuits, Fortnite, and private poetry readings and recitations. *(Rather, beginning to eat, as this pie will last several days, excepting an an act of terrible gluttony.) Please do not hesitate to seek clarification on any of the details below through the medium of text message if assistance is required during the creative process. I am unsure what has possessed me to write this paragraph in such a formal tone. However, if it has provided one extra ounce of amusement to your solitary day, I harbor absolutely no regrets.

Your loving friend,

Mrs. J. Gelineau
——————–

Pastry: Totally just use your pre-made pastries if you have them. If you’d prefer to make your own, this is a very simple recipe that can be made, then immediately rolled and put into a pan. (Most other pastries, which use butter or shortening, require refrigeration). I prefer to roll pastry between two sheets of wax paper, if you have it- it makes it easy to peel off one side once you’re done and lift and invert the whole thing over the pie pan. Otherwise, lightly flour your surface and rolling pin.

Louise Piper’s Oil Pastry: Combine 2 cups all-purpose flour and 1 tsp. salt in a large bowl. Measure 1/2 cup vegetable oil and 1/4 cold milk (not skim, but whole or 2% is fine) in the same glass measuring cup (if you have one) without mixing the two, then dump it all at once into the flour mixture. Mix briskly, the dough will pull together into a ball. Divide the dough in half, this makes just enough for a double crust pie. You can go straight to rolling out the bottom crust for your pie. If you don’t have a rolling pin, an empty wine or large beer bottle works well. 😉

Filling: I heard you say you have cherries, strawberries, peaches, and one other fruit which is escaping me (blueberries?). I assume you have a standard size pie dish (9 inch). Basically you want to do about 5 cups of fruit unless you’re using strawberries. Those bubble up so much that you probably would want to stick to 4 cups of fruit total or you might have a huge mess in the oven. So add your fruit to a bowl. Peach/cherry is one of my current favorite combos but any combos will be yummy. 🙂 If you have a bigger dish, you can go up to 6 cups of fruit. Add between 1/3 and 1/2 cup of sugar depending on the size of the pie, and 1-2 tsps of lemon juice (if you have it? Or lime, or orange…! Something citrus!) If you have a lemon, a little zest in the filling is nice too. Also can’t go wrong with 1/2 of cinnamon and a sprinkle of nutmeg if you happen to have those things. A little vanilla is nice in peach pies. Combine all of this and let it sit for 10 minutes until you can see visible juices in the bottom of the bowl. Then add to the bowl 2 tablespoons and another spoonful of sugar (premix those in a separate little bowl). Mix until the cornstarch mixture is well incorporated into the fruit. Pour filling into pie crust lined baking dish. Add several small pats of butter scattered around the top of the pie. (Oh- and if you don’t have cornstarch, you could use flour in its place. Maybe 3 TBSP instead of 2…)
Top crust: Get a little bowl of water for your fingers ready. Roll out the top crust. Dip your fingers in water and run a little bit around the edge of the bottom crust, then invert the top crust over the whole pie. Trim the excess pastry to be flush with the edges of the pie pan, then press all around the edges with a fork to bind together, or sculpt together in a ridge. If you have extra pastry, make the shape of a whale and pop that on top. Prick the top crust with a fork several times, including at least once or twice near the edge of the pie. That’s where you will look for bubbling to check doneness – thick juicy bubbles are what you want. If you want, you can sprinkle or brush the top of the pie evenly with milk and a little bit of white sugar.
Baking: Bake at 400 F for 30 minutes, then rotate the pie 180 degrees so that the part that was facing the back of the oven is now facing front, turn down the temperature to 375 and bake for about 25 more minutes- but start checking earlier for those bubbles, and a golden top crust. Every oven is different!

It would be totally awesome if you could do a guest post with some pictures of your pie escapade on The Peace of Pie. Let me know if you’re keen.

Part Two: A Series of iMessages from Matt to Jess

Matt’s quaran-pie journey begins.

I couldn’t find any pie pans lying around the cabin, so I settled on a casserole dish.

(Which I would later discover has the capacity of 4 pie dishes….)

Per your reco, I mixed frozen peaches and cherries into a bowl. I added few splashes of maple syrup, a pinch or two of cinnamon, some lémon zëst, and of course, a squirt of citrus. (Grapefruit sounded fancy at the time).

As I poured the milk into the oil for the crust, I couldn’t help but think fondly of the lava lamp that I had throughout middle school.

In the absence of a rolling pin and a wine bottle, I used a bottle of Woodford Reserve (would definitely recommend!) to iron out my Pangaea-esque shaped crust.

After adding a few strawberries to the top for a little ‘je ne sais quois’, I scurried to the forest to find some fallen maple leaves, which I used as stencils to create an aptly carved ‘Fall Canadian Foliage’ topper.

Pretty much nailed it.

Shamelessly, I’m already half way finished.

A Bit of Backstory:

Peace of Pie readers may remember my friend and pie hype man Matt from previous posts such as this one. An American currently living in Canada, Matt spent the summer months back in the U.S. of A and thus was required to quarantine for two weeks upon his October re-entry. A classy fellow, Matt chose to make the most of this time by renting a beautiful wilderness cabin in which to work, hold solo poetry readings, and, of course, bake the delightful pie you’ve just read about. Matt is now healthfully back in his primary Canadian residence, and I feel like I’ve just written an author bio for a book jacket. Cheers!

You’re Sure to Fall in Love with Old Cape Cod (and this Gluten Free Pie Crust)

28 Friday Aug 2020

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Summer Fruit Pie

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cherry, gluten-free, nectarine, peach

That’s what the song says, minus my little parenthetical addition.

And, sure enough, we did.

If you would have told me last year that I, my husband, and my two-year-old would drive to Cape Cod from California in the summer of 2020, much head-scratching would have ensued. 2020. No one saw it coming.

For a week, we created a friend/spiritual family pod in this gorgeous Brewster, Massachusetts home. It was exactly what our souls needed.

On the Thursday evening, we dressed up in the nicest things we’d brought, planned an extra special dinner menu (although, wait, that was every night…) and had a “backyard party” of sorts. We ate outside (you’ll see the bottle o’ bug spray in an upcoming photo, mixed in with the prettier things on the table!) To elevate the night further, the presence of a pie was certainly required. And, with our friend Jonny in mind, it needed to be a gluten-free pie.

In the past, when preparing desserts for friends who aren’t able to eat gluten, I’ve tended to go towards pies with meringue shells (made with no flour – mainly egg whites!) or veer away from serving pie at all. Even for this occasion, my original plan was to make a recipe from Ken Haedrich’s Pie cookbook, Black Forest Mini Angel Pies. Those would have been fantastic, except after I acquired all of the ingredients, including a whole bottle of cream of tartar, I had a forehead-slapping realization that I was 3,000+ miles from my KitchenAid. Meringue, which requires a hefty amount of high-speed whipping, was out of the question.

It was high, high time to try a gluten free pastry recipe, one that wouldn’t be just a passable shell for a pie filling, but delicious in its own right. Easy to work with and roll out was another quality on my wish list.

Et voila: Gluten Free on a Shoestring has a recipe for an extra-flaky pie pastry made with sour cream (I substituted Greek yogurt) that “rolls out beautifully” – their words, but I totally, totally agree. Helen, always prepared, had brought along some Cup4Cup gluten free flour, which happened to be one of the brands recommended in the linked recipe.

Here’s a slightly misleading photo in which I am rolling the pie crust with a bottle of Cape Cod vodka, not because I was trying to set up a clever photo to tell you I used vodka in the crust (I STILL have not tried this, to my great shame as a pie experimentess), but because it was the closest thing to a rolling pin in the vicinity. The crust rolled out even more easily than my standard gluten-y go-tos.

Remember all those cherries I bought thinking I was making Black Forest mini pies? Oh yeah, me too. Throw those in the filling FOR SURE. Peaches and I think maybe one nectarine too. It’s August, I don’t remember July details anymore.

We’ll circle back to see how the pie turned out shortly. Let’s take a look at what else is happening meanwhile at our celebratory Thursday evening, alongside a large pitcher of this Watermelon Mint Lemonade.

My life doesn’t always look it’s straight out of Food and Wine magazine, but when it does…I ain’t complaining. Thank you Levi for these UNREAL oysters, pictured topped with herb butter before being grilled to perfection.

As the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “I have noticed one thing, at least, that is good. It is good for people to eat, drink, and enjoy their work under the sun during the short life God has given them.” I have noticed it too, how good it is to gather around a table.

That pie though. It’s really just showing off here with its beautiful peekaboo crust, as if to prove how easy this pastry is to work with. We all thoroughly enjoyed it, part and parcel. And I think it was particularly special for Jonny, who doesn’t get to eat pie pastry as often as, say, I do.

And behold: there was homemade whipped cream to be eaten with our pie. Remember though, AirBnBs don’t have stand mixers. So, what did we do? The cream was poured in a cold metal bowl and passed around the table for each person to take a turn at beating until his or her arm grew tired.

This, my friends, is dedication to the art of eating pie.

Photo credit for almost all of these photos goes to NOT ME. Helen and her 4-year-old daughter Bella in particular get lots of credit. The portraits of myself, Pippa, and the table in the back garden are all Bella’s work. The close-ups of my gorgeous friends Maggie and José are Helen’s photos. She also captured the cuteness below.

I have a lot more summer pie stories coming your way. Let’s just say, if your garden is growing massive zucchini right now, but you prefer the taste of apple pie, send me a message. Yes, you heard that correctly. ❤

EDIT: It now appears that 4-year-old Bella the budding photographer also took the pictures of Maggie and José. Gotta give credit where credit is due. She is obviously going to be famous someday.

Peach Berry Pie

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Berry Pie, Summer Fruit Pie

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Tags

berry, blackberry, blueberry, peach

We’re on the road. After three months spent almost solely in our California home, we are on the move. Typically, you’ll find us at various airports over the summer. This year, our trusty Toyota Highlander is getting us from all our point As to point Bs.

The 2020 Gelineau Family Road Trip is brought to you by lots of prayer, Peppa Pig paraphernalia, cucumber facial wipes, Pippa’s portable potty, and a bottle of hand sanitizer in every car door. We have listened to the Daniel Tiger Song “A Tiger Family Trip” at least 65 times.

I’ve logged a few new states, which is exciting for me as someone who keeps a world map with places-visited pins on my mantel. Colorado, Missouri, Kansas. At one point we drove 99 miles past my cell phone, which is a story for another time, but I got it back that same night. Wonder of wonders.

We spent two nights in Kansas City, Spotted: An “Uncle Teo” in his native habitat. (That’s what Pippa calls our friend Matt, of Dragonfruit Sea Creature Angel Pie fame.)

Matt grew up in Kansas City, but doesn’t live there anymore. It felt both surreal and comforting to be together at his childhood home. Anyone else having this problem, where you can’t remember the last time you actually hung out in person with your friends because you’ve been Zooming too much?

As it turns out, Pippa doesn’t love back to back car travel days, so we took a short breather in KC. On the morning of our rest day, Matt said to me, in a way both offhanded and carefully considered, “One thing we could today, if you wanted, is make pie. There’s definitely everything you need to make a pie here.”

After considering the fruit available to me, I chose blackberries, a mixture of blueberries (some larger and fresh, and some smaller Wyman’s frozen wild blueberries), and a few peaches. Then we had a lesson in lattice-weaving. My pie lattice technique (first learned from Ken Haedrich) doesn’t involve meticulous spacing or measuring, but it certainly gets the job done.

Typically I’ll sculpt leftover pie crust around the pie edges to make a ridge, especially for a single-crust pie or a pie with a crumb topping. Sensing that we didn’t need much extra pastry on this one, I cut around the pie plate with a knife, bound the edges together by pressing them with a fork, and donated the extra pastry to Pippa, who, at the time, wanted to use it as play-dough.

In the afternoon we got a brief, Covid-19 Era tour of Kansas City. A few snapshots below. (The internet is not kind these days, but I know you are, my readers. ❤ I’ll say it anyway, just to be clear…we are not dismissing what is happening around us and though the pictures don’t show us wearing masks, we are always masked when it is required and/or when we are walking even remotely near fellow humans. Please trust that in all of our travels we are being as prudent as we know how.)

First stop: Levi’s first and not last E & T (espresso and tonic) experience. So impressed with Thou Mayest. Yes, that is tajín on the rim.

Then, a stop at the imposingly beautiful World War I memorial. I never knew Kansas City had such a skyline.

Boulevard Brewing was a fun destination; I’ve been a fan of their Tank 7 Saison for some years now. We tried several brews including the following “Test Beer”. My jaw dropped open when I read the description. Read along with me carefully now.

“Peach Berry Pie Berliner Weisse – Bursting with peach, blueberry & blackberry over a light graham cracker crust” Wait what?!

Okay yeah it’s not a perfect match (no graham cracker crust for my pie) but still. Spooky.

In the evening, we ate pie and ice cream on the back deck and ogled at/conversed with several barred owls. Whatever else is going on, there is always wonder and inspiration to be found in Creation.

Pie with my Girls

29 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Original Pies, Summer Fruit Pie

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blueberry, peach

A few more sweet memories from last summer. Can’t wait to see you ladies again soon!

IMG_6369 (1).jpg IMG_6373 (1).jpg

Pie for a 19-year-old

25 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Berry Pie, Mixed Fruit Pie, Summer Fruit Pie

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

blackberry, Minnesota, nutmeg, peach

Some things about our trips to Minnesota are pretty standard.

Uncle Joe takes us to the best fishing spots.

Levi and I catch fish. (This was a particularly successful day.)

Aunt Sarah cleans our fishes in anticipation of fish dinner.

Grandmom leads fish dinner preparations, breading the filets perfectly. My mouth is literally watering just looking at these pictures.

Levi and I sneak away to the Brookside Tavern (the only bar in Marine-on-St. Croix, next to the only gas station and across from the only general store) for glasses of Farm Girl.

Sometimes, depending on the time of year, we get to do things that are out-of-the-ordinary. This year we happened to visit in mid-August, right around my cousin Matt’s 19th birthday.

Now, Matt has plenty of his own summertime/cabin rituals. One place he can very predictably found for at least part of every day is on the couch, reading voraciously.

Matt also has traditions that he plans out in advance and shares with us during our visits; these include bonfires complete with Reese’s S’mores and scary stories (which he retells with much suspenseful inflection and an impressive memory for detail), movie nights, and of course, trips to the (only) ice cream store. He is a remarkably thoughtful host.

Truth be told, Matt has been a long-time supporter of my pies, whether or not they are specifically referred to as his birthday pie. But this one really WAS a birthday pie. You can tell by the 19 on top.

Although I have already baked my way through so many of the fruit pies in the Pie cookbook, I was luckily able to find and prepare this lovely new specimen for Matt’s birthday festivities: Deep-Dish Blackberry-Peach Double-Crust Pie.

There were several fun new pie tricks to try in the making of this recipe. For one, the peaches are called upon for blanching. I hadn’t blanched peaches before. I’m not much of a blancher in general.

Jury’s still out on how useful that was, as I’m pretty handy with a paring knife, and I think I could have peeled the peaches in far less time than it took to boil the water, try to determine when the peaches were actually finished (although Ken does give very good, clear directions on the process) and then scrape off the remaining skin as not all of it really came off nicely. Either way, it was fun to try a different method-and I can definitely see how, when executed properly, blanching could cut back on wasting delicious bits of fruit that might be cut off with a knife.

Another of the fun new tricks: freshly grated nutmeg. I’m rather ashamed to say that this was new to me. I apologize for dashing your visions of me happily grating whole nutmeg tendrils into every pie filling that had ever called for nutmeg. I usually just shake it out of a jar. But Grandmom had a whole nutmeg and a cute teeny nutmeg grater at her house and once I saw this, I knew it was meant to be. Fresh nutmeg, you smell so good.

Have you ever thought about what a funny word “nutmeg” is?

Add some freshly grated lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, butter, and cornstarch and you’ve got a pie fit for a 19-year-old.

We won’t be together for Matt’s 20th birthday this summer, but I look forward to a visit next week that will hopefully include all of our favorite cousin traditions…including pie!

IMG_6820 (1).jpg

What Everyone Else Is Doing While I Am Making Pie

11 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Apple Pie, Berry Pie, Original Pies, Summer Fruit Pie

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apple, peach, rhubarb, strawberry

When we visited Montana in May, we spent a day in Yellowstone having our breath taken away and a day at Levi’s aunt and uncle and cousins’ house with my aunt and uncle and cousins. That second day was rainy and the house was full of good smells, and I asked my aunt to walk around and take pictures of what everyone else was doing while I was making pie.

I like these pictures because I think they show the reality of what pie is to me. It is important, but it’s not the whole story. I enjoy it, like others enjoy sketching or playing games. At the end of the day, pie is just something I can bring to the table.

I love it when the table is full.

Labor Day Weekend-Monday

15 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Berry Pie, Original Pies, Summer Fruit Pie

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

blueberry, fig, peach

This is a just a little post-script to the previous two posts. When Monday morning arrived, all this fruit was still hanging out–the juicy peaches, a handful of figs, plenty of blueberries (you saw how big the box was to start!) and I can’t quite remember but I think we may have had some plums or something around too. Between the other crusts I had made on Friday and Saturday, there was just enough scrap left to piece together a bottom crust…and a crumb topping is quick work……and so we had breakfast pie. Because three pies over a four-day weekend is MORE than reasonable.

See you next year, Minnesota!

Labor Day Weekend: Friday

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Berry Pie, Original Pies, Summer Fruit Pie

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blueberry, Minnesota, peach

Friday was cool and rainy in Marine on St. Croix. We all had our own opinions as to when the sun would appear, and when it finally did appear, it didn’t stay very long. Levi braved a morning swim in the river anyway.

We spent some time playing cribbage, eating popcorn, and drinking Farm Girl (homemade root beer for Matt!) at Lift Bridge Brewery. I can’t think of a better way to pass a rainy holiday afternoon.

I had already planned out a pie from Ken’s cookbook to make during the weekend, and Aunt Sarah had kindly gathered all the ingredients and brought them to the cabin in preparation for our visit. However, that pie was destined for Saturday, and it was Friday, and so, if you put two and two together: we were facing down the prospect of a pie-less evening.

But then…*drumroll*…

Aunt Sarah’s friend and neighbor Jaci had gone shopping at the local co-op that afternoon and simply *couldn’t* resist buying a case each of blueberries and the most juicy peaches you’ve ever seen. And since her family simply *couldn’t* eat all of this fruit themselves, she wondered if we could use any?

I still think this was all a clever ruse to get pie, but no problems there. This is what everyone learned that day and what you are learning now: If I am on vacation and you bring me cases of perfectly ripe fruit, there is a 99% chance I will start baking on the spot, and a 98% chance you will get to partake in the finished product.

Now those are good odds.

Sometimes, pies need a little help cooling so you can get to the eating faster.

(Pro tip: If you forget to go to the general store for vanilla ice cream and it’s already past eight, a little scoop of vanilla yogurt is a nice stand-in.)

If you think this Peach-Blueberry creation looks good (and boy, it was!), just wait until you see Saturday’s pie.

Strawberry Peach I-Love-You Pie

02 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Original Pies, Summer Fruit Pie

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

mini pies, peach, pie-in-a-jar, Republic of Pie, strawberry

Within the last year, I have reached some sort of higher pie-making level. (What the official levels of pie-making are I am not quite sure…) I haven’t been a novice for a while, and now I’m fully at the point of comfort to where if you put me on Chopped and told me to come up with a dessert given the ingredients on hand my mind would immediately start trying to figure out how I could throw together a pie.

Of course, I’d need longer than thirty minutes and I would hope that my ingredients didn’t consist of some bizarre combination (green apple jellybeans, liverwurst, rice flour, and brazil nuts would be hard to make a pie out of) but you get the point. I don’t need recipes anymore. I still love to follow them sometimes and I’ll continue until I finish every dang pie in Ken’s cookbook but it is so tempting these days to throw recipes to the wind. Maybe what I’ve reached is the Freestyle Level.

One pie I’ve made in some form or another over and over this year is Strawberry Peach. The first time I used a splash of Trader Joe’s Dixie Peach juice to give it extra peachiness…if I happen to have very flavorful 100% fruit juices in my fridge, I like adding them to my pies. If you start to develop this habit though, make sure you’re using enough cornstarch. In a pie with strawberries (notorious for making pie bubble over) and a splash of extra juice, you’ll want to use an extra spoonful of starch (I’d say 4 level tablespoons went into this filling.)

Several batches of Strawberry Peaches minis were made during this spring and summer, some destined for local friends as gifts for a variety of occasions, some destined for farther places, like Nashville. When I went to Jamaica for a week, I left a few pies in the freezer, for Levi (I-love-you) and visiting friends I was barely able to cross paths with before leaving town. (In fact, the extent of our visit was a stop at Republic of Pie in between picking them up at one airport and dropping me off at another. Boo.) Pro tip: It’s good to have mini pies on hand. I have yet to meet someone who isn’t happy when you give them their own personal jar of pie. I mean, really.

One of my favorite pie memories of this summer is baking three of them (two Strawberry Peach and a blueberry) for the Onesimus crew on a hot July afternoon and serving them outside that same humid night, listening to a smoky bonfire devotion, surrounded by blinking fireflies. It was definitely an Elisha and the Widow’s Oil situation, when hungry souls kept coming and coming with plates held out eagerly for a slice, and when there was not one plate left, the pie stopped flowing. (Well, I guess at that point the one last piece flowed onto my plate. And then it was really and truly gone. And then I think some of the boys scraped the empty plates clean of any final crumbs or juicy drips.)

I made the Strawberry Peach (and maybe some apple too?) pie below in July late at night after work, waiting for some awesome house guests (and Levi) to get back from a baseball game they’d gone to. It was unplanned; the ingredients were sitting around and I had just a little time and the impulse struck, cause I’m on that Freestyle Level now, you know. And I’m finding out more and more that what it means when I make you pie is that I love you. I might not put the pie in a jar with a cute little handwritten label that says “Strawberry Peach I-love-you Pie,” (that honor is reserved mostly for Levi, I suppose) but it doesn’t mean that every pie I make doesn’t actually have “I-love-you” tacked into the name secretly. Because really, it does. It is my way of showing that I care.

In one note I got in response to a couple Strawberry-Peach pies I mailed was the sentence “Thank you for loving us all the way from California” and I thought, yes! That is what I’m doing, even when I don’t know I’m doing it. If I try to feed you pie, what I am basically doing is clumsily saying “I love you.”

Oh, Obi. Yes, I love you too, because I let you eat the pastry scraps that always fall off the dining room table when I roll out a crust.

Thanks for reading, and for eating, and for accepting my love in the form of pie.

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