Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pies

Oh, pumpkin pie, how I love you! Despite the fact that I have infamously burned the Thanksgiving pumpkin pies on two non-consecutive occasions (ca. 1993, ca. 2001) my family trusted me to make the pumpkin pies again this year and they turned out just fine. I'm so used to making them the same way, year after year, that any other pumpkin pie just doesn't taste right anymore.

Others in the family are much better photographers than I am, so they took most of the people shots, and I took most of the people-eating-pie-pictures. Most importantly, the darling-nephews-eating-pie photos. But I will see about getting a group shot of the Thanksgiving table for full effect. Aside from eating pie with all the family, the other highlight of holiday pie this year was the fact that I fielded pie-related phone calls and texts from two independently-acting friends. I'm like a small scale version of the turkey hot line! Fortunately, based on reports and gorgeous after photos my pie advice did not destroy any baked goods. All in all, a lovely holiday. Hope everyone got plenty of pie, and especially some post-holiday breakfast pie.

Green Tomato Pie for a Change

In honor of the election and in celebration of the idea of change, I thought I'd do something different and make a green tomato pie. Okay, I admit it, this is really just the intersection of election day and the arrival of green tomatoes from my csa, but still. I did want to make a pie for this very special day, and since I'm taking it to work, I thought it would be a bit much to make an overly partisan pie. Once the election is over we'll definitely have to make a pie to celebrate those candidates of ours who made it into office.

So as I was making up the green tomato pie, I thought hmmm, this seems familiar. And then I realized that the recipe was very similar to the mock apple pie that I made for April Fools. I wonder if this is going to taste somewhat like an apple pie? I hate to say it, but I think that this pie has a high chance of being disgusting. Green tomatoes, lemon, cinnamon and sugar don't seem like an obvious combination. Perhaps I won't tell anyone what's in this until after they've eaten it...

Well, have a very happy election day; I hope that the lines at your polling place are long enough to give historic levels of voter turnout, but not so long that you are waiting around all day. I won't ask you who you are voting for, but will ask: if you could make a pie for any current or historical presidential candidate, what would you make and for which candidate?

Mystery Pie Revealed: Concord Grape!

Okay, so maybe not such a mystery since I have been talking obsessively about grape pies since I learned of their existence back in January. When I started the pie odyssey, I studied the rules for various pie competitions, and found that the Albemarle County Fair has a whole category for grape pies. How could a pie I've never even heard of have its own category of competition at my county's fair? Are there really that many people in the county making grape pies on a regular basis? If so, why have I never met them? Is there anywhere in the county that one can purchase a grape pie?

Anyways. With contributions of concord grapes from friends and strangers, I finally got enough for a pie. I used a recipe from Retro Pies: A Collection of Celebrated Family Recipes by Linda Everett (a fabulous cookbook that Miss Julie gave me). It was way less tedious to make than I thought it would be because you get to pop the grapes out of their skins, which is very satisfying. I include pictures of the separated pulps and skins. After heating and straining the pulps, you reintegrate the two parts, add a few other ingredients and pour into the shell. I opted for a crumb top rather than a double pastry crust, because I didn't want it to taste like grape jam on white bread. I've hesitated to make this pie because I worry that it is going to be too grapey; it certainly smells like jam. But why else does the pie odyssey exist, if not to make even the most seemingly repulsive of pies? I suspect that after eating this, I may only want to make toned-down versions in future. Like perhaps a grapes balanced by something creamy or cheesy, or perhaps paired with a really tart fruit, like gooseberries, or dare I suggest it, rhubarb...

It never rains, but it pears

I've been sidetracked from apples this month as I've come across a source for free pears. Four pies and one tart later, I'm about to ready to move on to the six varieties of apple I've been hoarding. So before we get back to our first love, here's the pear round up.

1. Pear Tart: I used a basic pear tart recipe from Great Pies & Tarts by Carole Walter. It was quite nice, although I'm not such a huge fan of the apricot jam glaze. Apricot always just tastes strange to me. The crust recipe came from the same book - it turned out well, although it took forever to make; it involved all kinds of hand massaging of butter bits and swirling ingredients gently in a clockwise direction.

2. Two different Pear Sour Cream Pies: on the left, you'll see a pear sour cream pie based on Aunt Ruby Alice's sour cream strawberry pie recipe (see earlier post). On the left is a pie based on the apple sour cream pie recipe in The Joy of Cooking. Ruby Alice's involves mixing dry ingredients into sour cream and applying to the top. The final result is lovely and thick and creamy, and has a sugary crust on top. For the other one, I added some cinnamon and sugar to the pears, and then just dumped sour cream on top. It was nice when warm, but man, I had a leftover piece that came straight out of the fridge, and it was foul. It probably didn't help that I used low fat sour cream. Bleh. Oh, and I'm still having problems under cooking fruit pies, so the pears were a tad crunchy, which didn't help.

3. Pear raspberry pies: One out of the oven, one still in. I had a bunch of pears left and wanted to use them up, so I tossed them with sugar and frozen raspberries, and covered them with a crumb topping. I didn't chill the dough enough though, so the crust cooked very quickly and I took the first one out sooner than I would have liked. I'm hoping that because the pears are riper than the last bunch, they won't need as much cooking.

Coming soon: Pies I ate this summer, Various apple pies, The Piebrary goes international, and a surprise mystery pie of such strange and shocking flavor that you won't believe it and which I'll probably only make once.

Friends of Pie

Kathy and Sara have earned the official designation of Friend of Pie. Not only did they let me stay with them after Helen's party, they made me waffles, gave me a tour of the finest container garden in the greater D.C. area AND had plenty of good pie and tart insights. I came away with some great new pie and cookie recipes, as well as a tart pan. I made my first ever tart pan this weekend, using summer veggies, including zucchini, sweet onions and mushrooms, with goat cheese and basil for extra flavor. I used my cuisinart to slice the onions and zucchini super thin. The edge of the crust got a little toasty in parts because I foolishly decided that I didn't really need to cover it with foil when I put the tart under the broiler. Fortunately it still tastes quite nice. Now that I have both pie pans and a tart pan, I may never eat anything non-pie-like ever again.

Helen's Strawberry Birthday Pie

Since 75% of my blog readership knows our dear Helen, I don't feel that I need to spend any time explaining why she is most deserving of birthday pie. If for some reason you are unconvinced of this fact, let me know and I will provide you with a complete list of reasons for your edification.

After several test pies, I ended up making a strawberry pie consisting of a baked shortbread cookie crust, filled with uncooked berries covered in a fruity glaze. The shortbread crust won out over regular crust in taste-testing. Early prototypes of the pie also had way too much glaze, so I tried to use as little as possible in the final pie. Despite riding to D.C. under heavy air-conditioning, the pies looked a little worse for the wear, but seemed to taste okay. Next year's birthday pies will surely be even better. Happy Birthday Helen!

Ruby Alice's Strawberry Sour Cream

I had to clean out the fridge a bit last night to make way for the lovely strawberries that I am picking up from my CSA tonight. One of the things that had to be used was a previous round of strawberries that was on its last legs. There were not quite enough berries for an all-strawberry pie, and what was left definitely had to be cooked, so I used it as an excuse to try a strawberry sour cream pie recipe that I got recently from my cousins Bob and Janet. The recipe comes from Bob's mother, Ruby Alice. I haven't cut into the pie yet, but the smell is incredible - Ruby Alice obviously knew how to bake. I do love a sour cream pie. Apple sour cream was my favorite for a while, but now I'm seeing that I'm going to have to do more with berries. And just wait till fresh peach season!