Old Glory Pie

In honor of Independence Day, I finally turned on my oven!  I thought I would do something a little different this 4th of July.  Normally I bake the best apple pie ever (it truly, truly is) or my flag cake.  This year, I combined the two...sort of...and made a flag pie with blueberries and red cherries. 
  My favorite thing about this time of year isn't the summer heat (seriously, it's not the heat), the fireworks, the long weekend, the homemade ice cream, or the fresh corn, but the beautiful, endless bounty of fresh berries. (And before you even think it, I know that cherries are not a berry.  In fact, Bubba, Tink, and I just had a long discussion about how much a cherry is not a berry. One of us even resorted to googling "is a cherry a berry," but I won't say who.) So, stock up on all the berries in your local farmer's market or grocery store and toss any berries that don't get eaten into a freezer bag and they will keep until next year.  These blueberries came from a farm less than an hour from our house!


You will need:

5 cups dark cherries (fresh or frozen)
1 1/2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)
3 T lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 heaping T instant tapioca pearls (1T plus 1/4 cup if using frozen cherries)
1T butter, cut into pieces
two pie crusts

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Wash and pit your cherries (or open up three bags of frozen) and put them in a large bowl.  Wash and check your blueberries for stems and place them in a smaller bowl.  Toss the cherries with 2T of the lemon juice, the blueberries with the remaining 1T of juice.  Mix together the sugar and the cornstarch.  Add 1 cup of the mixture to the cherries and stir gently.

Then add the remaining 1/4 cup of mixture to the blueberries.

If you are using fresh berries, get a heaping T of tapioca and sprinkle the pearls onto the blueberries until you are left with a real tablespoon.  Sprinkle the remainder onto the cherries.  Stir.  If you are using frozen berries, add 1T of tapioca pearls to the blueberries and 1/4 cup pearls to the cherries.  Either way, let the mixtures sit for 15 minutes. 

While the berries and cherries are hanging out (or as the kids would say, chillin' out, maxin', relaxin', all cool) place one pie crust into your pie pan and set the other out on a floured countertop or pastry cloth.  Cut off the bottom of one side so that you have a nice, long, evenly flat side.  Then, using a pizza cutter, cut three long, even pieces for the 3 long stripes.  (You will eventually end up with 3 long stripes, 3 short stripes, and 6 stars.)

Set those aside and cut one more.  Now cut that one into thirds.

If you have a mini star cookie cutter, good for you!  If you had one but lost it (like me) or have never had one you can freehand the stars or use a template.  I used a cupcake decoration.  You need 6 stars.

Now you have your stars and stripes!

Bend a bit of aluminum foil to create a dam for the blueberries in the upper left-hand quadrant of your pie dish. 

Pour your blueberries into your dam, then pour the cherries into the remaining 3/4 of the pie.  Slowly remove the foil.

Place the butter pieces around the pie.

Now add your stars and stripes!  Stars over the blueberries, of course.  :)

Tuck the edges of the stripes into the bottom pie crust.

Bake at 375 for 40-60 minutes.  The sauce will thicken up quite a bit while it bakes.

Don't run to the dry cleaners and the library while the pie is in the oven because it may only need 40 minutes and 60 minutes will make the top crust kind of brown.  But even if you do run errands, the pie is going to taste AWESOME.

My favorite thing about this pie is that the berries (and cherries) really shine.  Their natural sweetness is enhanced by the mere 1 cup of sugar and not overwhelmed.  Have you ever had one of those cherry pies that taste like pure, gooey sugar?  Ick.  This pie is all about the berries.  And cherries, which are not a berry dang it! :) 

You can taste the perfectly ripe blueberries and the tang of the fresh cherries.  This pie is a showcase for berries!  And cherries!! 

I hope you enjoy it every bit as much as we did.  I doubt there will be any left for us for the actual 4th of July.  Guess I'll have to make another one!!

Happy 4th of July!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chocolate Fudge Pie

Picture it: you are all ready to start making dinner when your husband calls and says that he is craving pizza and is going to pick up some on the way home. You could argue, but you love pizza and embrace the idea. But now you aren't making dinner and have all this pent-up cooking/baking energy. You'll need a dessert to go with that pizza and this chocolate fudge pie is just the ticket! It's easy to make, quick, and you don't have to let it cool completely before eating--in fact, it's best if you don't since ice cream doesn't melt on cool pie. :)

You will need:

1 baked pie crust
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup flour (white whole wheat)
3T cocoa powder
1/2 cup (one stick) Smart Balance, softened
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

(for some reason the eggs didn't make it into the picture)



(To bake a pie crust, put it into the pie tin and poke it with holes. I use a fork. Make sure you really cover it with holes so that it doesn't puff up on you. If it does puff up, don't panic, just push it back down while it's still hot--it will crack up a little, but that's not a big deal. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes or until lightly browned.)


Put all the ingredients into a mixer bowl...



and beat until thoroughly combined.



Pour into the baked pie crust and bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes.





That's it! I told you it was easy. By the time hubby gets home with the pizza the pie will be coming out of the oven. Top it with ice cream, fresh whipped cream (no chemical whip), or just eat it plain (my favorite). Tink loved this pie. Adored it, wants to learn how to make it so that she can "make it every day" for the rest of her life. And she has a small sweet tooth! That's how good this pie tastes.



The top gets a great crust just like a brownie and the filling is thick, rich, and fudgy. It tastes like you put a lot of work into it, so make sure everyone knows that you slaved all day over it. :)



Enjoy!

Key Lime Pie

One of the best parts of living in Florida, besides the sunshine, is the availability of true Key Lime Pie. And by true I mean YELLOW. Key Lime Pie is never green; it's never fluffy or whipped. To make this pie you will need actual key lime juice, not regular lime juice. There is a huge difference. Yes, I'm a Key Lime Pie snob, but I live in Florida and it is sort of encouraged. :)

You will need:

1/2 cup key lime juice
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 can condensed milk
3 egg yolks
1 graham cracker crust



If you can't find true key lime juice in your local store (or even better, key limes), you can order it online. Nellie and Joe's Key Lime Juice is the best.



Key Lime juice is darker and thicker than regular lime juice and it has a tarter, stronger flavor.



Mix all of your ingredients, except the crust, and whisk for two minutes on medium speed. Then pour into your pie crust.



Bake at 350 degrees for just 15 minutes. You do not want your pie to brown at all. It comes out looking not much different than when it went into the oven.



Cool to room temperature and then chill in the fridge until you are ready to eat it. Top with real whipped cream. Please don't desecrate the beauty of true Key Lime Pie with Chemical Whip.




Simple, quick, the perfect summer dessert. Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Pie

Yesterday I baked four sweet potatoes to go with some leftover ham from Easter, but once Bubba and the girls got home we decided we were in more of a breakfast mood. So we had pancakes. That left me with a Ziploc bag full of sweet potatoes in the fridge. What to do...what do do...PIE! It's been raining/storming all day here, very dreary. Just the right atmosphere for a heavy, sweet, comfort food pie.
You'll need:
4 medium sweet potatoes, baked
1 stick butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp (+) cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1 9-inch pie crust, unbaked
Start by scraping out the good stuff from your sweet potatoes. If you find any hard lumps (unbaked potato) don't use it. I suppose you could try cooking it in the microwave to soften it up, but definitely don't put it in the pie.



Put the potato and the butter in a mixer and whisk it for at least 5 minutes. Really, you can't beat it too long. Sweet Potato Pie tends to have a grainy texture when the potatoes aren't mashed into oblivion. (Sidebar: I always indicate "butter" in my recipes, but never use it myself. Well, only half butter anyway. I use Smart Balance baking sticks. They are half butter and half Smart Balance. I can't recommend them enough! I ran out one day and was at a drugstore where they only sold butter. I thought, just this once, and bought some to use in my chocolate chip cookies. DRY. I never, never use anything but SB sticks, but I always write "butter" in my recipes.)



Now add some milk and beat the hell out of the mixture again. Your choice on what type of milk you want to add. Evaporated, whole, 2%, half and half, or skim. I used skim this time. Always like to cut out fat where I can. Because I eat a lot of desserts...and I like to have more than one slice of pie. :)



Dig my new measuring cup in that picture! It has cups, milliliters, ounces, pints, with liquid measurements on one side and dry on the other. It's nowhere near as useful as I thought it would be, but I can't resist new kitchen gadgets and I had some store credit at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. :)

Time for the cup of brown sugar. Dark or light would work. If you don't have brown sugar you can make your own. I do that quite often, as I go through brown sugar like it was water. Add one tablespoon of molasses to one cup of white sugar for light brown sugar. Mix with a fork. If you don't have molasses...sorry. Just add white sugar and a bit more cinnamon.



My favorite part...the eggs! Add them one at a time and beat until incorporated. I used two Smores' eggs this time.





Add vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Use just the one tsp of vanilla, but you can play around with the nutmeg and cinnamon. I don't really like nutmeg, so I go easy on it. If you love it, add more! I rarely use just one tsp of cinnamon. I like to hold the spoon over the bowl and shake out the cinnamon, letting it fall all over the batter until the tsp is full. I'm sure I get almost 2 tsp in there, if not more.





Sprinkle a little flour into your pie pan to keep the crust from sticking. (That's a tip I got from my father-in-law. Thank you, John!) I used a refrigerated, rolled pie crust. They are as tasty, if not more tasty, than homemade and so ridiculously easy to use. Let it warm up a bit, though, or it will tear when you try to put it in the pan. But don't do like I did this time and leave it on the stove while going off to do laundry. It almost melted.



All that is left is to pour the pie mixture into the pie pan and bake. For a really long time. Loooooong time. I was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with my oven. I put the pie pan on a cookie sheet in case it spilled over (still have cherry pie in the bottom of my oven) but this pie doesn't bubble over. No need for a cookie sheet. I probably added a good 20 minutes to the baking time. Oh well. Bake at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes...or 80 if you put it on a cookie sheet. It will brown slightly on top and go from this:



to this:





You'll know it is done when you stick a toothpick in the middle and it comes out clean. Enjoy!!