Cherry Pie

July 9, 2019

We were driving home from Utah for Matt’s week, but fortunately, he snagged some cherries from his dad’s cherry tree and brought them home. There weren’t quite enough, though, so we bought some more from the store, and Matt made it during the week.

The biggest accomplishment here was that we finally got our first lattice-top pie of the year. Shelly said, “Boy, those lattice strips are pretty wide.” Matt responded, “Well, this was my first try – I wanted to have fewer strips!” It turned out lovely.

Of course, no one ate it. Our family is made up of weirdos who refuse to even try yummy fruit pies. Ellie had a small piece, but the rest of the job was left to Matt.

Frankly, it could have been better. The recipe we used called for vanilla and almond extract, and next time we should omit that. The extracts gave it a kind of artificial taste. Though there wasn’t any chocolate in this pie, it reminded Matt of a cherry chocolate, with cherries and that liqueur goop around it that tastes a little funny, except not as sugary. And it was really watery and runny – we had to drain the pie before slicing, and even then there was a lot of liquid. Perhaps more cornstarch or less juicy cherries. But the crust was fabulous and it was still pretty darn good.

Strawberry Pie II

June 24, 2019

It was a Monday morning. The girls were out of school. Shelly took them strawberry picking. Five anxious pickers in 20 minutes came up with 19 pounds of strawberries. Therefore: strawberry pie returns.

Peach Crumble Pie

June 23, 2019

Ellie (like Matt) has been waiting for summer to arrive so she could make a good old-fashioned peach pie. Once again, we simply found a recipe online, but we went ahead and used this recipe’s crust as well, which was a little different. The crust uses both shortening and butter, which resulted in a very flaky, tasty crust. The excess dough didn’t last till the pie made it out of the oven.

The peaches were tender, the crumble on top was lovely (we doubled the crumble and had a little left over for snacking), and even though it was competing with the S’mores Pie, half of it got eaten. Cinnamon was present in this pie, since it was an Ellie pie, but it was more brown sugary than cinnamony. It was even better the next day as breakfast.

Apple Pie II

June 9, 2019

Because we went over to some friends’ house for dinner, we needed two pies to fill everyone up. We found out what our host’s favorite pie was and made that – apple pie. So we broke what Shelly thinks is a rule: no pie repeats during the year. After all, how can you spend an entire year and only eat one apple pie? Apple pie is the best pie. For all the research of different creative and crazy pies we’ve done this year, it’s clear that there is a very good reason apple pie is so darn popular.

Matt wanted to try a lattice, but the dough we use for this pie is so soft, it doesn’t work well for that kind of thing. So he just wrote “PIE” on the pie. Because it’s pie.

Triple Key Lime Pie

May 12, 2019 (Mothers’ Day)

This week Ellie wanted key lime pie. But not just any key lime pie. We found a recipe online for Triple Key Lime Pie, featuring three layers of limey goodness: The bottom is a traditional key lime pie. The middle is almost a no-bake cheesecake – it features cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk and sour cream as well as key lime juice. The top layer is whipped cream infused with key lime juice. And because this is Ellie, there had to be a bit of cinnamon, but it’s relegated just to the crust.

There were some complaints that the limey whipped cream was either too limey or not sweet enough. The crust was definitely too thin – we could have used about double the crunchy goodness. But the bottom two layers, at least, were clear winners. The traditional pie layer was tart, and the cheesecakey layer was sweeter and creamier to offset it. Part of the fun of making this pie was finding key lime juice (we looked in lots of exotic places until we found it at Safeway), and then daring each other to dip our fingers in it and lick. And once again, Annie refused to eat Ellie’s pie, but fortunately Shelly liked it, because it was Mothers’ Day.

Blueberry Sour Cream Pie

April 21, 2019 (Easter)

For the second pie of Easter Sunday, Matt decided to pull out the blueberry sour cream pie he’s been talking about for a while. Kate’s Easter pie was chocolatey, so we needed a fruity pie. It was a lot easier than last week’s cannoli pie. Blueberries, sour cream, an egg, some flour and sugar, and a crumble topping (which got doubled, and thank goodness – it still was almost not enough). Unfortunately, when he took it out of the oven and placed it on our stove range to cool, someone who shall remain nameless had forgotten to turn the range off. So there’s a big black circle on the bottom of the pie now. Only half of the pie was edible.

But the story of this pie is that despite the fact that we had an Easter dinner with 13 people, and despite the fact that the Easter Pie’s rice krispie crust was a bit tough, and despite the fact that everyone knows blueberries are one of the most underrated fruits out there, and despite the fact that Annie believes that sour cream is one of the major food groups, exactly TWO people even attempted to put a bite of this pie in their mouth. And Leah the Blueberry Lover, though she said she liked it, didn’t finish her piece. Matt has never been more disappointed in his family.

This pie was fantastic. Creamy, crunchy, flavorful, and just about perfect. It was better than the cannoli pie. It was better than the unicorn pie. It was definitely better than the Easter pie, even with its excellent chocolate pudding. It might not have been better than the apple pie, but that’s nigh impossible, and it was really close. Seriously, this pie was definitely in the top three if not the top two of all the pies we’ve made this year (still thinking about Kate’s chocolate fudge pie…). AND MATT IS THE ONLY ONE WHO HAD THE GOOD SENSE TO EAT IT.

Their loss.

Arizona Sunshine Pie

April 7, 2019

The second pie of General Conference weekend was picked to celebrate the visit of Grandma and Grandpa from sunny Arizona! Shelly had been wanting to try a lemon pie and when she found a lemon pie called Arizona Sunshine pie, she had to try it!

Tastewise, this pie was a real disappointment to Shelly. It had a bitterness to it that she didn’t like. We assume this came from the fact that you put a whole lemon (except the seeds) into a blender to make the filling, so the rind is a part of the curd as well. After suffering through the first piece, Shelly was done with it. Other fruit pie lovers, liked the pie and declared it great. (Ellie “loved” it).

If doing again, we would use the juice and zest of two lemons instead of the whole lemon to make the filling. In fact, Shelly feels she needs to have a do-over because she wanted to love this pie, and was so sad when it failed. Will Arizona Sunshine redeem itself? We’ll have to wait and see…

Pi Day

March 14, 2019

Just when this pie-every-week thing has gotten going, Pi Day rolled around. We wanted to celebrate, since this is the Year of Pie for our family, but we had just had Unicorn Pie on Sunday, and another one was coming up the following Sunday. That’s a lot of pie, even for us. So we purchased a small marionberry pie for $3.14 and ate pizza for dinner and called it good. Ellie and Matt were the only ones willing to eat a tasty berry pie, so the others just missed out. It didn’t even have any seeds! We also learned that the marionberry is not a relative of the blackberry, but rather a particular strain of blackberry, developed in Marion County, Oregon. Pacific Northwest for the win!

Butterscotch Banana Cream Pie

Realizing that the girls may never have had a traditional banana cream pie, Matt decided to introduce them to it, but with a twist. Following this recipe, he cooked up brown sugar, butter, and cream into homemade butterscotch. It’s possible he may have cooked it a little too long, as there was a detectable metallic burnt tinge to the filling. This wasn’t the most popular pie, even among our banana lovers. It was better the next day (after chilling), but it was the first pie of the year where some of it ended up in the trash can.

Apple Pie

February 17, 2019

Ellie knows that the best pie out there is apple pie. And fortunately, we have stumbled upon the best apple pie recipe out there. Our friend Tami brought a pie to a party once, and Matt looked at Shelly after one bite and said, “Who made this pie? We can never have another apple pie again.” It was THAT good. The best part about apple pie, which Matt and Ellie made sure to take advantage of? Pie for breakfast the next day.