Food Follies

A long time ago we’d found these terrific little individual serving glass pyrex dishes at the Dollar Store of all places, and the other day I got to use them for the first time when making a couple of mini apple pies! (I would have made a regular pie, but we only had three apples in the fridge – besides – what a good ready-made excuse to use the darn things.)

I cut our apple pie recipe (below) in half, and also cut our pie crust recipe (below) in half. I also have to admit that this is the first time I’ve actually made a pie crust from scratch! John’s made them from scratch, but I’ve grabbed the pre-made crusts in the past. But after doing this and seeing how easy it is, I’ll probably hardly EVER use the pre-made crusts again.

The final pies came out really cute, and just like a regular apple pie, although the ‘individual’ portions were pretty big, but we got over it.

One more point: as you can see in the photo, I sealed the edges of the pie like normal, but tucked the edges back in the glass pan a bit since I didn’t want them to get dried out or burned. Wallah!

Here are the recipes I adapted…

Apple Pie

6 cups thinly sliced apples (Granny Smith, MacIntosh do well)
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 package Pillsbury pie crusts (2 crusts)
or use a homemade double crust recipe

Bring crust to room temperature. Unfold crust and press out fold lines with fingers. If crust cracks, wet fingers and push edges of crack together to seal. Place crust in ungreased 9-inch pan, glass recommended. Press crust firmly against sides and bottom. Trim crust along pan edge. (Or follow homemade crust recipe)

Heat oven to 425 degrees. In large bowl, combine all filling ingredients; mix lightly. Fill pie crust. Place second crust over filling. Wrap excess top crust under bottom crust edge. Press edges together to seal – flute. Cut slits in top crust.

Bake at 425 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until apples are tender and crust is golden brown.

Note: Slice the apple pieces really thin to make sure they can be cooked through completely during baking. Also, when cutting up the apples, don’t get TOO close to the core. You want to cut off any section that has any core ‘string’ type stuff on it because that won’t get soft while cooking and can be annoying to bite into. Also, if you use Granny Smith apples you get more tartness than MacIntosh, FYI.

Pie Crust

1 cup Crisco (or butter)
2 and 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup ice water.

Mix Crisco, flour and salt with a fork until crumbly.

Add 1/2 cup of water to flour mixture and mix with a fork.
Add remaining water until mixture is moistened – you
probably won’t have to add ALL of the leftover water.
Roll out 1/2 of the dough on a board covered with flour.
Use enough flour to make it roll easily.

This makes top and bottom for a 9-inch pie.

When I saw the 2.5 lb container of fresh blueberries for 5.99 I looked at it sort of lovingly and thought, “I could make a blueberry pie.” I’ve never actually made a homemade pie. Kristen usually is in charge of pies, while I’m normally in charge of grilling and making omelettes. When I worked as a cook, our pies were made with canned fillings, so there was no help there.

I did go the easy route and went with the pre-made pie crust. I’ve actually made my own pie crust before, for Shepherd’s Pie, but since I was starting this pie in the evening, I wanted to move things along.

It took all of thirty seconds for us to find some basic blueberry pie recipes on the web and tweak our own variation. Putting the ingredients together was a snap, and we have enough blueberries leftover for sprinkling on breakfast cereals, mixing in yogurts and possibly sharing with the local wildlife.

Kristen guided me through the proper method of sealing the two pie crust halves. When I made my Shepherd’s Pie, the edge was a bit on the crusty side. The baking took longer than we expected, about an extra half hour, but the results were delicious. This is the first homemade blueberry pie I’ve ever had and it beat every store or restaurant pie I’ve had hands down.

Hopefully, we can catch the other berry families on sale and live on pie for the rest of the summer. Oh, and here’s the recipe we used:

Blueberry Pie Recipe

Filling ingredients:
6 cups of blueberries, cleaned and stems removed
2 Tbsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed if possible
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp butter, cut into small pieces

Prepare crust. If you have already made dough, on a lightly floured work surface, roll out half of the dough to 1/8-inch-thick circle, about 13 inches in diameter. Drape dough over a 9-inch pie pan and put into the refrigerator to chill for about 30 minutes. If you have purchased pre-rolled circles, allow them to defrost (if frozen) and place one of the circles in the pie pan.

Put blueberries in a large blow. Sprinkle flour over the blueberries and stir until the blueberries are all coated with the flour. Then, add the cinnamon, sugar, salt, and lemon juice, to the blueberries and mix until blended. Place in the chilled bottom crust of the pie pan. Dot the top with butter pieces. Roll out the remaining dough to the same size and thickness. Place the other piece of dough on top, trim to 1/2 inch over the edge of the pan, and crimp the edges with a fork or your fingers. Put the pie in the refrigerator to chill until firm, about 30 minutes. Pre-heat oven to 425°F in the meantime.

Remove from refrigerator. Score the pie on the top with 4 cuts (so steam can escape while cooking) – add a baking ring or put foil around edges of pie to protect edges. Bake for 20 minutes at 425°. Remove pie ring/foil. Reduce heat to 350°F and bake for 30 to 40 minutes more or until juices are bubbling. Let cool before serving.

Makes 8 servings.