Pumpkin Pie

The first pumpkin pie of the season!

Tamale Pie!

Let's be honest. This isn't really pie. But it looks like pie, and it's delicious like pie. Therefore...

Savory Tomato Pie with Kale-Walnut Pesto

As promised, I've jumped away from the sweet plum pies (for now!) and made a savory pie. In this case, a tomato pie with kale pesto. It tasted as good as that sounds, and maybe even better.

Apple-Plum!

As must by now be pretty obvious, we collected a lot of plums from the plum tree in our yard. Thus, when it came time to make a pie for friends Jonathan and Jenny, I followed the recipe for purple plum pie that I've been using, but mixed in about half apples and some extra spices.



The results were pretty good! I added lots of extra cinnamon, some extra nutmeg, and some ground cloves. And one large apple, sliced thin, went in with the frozen plums. The result was a bit like plum pie and a bit like apple pie.

My crust, though I followed Carolyn's magic pie crust technique, wasn't perfect: despite prebaking, the bottom was still a bit soft (though, the following day, cold from the fridge, it was just fine... so maybe the problem was serving it still-warm), and the streusel-ish top came out a bit mushy. Also, I completely forgot to decorate the edges, and overall this is a pretty ugly-looking beast of a pie. But the flavor was just fine, and the ugliness didn't seem to bother anyone too much. Any warm home-made pie tends to look pretty good with some vanilla ice cream on one side and a fork on the other...

All this plum pie is probably getting boring for the two of you who read this regularly, but fear not: apple-pie season approaches, as does pumpkin-pie season, sweet-potato-pie season, and, oh yeah, creative savory pie season. Yum.

One last note: if you're a Portland resident, be aware that I just purchased a special plastic pie carrier. Suzanne was a little doubtful as to whether I would actually need to carry pie places: I protested that I want to give people pie and this will make it easier.

This means that all you have to do is ask, and I will bring you a freaking fresh-baked pie (and, for that matter, if you want me to make something in particular, as long as it's in season I'll do it). So ask for some pie. Because you deserve it.

Sunblock for Pies

Carolyn Walters has offered more pie wisdom, and I thought I'd share it with any readers who may benefit from it. The photos she sent speak for themselves, I won't try to take any credit or add any advice. The dilemma is: how to keep a crust-top from burning? The solution, in a word: foil.

In her words:

I have a couple photos on how to protect a pie crust while baking -- wasn'tsure if you already knew of this technique.  I was overcooking pie edges foryears before I heard about this. 

Figgy Flop-Tart

You wouldn't know it from looking at the (pretty luscious) photos, but this fig & plum tart was a complete and utter failure. So much so that Suzanne and I could barely get through a slice apiece, even in the name of research.