Thanksgiving Pie: Sugarless Honey Pumpkin Pie

Contrary to my earlier pieatus announcement, I wound up making a pumpkin pie for thanksgiving. Here it is, honey-sweetened, sugarless and tasty. Also featured today: photos of Carolyn's cherry pie, with some photos of crust edge shaping and foil top-protecting.

Pie-atus

On a temporary hiatus this week-
last weekend was a wash due to unexpected and conflicting doctor's warnings for my lovely life-partner. First it was gluten intolerance, then that was rescinded, and now it seems to be, not gluten intolerance, but a potato intolerance, which for complicated reasons appears to be just as crazy (many flours include potato, and sugar and fruit at the same time are apparently forbidden). This is pie-recipe-complexifying stuff, folks.

But, this will just make future pies more interesting. And I hope those of you who are counting, are mollified by the fact that I made two pies last week, and am still way ahead on the numbers (by about five extra pies, approximately).

Also, you're all cooking and/or eating pie for the holiday. Make and eat delicious pies, friends.

And in the meantime enjoy this article:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/11/17/142460593/for-the-origins-of-pie-look-to-the-humble-magpie

and, um, this one. which I hereby swear I will never attempt:
http://www.neatorama.com/2011/11/22/a-cherry-pie-an-apple-pie-and-a-pumpkin-pie-each-cooked-inside-a-separate-cake-and-then-all-cooked-together-inside-another-cake/

and this one, which i may someday attempt if I have a few too many Sazeracs first:
http://www.extremeholidayideas.com/Extreme_Pumpkin_Pie.html

and this one, which is actually pretty tempting:
http://www.cakespy.com/blog-old/2009/5/27/triple-threat-the-cookie-cake-pie.html

Peach and Apple Pie with Lattice Top

A splendidly unseasonal pie, using farmers' market peaches that we froze back in early September, and thawed for peach pie (by request for a treasured guest). Since the frozen peaches shrank in volume and looked like a dilapidated brown pool of limp dishrags when thawed, I added a sliced apple and some dried cranberries. The filling, amazingly, turned out terrific. This is also my first part-shortening crust, and the results were good enough (though I wound up underbaking the bottom crust) that there will be many more. Details, as always, below.

Savory Sweet Potato Pie with Poppy-Seed-Cheddar Crust

This pie was possibly a better idea in theory than in reality (if you can read the title of this post without drooling, something's wrong with you). The crust was great, but to my tastebuds the filling was somewhat bland and disappointing. 

The recipe's from Mollie Katzen's Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook.

Details below:

Guest Pie: Nina's Vegan Apple Galette

Awesome east coast pal Nina made a pie and sent me the pictures. Here's what she says:

I was pretty nervous about it since I've never attempted anything like this before, but it was fantastic. Baked and tender, and perfect with a little almond dream faux ice cream. Here's the recipe:
http://urbanvegan.net/search/?q=galette

 

I promise not to slack on my weekly piemaking, but I do hereby invite readers to send in their own pie success stories (please include at least one photo and a recipe!). The world needs more homemade pie!

Dutch Apple Pie

This was my first try at an apple pie. 

It was, as so often happens, nearly a complete disaster, and imperfect in many ways. (Rest assured that I'll tell you all about them). Yet: it was also a success, insofar as deliciousness goes. Yum. Pie is good even when it's bad. 

As a pie seeker, I quest for piefection. But in the meantime, this stuff still tastes tasty.