Chocolate Cream Pie

The result of warm weather, a picnic, limited pie-prep time, and a love of chocolate. This is a mild, milk-chocolate-pudding-style pie, with a salty crushed-Nilla-wafer crust and topped with bourbon-flavored whipped cream.

Whole Wheat Berry Turnovers

Not the most visually appealing pie-like things I've ever made, but these mixed-berry turnovers were pretty tasty and made for several days' worth of decadent and quick breakfasts. Also, there's something wonderful about hand pies: you pick one up and take a bite. You never put it back down.

Two Blueberry Pies

Last week, overwhelmed by the amount of blueberry goodness available at my local farmers' market, I made two blueberry pies!

Gluten-Free Blueberry Cream Cheese

As promised, this post delves into the mysteries of the Blueberry Sour Cream/Cream Cheese pie.

This is one of my favorite recipes yet. This week's version is gluten-free, by virtue of using, not graham cracker crumbs, but crumbs from Annie's Gluten-Free Ginger Snap Bunnies. Which I expected to be a disappointment, but it's actually excellent; maybe better than the graham cracker version.

The real magic here is the blueberry-cream cheese axis. Sweet, sour, fresh and creamy.

Pie-triotism: Blueberry-Cream Cheese-Sour Cream and Peach-Strawberry

Two pies for a 4th of July picnic. One was blueberry-cream cheese, with a graham-cracker crust; the other, peach-strawberry with a lattice top.

Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of either pie (I really meant to, but the sun-dazed, and beer-dazed, state I was in by the time the pie was served, caused me to forget). So, please see the above photographic evidence that pie was eaten.

It's a photo of a vacancy where a pie once was.

Honey-Sweetened Strawberry Rhubarb

Two baskets of strawberries in the fridge, and three stalks of rhubarb in the freezer. It's strawberry-rhubarb pie time!

Honey-Sweetened Cherry Pie

Pretty much my usual crust recipe here, with a lattice top (ugly and a bit fragmented because I was in a hurry and trying to do other stuff at the same time... pies and multitasking don't go well together!). What's really special here is the cherries, which came from pals Melina and Maxamilion's cherry tree. 

Guest Pies: Lemon Chiffon and Key Lime Chiffon

Lemon Chiffon Pie (or Key Lime Chiffon Pie!)
(from the splendid kitchen of MaryLou Thomson)

1. In Saucepan combine 1 envelope (I tablespoon)unflavored gelatin , 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 t. salt.
2. Beat together four egg yokes, 1/3 cup lemon juice,and 2/3 cup water.
3. Stir into gelatin mixture.
4. Cook and stir over medium heat just until mixture comes to boiling.
5. Remove from heat and stir in 1 teaspoon of lemon peel. (Zest) Chill stirring.occasionally,till mixture is partially set.
6. Beat four egg whites till soft peaks form. Gradually add 1/2 cup sugar,beating till stiff peaks form.
7. Fold in gelatin mixture. Fold in 1/2 cup whipping cream,whipped. pile filling into cooled baked pastry shell;
8. Chill until firm  Garnish with dollops of additional whippped cream and sprigs of fresh mint if desired.

You can make the same thing using Key lime juice instead.





Thanks for the recipe (and the delicious pies!), MaryLou!
(and thanks Dad for the photography)

Vacation Fruit Pies! Strawberry and Strawberry-Peach

 

On vacation with family! The farmer's market was so exciting that I made two pies instead of one. Strawberry and Peach-Strawberry. (Pictured above: special guest tasters Elijah and Kaylee Thomson.)

Chale Pie

A return to savory-land, and specifically to the excellent Martha Stewart recipe for Chard Pie used a few weeks ago. In this case I got much too small an amount of chard from the farmers' market, and had to use kale to make up the difference. Hence: Chale Pie. (or maybe Kard?)

Chai Pie

One of my favorite pies so far, the Chai Cream Pie. Made for friends. It came out quite good.

Rhubarb Mania

The local farmstand keeps having awesome rhubarb. And I keep making pie. So... more rhubarb pie. This would be number four I guess. I'll probably try some non-rhubarb pies for a while after this. What can I say... it's delicious.

More Rhubarb Pie!

My excellent neighbors took good care of our cats while we were out of town. So I made two more rhubarb pies, pretty much exactly like the previous one. Only with less burning.

Rhubarb Pie

Is this the best pie I've ever made? You can't tell by the photos... and I don't want to oversell this... but, yes.

Tamale Pie!

One of my favorite meals to cook. Savory tamale pie!

Peanut-Chocolate Pielets

An experiment: tiny pies made in a muffin pan. In this case, each has a pie crust, peanuts, a pecan-pie-like peanut-butter & corn-syrup filling, and a healthy dose of dark chocolate.

Not a complete success (as usual, I underbaked, so that the crusts were mushy and the filling gooey)... but successful enough that I'm going to keep trying.

Also, yum.

Chard Pie

A scrumptious savory pie full of chard goodness. Not difficult to make, and utterly delicious. From a Martha Stewart recipe.

Chai Cream Pie

After making home-made chai a couple times... I was in love with the flavors. My lovely wife, fountain of wisdom that she is, said, "Why don't you make a chai pie?"

I found a recipe online, and did.

Plum, Hazelnut & Blue Cheese Pie

This was a good idea in theory: a plum & hazelnut pie, made savory through the addition of blue cheese. But I made some terrible errors in judgment. As a result, I believe we ate a total of four slices, and the second two were pretty reluctant. Not a success.

Chocolate (Molasses) Oatmeal Pie

The darling wife being out of town on business last week, I decided to welcome her back with a pie of her choice. She said, as she often does, merely one word: "chocolate".

Peach-Ginger Pie

I had frozen peaches (put away last September from the bounty of the local farmer's market), and I wanted to use them. I also was craving ginger. So I did some googling and decided to use this recipe (I also found this and  this, in case you're doing a survey of the literature).

Prune Plum Pie with Hazelnut Topping

This is an interesting one: half-sweet, half-savory. I made this with frozen italian prune plums from the tree in our backyard's late-summer bounty. By the time they were thawed they were more prune than plum, with a deep, rich, wine-like flavor. My toasted-hazelnut topping wound up being a bit of a letdown (though I want to make sure anyone reading this is aware that toasted salted hazelnuts on their own are the most delicious snack ever in the history of the world. They just didn't shine in this context.) This pie wound up being a good dessert... but an even better breakfast. I'm going to try this recipe again soon, with blue cheese added, and make it explicitly savory.

Marionberry Pie

At request from my friend Barb, who's known me since before I was old enough to vote, I made a fruit pie using local fruit. However, since it's the dead of winter/beginning of spring, the fruit in question was frozen. Marionberries are pretty much the best berry ever, in case you weren't aware. So it's a Marionberry pie.

Salted Caramel Apple Pie

Another salty-sweet recipe from Four & Twenty Blackbirds! (See also the Salty Honey Pie from a couple weeks ago). This pie, a request from our friend Georgia, turned out close to perfect, though it could have been better if I'd done a couple things differently. But all in all, delicious.

Curried Parsnip Pie

I've been neglecting the savory side of the pie world for far too long. I had some parsnips in the fridge and found a recipe to use them; as it turned out, this pie is far more about onions/shallots than parsnips- I wish it'd been more parsnippy. The curry flavor was mild and mellow, and blended nicely with the parsnip. All in all, pretty tasty. 

Night of two Pies, part 2: Honey-Sweetened Berry Pie

The second pie of the evening: a honey-sweetened berry pie. Quite good, sweet and tart and flavorful.

Night of two Pies, part 1: Salty Honey Pie

Last Friday I made two pies. They were both quite good. This post will be about the first of them: a Salty Honey Pie, possibly the most decadent and/or delicious dessert I've made yet.

Maple Cream Pie

Here in the dead of winter, there isn't a lot of fresh fruit in season. But we do have sugar and dairy. So why not make a Maple Cream Pie?

Sugarless Honey-Blackberry Pie with Whole-Wheat Rye Crust

It's that time of year when the incessant snow and ice make you think longingly of summer...

Wait a minute... this is the second-mildest winter on record. I wore a T-shirt to the store today and was slightly too warm. There's a sunny blue sky above, with soft scudding clouds. 

Nevertheless, it's time to pull out the fruit we froze in September and make it into delicious pie. First up: farmers-market blackberries.

Maple-Buttermilk Pie with Rye crust

I'd never had buttermilk pie before, but it's a new favorite. It's sweet and custardy, and tangy like key lime without citrus. This recipe comes from http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/maple-buttermilk-pie-recipe.html, and the photos there prove that I have a long way to go in the pie-appearance department. However: tasty as can be. (Pictured here with a somewhat generous dollop of whipped cream).

Sugarless Pear-Cranberry Pie with Crumble Topping

This one was another flop, though it was an educational one. A friend sent a vague recipe by email; I decided to take that vague recipe and wing it and go with my gut and modify as I went. The consequences? Not-quite-right filling (with painfully tart cranberries) and a soggy, mushy bottom crust. However, I think I've learned some lessons from my errors, which is after all why I'm doing all this pie experimenting to begin with. 

Coffee-Hazelnut Custard Pie

This may look delicious, but it was actually sort of a flop. The custard didn't really set and the crust came out hard and a bit leathery. Not one of my better pies. However, the recipe's pretty appealing, and I think I'll try again.

Chocolate Custard Cream Cheese Pie

Maybe just because it was New Year's Eve and everyone who tasted it was a little drunk, but this pie is one of the most ridiculously delicious things I've ever tasted. And everyone who scarfed a slice seemed to agree.

It's chocolatey, with a cream-cheese bite, and a texture midway between cheesecake and gelato. Pretty amazing. And it wasn't too difficult to prepare.