Pie

I love pie.

I love warm, fruity, double-crust pies.  I love cool, smooth cream pies.  I love the juxtaposition of tanginess and fluffiness of a meringue pie.  I enjoy some of the non-traditional pies like pecan pie, shoo-fly pie, and strawberry chiffon pie.

I love pie.

My favorite pie in the world is one that my wife makes.  Most people have a custard-based pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.  It's the traditional pumpkin, egg, evaporated milk, and spices mixture that is poured into an unbaked pie crust and the whole thing is baked in the oven for an hour or so.  My wife's pumpkin pie, on the other hand, is a pudding-based pie.  First, the crust is blind baked (without filling), and a delicious, spicy pumpkin pudding is cooked on the stovetop.  The pudding is poured into the baked crust and then the pie is chilled before being served.  I love this pie!  It's dark and rich and spicy and flavorful.  I can't imagine Thanksgiving Dinner without my wife's pumpkin pie.

The day before Thanksgiving, I had lunch with the team I used to work with in American Fork.  They work in the building next door now.  I decided to try making a pie in a dutch oven.  Here's a link to the recipe I used.  I was a bit nervous.  I had never tried a double-crust pie in a dutch oven before.  I didn't want the crust to go soggy, so I made the filling and put it in a ziplock bag, and I made the crust and refrigerated it.  Just before it was time to cook, I assembled the pie. . . in my cubicle at work.  It was rather funny.  I was getting some pretty strange looks from people as I rolled out pie dough in my cubicle.

It wasn't a pretty pie.  The top crust was cracked in places and there was no nice fluted edge.  It took longer to cook than I expected, probably because it was cold and a bit windy outside.  The result, however, was delicious!  The crust was brown and flaky and the apples were hot and bubbly.  They were a little too overdone for my taste, and I had used only granny smith apples, so the filling was a little more tart than I would have liked.  However, I was very pleased with the result.

I shared leftovers with my current team, and they wanted me to make another one for our Christmas holiday pot luck lunch on the 19th, so I guess others were pleased with the results too.

I LOVE pie!