Pies for the win

Bill's office decided to have a little bake-off this week. And if there's one thing we cannot walk away from, it's a cooking competition! So, Bill was hell-bent on a classic apple pie. And I threw together something involving Pillsbury crusts, canned Oregon fruit and a few handfuls of Bill's carefully peeled and sliced apples.

Here is the recipe we found on Allrecipes.com. And the one we found on OurBestBites.com.

And this is what Bill did with them:

Recipe for double pastry crust

2 Tbsp butter

5 Tbsp flour

1/2 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

8 apples

1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350F.

Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in flour. Add water, sugar and brown sugar. Bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer.

Spoon over apples, coating them well.

Place bottom crust in 10" deep dish pie pan. Fill with apples, slightly mounded. Top with second crust.

Seal edges of top and bottom crusts. Cut vents in top crust.

Bake 45 min.

Plum Pie

So, Laura Flowers, of TheCookingPhotographer.com, has written several blogs extolling the wonders of Oregon brand canned fruit. I'd never bought it before, and wasn't even sure if grocery stores carried it down here in Texas. So I looked on their website to see which grocery stores sold their brand. Super Target was listed, so I made a special trip to the nearest Super Target to look for these Oregon Whole Purple Plums that are apparently THAT GOOD. But they didn't seem to have any Oregon products at all. A few days later guess what I spotted at the Albertsons just a block over from our apartments. That's right. I bought four cans, and I was sooo excited to make this plum pie.

Of course it was Thanksgiving morning, and I had other things already going in the kitchen. So rather than look up the recipe again, I made it from memory. Meaning, the recipe isn't EXACTLY the same as the one posted on the website. But it felt great to be baking a pie sans recipe while we watched the Macys Parade on an overcast and chilly Thanksgiving morning. So homemaker-y.

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2 (15 ounce) cans Oregon Whole Purple Plums in Heavy Syrup
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
Butter for dotting pie
1 box Pillsbury Pie Crusts
Place the oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Set out a 9 inch pie plate.

Strain the juice from the plums into a large saucepan. Cut the plums in half, then half again pitting as you go. Set plums aside.

Pour the sugar into the saucepan with the plum juice. Cook the mixture over medium heat stirring often at first, and constantly as the mixture heats. Cook and stir scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoons until the mixture thickens and sugar is completely dissolved. Turn off the heat from under the sauce pan. Add the ground ginger.

Mix the sliced plums with flour and salt until coated.

Place the dough into the pie dish. Place the plums onto the dough. Next, pour the hot filling into the pie dish arranging the plums around if needed. *Don't overfill the pie. Leave out a little of the juice if it gets too full.* Dot with butter and top with the top crust. Flute and cut vents into the dough.

Place a pie shield over the crust and bake pie for 30 minutes. Then remove the pie shield and bake for about 10 more minutes, or until golden brown and done on the bottom. Cool for several hours or overnight.

Apple Dumplings

A recipe that I've carried around for years, given to me by my pre-mission roommate, Jenn, at BYU. It will always remind me of her because the syrup turns a fabulous shade of PINK.

Pie Crust:
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup Crisco
1/4 cup water

Mix flour and salt. Mix 1/4 cup of mixture with the 1/4 cup water. Cut Crisco into the rest of the flour mixture, then mix in the water mixture.

Roll out dough and cut into 6 squares.

Filling:
4 sm. apples, peeled and chunked
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
butter
Red Hots

Place filling in each square with a dollop of butter and one or two Red Hots. Fold up corners, and seal into "dumplings." Place in 9x13 baking dish, sealed-side down.

Syrup:
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup Red Hots
1/4 cup butter

In saucepan, combine sugar, water, spices and Red Hots. Boil 5 min. Remove from heat and stir in butter. Pour syrup over dumplings in the baking dish.

Bake at 375 for 45 min.

My Favorite A' La Mode

My favorite pie recipe to date. I found it on Allrecipes.com years ago, and I've made it so many times since. I made four of these pies for our wedding reception!

I usually use frozen rhubarb and pre-made Pilsbury crusts--just remember to pat the crusts down with flour before using them so that they don't turn to mush with such a moist filling.
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Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 pound fresh rhubarb, chopped
2 pints fresh strawberries
1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
2 tablespoons butter
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons white sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

In a large bowl, mix flour and sugar. Add strawberries and chopped rhubarb. Toss with sugar and flour and let stand for 15 minutes.

Pour filling into pie crust. Dot top with butter, and cover with top crust. Seal edges of top and bottom crust with water.

Apply yolk to top of pie, using a pastry brush. Sprinkle with sugar. Cut small holes in top to let steam escape.

Bake at 400 degrees F (200 degrees C), for 35 to 40 minutes, or until bubbly and brown. Cool on rack.