Pies

As I mentioned, my mom didn't bake many pies. I think I mentioned that it was two a year. I'm sure it was actually more than that, because I know in peach season she'd always make a couple of peach pies, same in apple canning season, and she was good for at least one lemon meringue pie a year (my favorite).

As she baked her pies she would explain to me, each time, exactly what she was doing, how much crisco she was using (she didn't use butter), and how much ICE water she was using and why she would drop the water into the flour/crisco mixture by the tablespoon, one tablespoon at a time. Then she would carefully roll out the dough and place it in the pie tin. My mom's pies never had a soggy crust underneath, but she never told me how she did that. NOTE: She used the recipe on the Crisco can's label, they had it there back in the 40s. Then she put it in her green cookbook, which has disappeared.

After many years of making pies (very few, I admit) the old-fashioned way, in the early 90s I discovered Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts and have been using them ever since. I don't use them straight from the package, though. I always roll them thinner. It makes the bottom crust cook better and the rim crust is not so thick you can't get a fork into it. The crust is flaky and not mushy.

I missed making my husband his annual mince-meat pie this year. I always bake him one for his birthday, but we were away for his birthday so he didn't get his annual pie. Sorry, Alan! (He'll never read this, he doesn't read BLOGs.)

So, in trying to think of a recipe for pie, I guess my favorite is apple pear pie.

I use one of those guillotine machines to slice the apples and pears. I remove the skins and then just start pushing and pulling back on the fruit until I have what I think are enough apple and pear slices for a pie. I make a heaping mound in the center of the crust (described above). My pie tins happen to be 12 inchers, so I make a large pie. And, I used golden delicious apples and Bartlett pears. Two apples for each pear. To the fruit I add 1 cup of sugar and some cinnamon, a pinch of salt, and 2 tbspns flour. I mix all this together, and after I put the fruit mix into the bottom pie crust, I dot it with very small pieces of butter. About 2 pats. I top this with another crust rolled thinner than the packaged crust, and try to make the edges look beautiful. Still, after 50 years of making pies, I haven't perfected that skill.

I do not put an egg wash on the top crust. I usually make slits down the center, and then sprinkle the crust with raw sugar about 1 tablespoon for the entire crust. I figure, it might not look perfect, but it tastes perfect.

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