Pie Fail

Somehow we were inundated with oranges at Christmas.  I got oranges from the produce co-op during the holidays, my daughter brought oranges with her from California, and dear husband's boss gave him a whole crate of oranges for Christmas.  Now it's January and we still have lots of oranges around, so it seemed to make sense to use oranges in this week's pie.  Oh yeah, I also seem to have a plethora of apples.  So I searched out a recipe for a pie using both oranges and apples, and on www.allrecipes.com I found one that seemed perfect (and sounded yummy too).  It's called "Citrus Apple Pie" and used the ingredients I had on hand. As I went over the recipe dear husband said that is sounded like Wassail with the orange, apple and spices, and he was right.  The reviews of the recipe were decent so we invited the neighbors over and I baked the pie.  The recipe calls for slicing the oranges thinly then boiling them in water and honey for half an hour before adding to the apples and baking for an hour.  I figured that with all that cooking the orange peels would be edible, since the oranges were not supposed to be peeled.  All I can say is...my neighbors are very kind and found good things to say about the pie ("the crust is yummy", "the apples are good") but really, none of us liked this one much.  At first the oranges were OK, but seemed to get more bitter with each bite.  Also, the recipe did not call for any flour or cornstarch or other thickener and it definitely needed it.  I cut and served the pie straight out of the oven to prevent the bottom crust from getting super soggy.  In the pictures you'll see the pie as it came out of the oven (when I still had hopes that it would be good), the excessive juices in the cut pie, and what was left on the plates after eating the pie.  I'm not going to bother with posting the recipe for this one. Here's how dear husband summed it up:  "I wouldn't care if you never baked this one again.  But I'd feel bad if you never make last week's pie again".  So if you want a pie with orange and apple, throw in some cranberries and make the pie in last week's post!