Apricot and Blueberry pie

When a friend gave us some apricots, I started looking for an apricot pie recipe.  Most of the recipes I found involved cooking and pureeing the fruit to make a chiffon or the use of dried apricots.  Neither of those options was appealing at the time, so I decided to do it as a regular fruit pie - and throw in my last bag of frozen blueberries.  This was yummy pie paired with vanilla ice cream.

Apricot and Blueberry Pie

Pastry for two crust 9 inch pie

About 3 cups of sliced apricots

1-2 cups frozen blueberries (or fresh)

2/3 cups sugar

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

4 Tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg or cinnamon

• Combine the apricots and blueberries in a bowl with the sugar and lemon juice.  Let sit for about 30 minutes to juice while you prepare the pastry and preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
• Stir the cornstarch and spice into the fruit and pour into the pie shell.  Put on top crust and flute edges. Bake for 15 minutes.
• Reduce heat to 375 degrees and bake for an additional 35-40 minutes.
• Let cool for an hour or two before serving.

Fruit basket pie

I was a little disappointed when I got my basket from the produce co-op this week, because the berries we received were not looking daisy fresh.  They really needed to be used right away.  We also got more mangoes, but still had a couple of mangoes left from last week.  You know what that means, right?  Time to make pie!  Do these fruits look like an odd mix for pie?

They look pretty together, so why not try them together in a pie?  I think the combo ended up beautiful in a pie, and it tasted great.  This is a pie worth making "on purpose"!

Fruit Basket Pie

Pastry for deep dish 9" double crust pie

3 mangoes, cut into chunks

1 quart strawberries, cut into halves or quarters

1 cup fresh blueberries

Juice of one lime

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup flour

Mix the fruit with the sugar, flour and lime juice and let sit for 10 minutes to juice.

Pour fruit into pie shell and cover with top crust.  I like to brush on some ice water and sprinkle with coarse sugar.

Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.

Reduce heat to 325 degrees and bake for an addition 30 minutes, or until the fruit is bubbling.

Serve slightly warm with ice cream.

Apple Blueberry Pie

A couple of weeks ago I decided to enter a pie in a pie contest at the Gardener's Market, just for fun.  It was advertised that it would be judged by "local pie lovers".  So I made a nice peach pie and took it on over.  It was fun to browse the market while waiting for the judging, and my children got to make some Halloween crafts.  Now, I didn't enter the contest because I was hell-bent on winning - which is a good thing because my pie won third prize.  But the funny thing was that the "pie" that won was a pumpkin cake which one judge said "tastes just like pumpkin pie".  You would think that "pie lovers" would know the difference between pie and something that "tastes like" pie, so that was funny.

We ran into our friends Jim and Eleanor at the market, and Jim tasted my pie.  He was kind enough to praise it, so the next day I made a pie for our families to share.  People who appreciate good pie are the ones most likely to get more of it!

I had some apples on hand, and remembered the blueberries in my freezer, so Jim and Eleanor got to try my first Apple Blueberry Pie. We all loved it with ice cream.  Here's the recipe:

Apple Blueberry Pie

1 double crust pastry dough
5 cups peeled and sliced apples
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons lemon juice

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Roll out half of pastry dough and line deep dish pie pan.
• Mix together apples, half of the blueberries, sugar, flour, cinnamon and lemon juice.
• Pour into pastry lined pie pan.
• Sprinkle remaining blueberries on top.
• Roll out remaining pastry and place on top of pie.  A lattice top is pretty on this pie.
• Bake for 25 minutes.
• Reduce oven heat to 375 degrees.
• Bake an additional 40 minutes.
• Let cool for an hour before slicing.

Fresh Blueberry Pie!

Before I froze my plethora of blueberries, I had to make a pie (of course).  I used an old-fashioned recipe from a 1950's cookbook.  Next time I'll add a couple tablespoons of instant tapioca because the blueberries made so much juice that the flour the recipe calls for just couldn't thicken it all.  I sprinkled course sugar on top.  Doesn't that make it pretty?  The pie was great with vanilla bean ice cream and since blueberries are on the "super foods" list you can eat this without guilt!

Here's the recipe (as I made it, but, again, I think this pie can use a some instant tapioca to thicken up the juices a bit):

Fresh Blueberry Pie


Pastry for double crust pie
3/4 cup sugar
5 Tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
 1 tablespoon lemon juice
4 cups fresh blueberries
1 1/2 Tablespoons butter


Heat oven to 425 degrees.


Roll out pastry and line deep pie pan with pastry.


Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, then fold in the lemon juice and berries. Pour into the pastry lined pie pan.  Dot with the butter, then top with pastry and cut vents (or make a lattice top).  Brush the top crust with cold water and sprinkle with sugar.


Bake for 40 minutes.  Let cool before serving.

Berries and chocolate - doesn't get better than this!

A couple of years ago one of my sons brought me a little box for Mother's Day that contained some absolutely delectable chocolate covered strawberries.  What a treat!  Chocolate and berries is one of those classic food combinations that almost everybody likes.  Everybody who tried this berry and chocolate pie really liked it, although my husband said the chocolate was a little "too rich".  (Too rich?  What the heck is that?)  We served it topped with sweetened whipped cream.  Try it out if you can handle the richness!


Patriotic Pie


1 baked pie crust (I used a deep pie pan, but would have been better off with a "regular" one - the recipe didn't fill this up well)
6 oz semisweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon butter
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons orange juice concentrate
1/4 cup powdered sugar
Whole strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, rinsed and stems removed
2 tablespoons red currant jelly


Combine the chocolate and butter in a saucepan.  Heat and stir over medium-low heat until melted.  Add cream cheese and orange juice.  Heat and stir until combined.  Remove from heat and stir in the powdered sugar.  Spread in the baked pastry shell.  Arrange whole strawberries and other berries on filling, placing strawberries stem ends down.  Melt jelly and brush over the berries.  Cover and chill for at least 4 hours.

Let pie stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving.  Top with sweetened whipped cream.

Berries!

When I picked up my basket of produce from the co-op this morning, I felt somewhat guilty when I saw that we got strawberries again.  I still had an almost full container of strawberries and blackberries from last week!  I got home and opened the refrigerator and also found some blueberries that were about to go past their prime.  I don't know how this happened.  How could we not eat these beauties for a week...or two...?  I couldn't let this situation continue, so of course I made a pie.  I enjoy making fresh strawberry pie that is "all natural" - none of that packaged "goo" that the grocery stores sell and restaurants use.  That stuff is a nasty way to ruin perfectly lovely berries. No - the berries in a good fresh berry pie just need to be held together with a bit of sweetened, mashed berries.  I used my tried and true fresh strawberry pie recipe but tossed in a few blueberries and the half pint of blackberries as well.

Tonight our friends Curtis and Mary dropped by, so of course we invited them to try out this pie.  Mary loved it and named it "Triple Berry Pie".  It was great with sweetened whipped cream on top. (I hear vanilla ice cream was good with it too.)  My son and my husband may have had more than one piece.  Give it a try and see what you think.

Triple Berry Pie

1 9-inch baked pie shell

You need a total of about 4 cups of berries.  The combination of strawberries, blackberries and blueberries is very nice.

1 cup sugar

3 Tablespoons cornstarch

• Wash, drain and hull the berries and set them aside.
• Mash about 1 cup of strawberries with a potato masher until well juiced, making about 1-1/2 cups of pulpy liquid.  Put them into a medium saucepan and stir in the sugar and cornstarch.  Cook over medium-low heat until mixture comes to a boil.  Boil and stir 1 minute, until thickened.  Cool.
• Toss berries together and pile into pie shell.
• Pour the cooked mixture over the berries in the pie shell, covering the top of all the berries.
• Chill at least two hours, then serve topped with sweetened whipped cream.

I found my thrill...

Delicious blueberry pie! Since blueberries came in the produce co-op and my dad recently gave me a bunch of cream cheese (he's the king of finding great deals on stuff) it was necessary for me to make this pie.  Miss "Anti-blueberries" in my family actually ate a piece (although she left the blueberries on her plate).  I thought this pie was scrumptious and it was GONE fast, everybody loved eating it while watching the Academy Awards.  Here's the recipe:

Blueberry-Sour Cream Pie

1 deep dish baked pie crust - either pastry or graham cracker

Fruit layer:
One bag frozen blueberries or 1 pound fresh blueberries, set aside some fresh berries
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Cream layer:
8-ounce cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1.  Mix together the blueberries and lemon juice in a medium pan.  Cover and cook over medium low heat until the blueberries are simmering in their own liquid.  Stir in the granulated sugar and cornstarch and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and cook, stirring constantly, for about a minute.  It should be quite thick.  Stir in the vanilla and let the mixture cool for at least 20 minutes before spooning into the pie crust.  If you have more fresh berries, sprinkle a few on top.
2.  Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
3. Beat the cream cheese, sugars and lemon zest with an electric mixer until the mixture is smooth.  Add the sour cream and vanilla and blend until smooth.  Spoon over the chilled blueberry layer and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Fruits of the Forest....an interesting forest....

On Sunday I thought some of my "adult" children would stop by, so definitely had pie plans.  Unfortunately they changed their plans.  I went forward with the pie anyway.  I found this recipe called "Fruits of the Forest" pie and already had almost all the ingredients on hand.  It's an interesting variety of fruit and I can't imagine where the forest would be that contains all these fruits, but I'd love to visit!  My 16 year-old daughter said she didn't like it after taking a bit of her brother's pie, but she was already  prejudiced because it looked purple (because of the blueberries) and she said she hates purple food.  Everybody else LOVED it.  My dear husband ate about half the pie over the course of two days.  I will definitely make this one again. (It was especially great served warm with vanilla ice cream).

Fruits of the Forest Pie

1 double-crust recipe of pie pastry (for deep dish pie pan)
2 peaches or one small can of sliced peaches, sliced more thinly
1 pear, peeled and sliced
1 apple, peeled and sliced
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 cup sliced fresh strawberries
1 cup pineapple, fresh or canned chunks (I used fresh! Yummy!)
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 fresh squeezed lemon
3 Tablespoons cornstarch

• Prepare the pastry and line a deep dish pan with pastry.
• In a large bowl combine the fruit with 1/2 cup sugar and the lemon juice and spices.  Set aside for about 10 minutes while you preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Mix the remaining 3 tablespoons fo sugar and the cornstarch together in a small bowl, then stir into the mixture of fruit.
• Pour the fruit into the pastry-lined pie pan and top with pastry.  Flute the edges and cut vents into the top pastry.  I like to brush the top with ice water (left over from making the pastry) then sprinkle with sugar.
• Bake pie for 30 minutes.  Then turn the temperature down to 375 degrees and bake for 30-35 minutes more.
• Let cool a little before serving, or serve at room temperature.