Baking Fruit Pies

When I was a kid growing up on the farm, near El Paso, Illinois [not TX], it often fell to me to make the pies.

 In fact, it's safe to say that in our family, we ate more pies than cakes.  Without a doubt my grandfather and dad preferred pie to just about any other dessert, with the possible exception of ice cream.

I remember making pies several times years ago and then not bothering to do that very often because the crust, which I always considered the most work, was returned to me with just the filling eaten.  I've made a few pumpkin pies since then, but that's about it.  And frankly, as long as there were little kids in the house, I usually just baked the pumpkin custard and skipped the crust!

Sweet Teen came home a couple of weeks ago and announced that the FFA alumni were having a pie auction as  a fundraiser to benefit a local family that has experienced recent tragedy, and as an officer in the high school FFA chapter, she needed to bake a pie.  So we baked two.

We peeled lots and lots of Granny Smith apples, and the pie at the top is Sweet Teen's very first apple pie [with streusel topping].  It brought $50 at auction.

 This is the one that I expected to bring more.  It's an apple cranberry pie with an almond or hazelnut streusel topping (sorry, I've forgotten which we used).  You can see that she also made this crust a lot prettier.  It only brought it $35.  Of course, that's a lot more than any pie I've ever made!

With the leftover apples and cranberries, I made a little artisan pie and baked it in the DeMarle "hat." (I did try to secure a link to the DeMarle at Home catalog page, but was totally frustrated by trying to get it for you.  Probably something about their website not playing nicely with my browser.)  I did learn that you can buy DeMarle at Home from amazon.com--but you don't want to do that because you'll have to pay a lot more than getting the products from a representative.  (Joining the DeMarle at Home family of representatives is something I plan to do when my life changes somewhat--a great way to meet people, socialize, provide a needed product and service in a fun way, and even make some money!)

I'm thinking I'll be making more little pies since a full size pie in our current household is likely to end up in the garbage before the last piece makes it to our stomachs--not because we don't like it, but because a full size pie is just too big for us to eat in a timely manner.

(I'm thinking I probably bought that pretty red serving plate because it looked like a piece of fabric--because it certainly doesn't go with anything in our house--although it makes the pie look even more delicious.)

Happy quiltmaking....it would be a good idea to use a treadle to burn off a few of those pie calories!  Of course, I well working treadle takes almost no energy.