French Canadian Sugar Pie

Every year for Christmas, my we celebrate by eating and celebrating according to the customs of a different country.  My cousin is in responsible for choosing the country.  Last year we had a Philippine Christmas.  I was responsible for making pancit.

The year before last we had a Spanish Christmas.  We ate paella, flan, and a lamb stew.  It is a fun tradition.  We have also had a Mexican, French, Japanese, and Ukrainian Christmas, among others.  I remember that one of my nieces was born the day we celebrated our French Christmas.  

 

Chocolate Pumpkin Pie with Hazelnut Crumble

Is it still appropriate to make and eat pumpkin pies?  I think so.  I believe pumpkin is a winter vegetable.  I'm a big fan of pumpkin anyway, and I think it should be eaten more regularly.

I made this yummy pie with my sister.  It was her idea to use hazelnuts instead of pecans.  Impressively, my parents had both types of nuts.  After we made this pie, my sister pained Christmas trees and candy canes on my toe nails.   She's an artist!

Cherry Pie

It is a strange time of year to post a cherry pie recipe.  Cherries are harvested in the summer.  My parents bought a few pounds of tart cherries during the summer and froze them.  We made a cherry pie when I visited them last month.

We actually made this pie for Thanksgiving.  There were about nine pies at Thanksgiving.  I tried my best, but I only tried about half of them.  I ate this pie, and it was delicious.

Deep-Dish Apple Pie

I survived the snow storm.  Luckily, the power never went out.  I spend the weekend watching TV, reading, and playing games.  It was pretty relaxing, though I have enjoyed going outside and seeing the sun the last couple of days.

Have you heard the phrase "American as apple pie?"  It's a strange phrase because neither apples nor apple pie is American.  Europeans were eating apple pie before they were aware of America.  

Scottish Mince Pie

Every year my cousin choses a country as a theme for our Christmas Eve celebration.  We have celebrated a Mexican, Ukrainian, Japanese, Chilean, and Greek Christmas, just to name a few examples.

We make food, listen to Christmas music, read a story, and do a craft from that country.  This year we listened to Scottish music and made Scottish food.  The main dish was mince pie. 

Samoa Pie

A big trend in food blogging right now is Girl Scout cookie themed desserts.  

It is the season for Girl Scout cookies, but I have not seen a single Girl Scout selling cookies outside of a grocery store.  None of my coworkers have daughters in Girl Scouts.  I may go the entire year without eating a Girl Scout cookie.

That's really good for my health, but I feel like I am missing out on an important American event.  It may not be as important as Thanksgiving, but this time of year is always marked by St. Patricks day and Girl Scout cookies.  Even though I am missing out on buying expensive, addictive sugary cookies, I can embrace Girl Scout cookie themed desserts.  

Carmel Apple Pie

I debated posting about this pie.  It was appetizing and delightful, but it wasn't what I was expecting.  Unfortunately, I think it turned out differently then expected because of human error.  Don't get me wrong, it was eaten with gusto, but I was anticipating carmel.  The carmel was lacking.  I'll go into greater detail later about what went wrong.

The recipe came from the cooking channel.  There are two things I particularly liked about the recipe.  You slice the apples very thinly.  They suggest using a mandolin, which I do not own.  I think this makes a prettier pie and allows you to stuff it with more fruit.  I also like how they drench the apple slices in lemon juice.  The lemon juice not only prevents browning, but the lemon balances the sweetness of all the sugar.

Peach Crumble Pie

My father is a fruit eater, and he has a particular weakness for peaches. When he was a child his mom would buy bushels of peaches and can them. Her family would eat the peaches throughout the year, and my father would take some to school for lunch everyday. He ate a lamb sandwich with homemade bread, canned peaches, and a homemade cinnamon roll for lunch every school day. Yum!

The farmers market near my work has fresh, ripe peaches now. They’re delicious, but organic, farm fresh peaches come with a steep price in DC. Nonetheless, I buy a few every week to snack on. I am in a peach state of mind, so I decided to make a peach pie. The peach pie-filling recipe came from taste of home.

The filling required ¾ cup of white sugar, 6 medium size peaches, 3 tablespoons cornstarch, ½ teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/8 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon lemon zest, and 2 teaspoons lemon juice. In addition you’ll need piecrust for one layer and the crumble ingredients for the top layer. The crumble ingredients are ½ cup white sugar, ½ cup packed brown sugar, 1 cup flour, and ½ cup butter.

I combined 6 medium size peaches and ¾ cup white sugar. I allowed peaches to drain while preparing the crumble and rolling out piecrust. The peaches should drain for around an hour.

Butter Pie Crust

I wonder if my next blog post will be about a pie? Maybe I am just going to have an uncooked glob of piecrust sitting in my fridge for a month until it begins to grow green specks? Only time will tell. I used a recipe from epicurous for my piecrust. As a novice pie maker, I made it exactly as directed. Well, actually I divided the ingredients in half because I only need one piecrust.

When my family makes pies, we use lard. As we only make pies at thanksgiving, we have a block of lard sitting in the pantry for a year. I don’t know what how long you can keep lard before chucking it, but I am only going to make a single pie. I was not going to by lard for a single pie.

The ingredients for a piecrust are 1 ¼ cups all purpose flour, ½ tablespoon sugar, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ cup butter, and 3 tablespoons of ice cold water.

I whisked the flour, sugar, and salt.