Recipe roundup: Who’s up for pie this weekend?

Hello! So I’m pretty much up for pie all the time. And based on your Homer Simpson-esque responses to this week’s recipe callout, so are you! (One person just wrote “blueberry,” while Facebook friend Bob Maswick of Lake Placid generously offered to eat all mistakes.)

I agree. Pie is fantastic (did I make it clear that’s how I feel about it?) I wish I had some now, actually, but since that’s not the case I’ll settle for sharing some excellent pie recipes with you all. Since I couldn’t figure out how to put “mmmmm….pie….” in recipe form, this week’s contributions are from NCPR’s always-useful book “Stories, Food, Life.” Don’t forget to not over-worry your crust!

Strawberry Pie
Diane Romlein, Potsdam

Though most of our 125 acres is wetlands and woods, we garden as much of it as we can. Adam and Daniel, the youngest of our five children, love to garden and care for plants. This is part of their proud strawberry harvest from the family garden. It looks the way kids like birthday cakes to look—messy and gooey.

9-inch pie crust:
2 cups flour
Sprinkle of salt
½ cup oil
¼ cup milk

Filling:
4 cups fresh berries, washed and hulled
3 tbsp. cornstarch
1 cup sugar
½ tsp. baking powder
3 drops red food coloring

Mix crust ingredients gently; roll out between sheets of wax paper. Bake crust for 15 minutes at 400°.

Spread 2 cups berries over bottom of pie shell. Mash or cut up remaining berries. Add sugar, cornstarch and baking powder; mix well. Place over low heat, bring to boil slowly, reduce heat and cool, stirring constantly. Add food coloring. Then pour over raw berries in shell. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Garnish with sweetened sour cream or whipped cream.

Serves 6.

Rhubarb-Orange Pie
Lynn Case Ekfelt, Canton

I grew up in the suburbs of Buffalo amid manicured lawns with not a cow in sight. But every Sunday after church we’d ride out into the country to buy our eggs from Mrs. Miller. She and Mom would chat while I’d play with the big Lab, Blackie. In spring Mom always added rhubarb to her egg order. The season was never long enough for us to get our fill of rhubarb sauce, rhubarb shrub and rhubarb pie. Sometimes we had straightforward, 2-crust pie, and sometimes when something a little fancier was called for, we had this one—a recipe from Mrs. Miller.

Pastry for a 9-inch, 1-crust pie

Filling:
3 egg whites
½ cup sugar
3 egg yolks
½ cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup butter, soft
3 tbsp. orange juice concentrate
1 tbsp. orange rind, grated
2 cups rhubarb, cut into ½-inch pieces

Line the pie pan with the pastry, making a fluted rim.

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Add ½ cup of the sugar by tbsp., beating well after each addition.

Mix the remaining ½ cup of sugar thoroughly with the flour. Add this to the egg yolks along with the butter, orange juice concentrate and orange rind. Beat well. Add the rhubarb, mixing thoroughly. Fold in the meringue.

Pour the mixture into the pastry shell. Bake at 375º for 15 minutes, then turn down the heat to 325º and bake for 45 minutes more.
Serves 6 to 8.

And, bonus! One savory pie recipe. This is more of a winter recipe, but I couldn’t resist.

French Canadian Meat Pie
Miriam Kashiwa, Old Forge

One of the delectable surprises bequeathed from the Gaspé settlers to our region is this Christmas specialty that our French Canadian neighbors would share with us. This recipe is from Cecelia Buckley, 95-years-old in January 2008.

1 ¼ lbs. ground pork
1 ½ lbs. ground beef
1 ½ lbs. ground veal
1 cup grated and peeled potatoes
½ cup grated onion
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 ½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
¼ tsp. dried savory
¼ tsp. rubbed sage
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
¼ cup plus 2 tbsp. water (divided)
¼ cup dried breadcrumbs
1 egg

In a large skillet over medium heat, combine and cook the pork, beef, veal, potatoes and onion until the meat is no longer pink. Drain mixture. Stir in the garlic, seasonings and part of ¼ cup water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from heat; cool to room temperature. Combine egg with 2 tbsp. water in small bowl. Stir breadcrumbs into egg-water. Stir into the meat mixture. Line 9-inch pie plate with bottom pastry; trim even with edge. Fill with meat mixture. Roll out remaining pastry to fit top of pie; place over filling.

Trim, seal and flute edge. Cut slits in pastry. Cover edges of pastry loosely with foil. Bake at 400º for 15 minutes. Remove foil and reduce heat to 375º. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until crust is golden brown and filling heated through.

Serves 6 to 8.

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I’m sure you have your own pie favorites and traditions, and I’d love it if you’d share them in the comments below! Now, it’s time to start thinking about next week: It’s almost time for the annual avalanche of zucchini and summer squash. So how do you deal with use the massive quantities of squash your garden yields? Bonus points if it doesn’t include putting it in your neighbor’s car. Send those recipes to [email protected] and enjoy the weekend (and the pie)!