YUMMY PIES

Levi's fave pie is Strawberry-Rhubarb... especially the one his mom makes. So I've set about making a couple before (I think I blogged about those). Well I wanted to make another since the grocery store had rhubarb in stock again. Before the rhubarb went bad in my fridge, it was apparent we were gonna need to go with the quick and easy pre-rolled dough crust, so I asked Levi to pick one up on the way to my house. He picked up 2 pkgs which is 4 crusts. so much for just making one pie! I made one, and we shared it with his parents a couple days later after a fishing trip... DELISH and it wasnt runny at all! yay!

But what to do with the remaining 3 crusts? Looked up a couple of "low cal" recipes and decided to try one: Apple-Blackberry... http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/apple_blackberry_pie.html.
My notes:

• the only thing that I can tell that makes this low-cal is if you use their special low-cal crust recipe... I kinda failed to do that, but one day when I feel like making my own crust is worth it again, maybe I'll give it a whack!
• Peeling, coring, and dicing 6 granny smiths is more of a task than I thought! I was surprised that it rivaled the S-R Pie recipe! aside from that, however, couldn't ask for the filling to be more simple to put together
• I took a walk on the wild side... I used Marion Berries instead of Blackberries... A dear dear friend of mine and her Marth-loving sister :-) are from the area (Oregon) where these berries are grown, so I regard them fondly. When I saw them in the freezer section, I wondered what the consequence of my defection from the recipe would be. By the way, a Marion Berry is: a cross between the Chehalem and Olallieberry blackberry, so it's kind of a blackberry anyway!
• I don't know what happens if you use a different berry or if you use fresh berries... hmmm...
• The color from the marions leeched out into the apple + stuff mixture super fast... i was shocked and the color was like this bright magenta color... strange!
• The amount of filling was way more than i thought would fit in the pie. However, I put it all in anyway, as it heaped up in the crust bottom and covered it with the top. I am glad I did because it came out perfect! If I hadn't I guess i would have had a concave pie!
• When I pulled the pie out, a little had leaked out... perfect for tasting, no? well, lemme tell you, this dribble tasted like a jolly rancher! haha! I found it very interesting and wondered if I'd like the pie... or anyone else at the 4th of July BBQ for that matter! :-)
• But it was a hit! YUMMY! I would definitely recommend it!

I had promised many moons ago to talk about Pecan Bourbon pie. I will at least give the recipe here and a couple notes. Did these for Thanksgiving and Christmas I think... would definitely do them again, although they can be a little bit high maintenance... http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Bourbon-Pecan-Pie/Detail.aspx

My Notes:

• go ahead... use a little extra bourbon... or fail slightly to cook it all the way. OK maybe not unless you plan on getting people a little silly off of your pie. I had one such pie that folks could really taste the bourbon... then they could "feel" it... WOOPS!
• I found keeping the chocolate chips and pecans from sinking to the bottom to be a challenge... particularly the chips. they seemed to "stick" to the bottom of my bowl... particularly problematic when making 2 pies... so I learned not to pour the mixture... and spoon it instead ;-)
• I haven't figured out exactly how to make the top of this pie come out "pretty" just yet. I always get extra bubbles and what not that make it not look flat and pretty... hmmm...
• It's a crowd pleaser, but it is very rich... small slices!