Red, White, and Blue Pie

I had a crazy weekend.

We were busy all around, but it was a lot of fun.










Family and friends were around, so we ended up throwing an impromptu get together at our house.

Since it was Memorial Day yesterday,

I thought I would make what I call "Red, White, and Blue Pie."

It's pretty tasty and simple to make.

Plus, it uses fruits that are in season right now (rhubarb, strawberries, and blackberries),

so even if you don't grow them yourself,

you should be able to find them at your local farmers market or grocery store.

Red, White, and Blue Pie

Ingredients

For the Pie:

One 9" pie crust, uncooked

about 7 cups of rhubarb, strawberries, and blackberries (I like about equal parts of all three, but I use whatever I have), cleaned and cut up

Note: I dice my rhubarb into about 1/2"pieces and my strawberries to bite sized pieces. The blackberries I leave whole.

1/2 C of brown sugar

1/2 C of white sugar

1/2 C of AP flour

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

a healthy pinch of salt

For the crumb topping:

1 stick (1/2 C) of butter, chilled and cut into 1/2" cubes

3/4 C of brown sugar

3/4 C of AP flour

3/4 C of oats (not instant)

1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

a healthy pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a bowl, gently mix your fruit with all of the filling ingredients. Be careful not to break up your fruit too much.

Place rolled out pie crust in pie dish and fill with fruit mixture.

Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

In the meantime, mix all of the crumb topping ingredients except for the butter in a medium bowl.

Cut in your butter with a pastry cutter (or a fork if you don't have one).

After the pie has baked for the first 20 minutes, top with your crumb mixture and place back in the oven.

Knock the oven temperature down to 325 degrees and bake for another hour, or until the filling thickens.

By the way, I put a foil lined cookie sheet underneath the pie plate, so I don't have a sticky mess in the oven.

Done and done.

And so good.

Putting up Pumpkins

No joke, the farmers market has about 20 million different kinds of pumpkins right now...

 

okay. maybe that's a teeny bit of an exaggeration,

but there's a lot.

My husband will eat ANYTHING pumpkin,

so I've been roasting them and using the puree in just about everything.

Pumpkin granola with pumpkin seeds.

Pumpkin risotto (one of my personal favorites).

Pumpkin curry (one of my husbands favorites).

and in honor of my brother's birthday...

pumpkin pie.

Specifically, my mom's recipe which was, most likely, my grandmother's recipe before that.

*Recipe below*

Most people will tell you that canned pumpkin puree tastes the same as cooking and pureeing it yourself, so it's not worth the time and effort.

This is probably true.

but it's easy,

it's DEFINITELY cheaper,

and even if it's just in my head, I prefer it.

Not to mention my lesser but more honorable intentions of supporting local farmers.

I just roasted the cleaned pumpkins at 375 degrees and then pureed. Simple.

Note: if you place them upside down on a cookie sheet, they don't get that crusty, less than desireable skin on the top.

I use the same process for butternut squash

(and pretty much all squash for that matter).

After that, you can freeze the puree in freezer-safe bags or containers.

To be honest, we've been going through it so quickly, I've not freezed any yet this year.

This past Saturday, I asked the professionals at the market which pumpkins they suggested for cooking... and ended up bringing this thing home...

It's called a peanut pumpkin

(or "punkin" as my farmer friend pronounced it)

named for its peanut shell-like exterior...

So we're going to give it a shot.

Worse case scenario: it doesn't taste as great, but looks really cool.

And I'm alright with that.

And without further ado...

Pumpkin Pie

1 3/4 C pumpkin puree (if you cook it down a bit to reduce the liquid, the pie sets up a little bit better)

1/2 C brown sugar

1 cup sugar

pinch salt

vanilla (I'm always pretty liberal with the vanilla :)

3 eggs beaten

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1 1/2 C milk (warm, but not scalded)
a shot of bourbon if you wish

Mix ingredients and fill your choice of crust.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

Reduce heat to 300 degrees for 45 minutes, or until middle of pie is "just a tiny bit wobbly"

This is for a 9" pie plate.

Enjoy!