Thanksgiving Pies - Part 2

 I wanted to make a pumpkin pie, but I knew the oven would be occupied by the apple pie. Then I discovered the world of no-bake pumpkin pies. I'm not making it up. This really exists. I chose a double-layer recipe with cream cheese on the bottom and pumpkin on the top.

In a large bowl, whisk together 4 oz cream cheese, 1 tablespoon of milk, and 1 tbsp sugar until smooth.

Gently stir in 1 1/2 cups whipped topping.

Spread into bottom of crust.

 First layer finished. Time for some pumpkin-y awesomeness.

Pour 1 cup of milk into large bowl, and thoroughly mix in 7 oz instant vanilla pudding mix, 15 oz pumpkin, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, and 1/4 tsp cloves.

When thickened, spread over cream cheese layer.

Refrigerate 4 hours, or until set.

This pie was so heavy. My arms got so tired carrying it to the party. It's too bad I didn't get to taste it. I guess I'll have to make it again.

Thanksgiving Pies - Part 1

I actually made these pies a couple weeks ago for an early Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of co-workers. I didn't have a good time and ended up leaving early, so I didn't actually get to try any of these pies. I've still got almost an entire bottle of tequila from when I made the trifle, so I wanted to make something that would help me get rid of it. I found this list of alcoholic pie recipes and made two black russian pies and one whiskey apple pie.

Melt 24 lg. marshmallows (or 2 ½ cups small marshmallows) with milk in microwave, stirring occasionally. Place in freezer to thicken.

These marshmallows are more like medium size, so I just estimated how much I would need.

Stir in 1/3 cup Kahlua.

Beat 1 cup whipping cream until stiff and fold into mixture.

Pour into pie crust.
Chill 30 minutes. Freeze, if need be.

That one turned out pretty well, I think. I'm not so sure about the apple pie, especially since I haven't made one in about 10 years.

First, I used the wrong kind of apples. These were labeled as Golden Delicious, but they're definitely Red Delicious. I know everyone says to use Granny Smiths, but those are kinda nasty. The recipe says to use 6-7 apples, but I only did 4 before I got tired of peeling and cutting.

In a saucepan, mix 1/3 cup sugar, 2 tbsp flour, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, and 1/4 tsp salt.
Add the 1/2 cup bourbon and 2 tbsp lemon juice, and whisk until evenly blended.
Cook over medium-high heat, whisking frequently, until the mixture boils and thickens slightly.

Add the apples and stir and toss them until evenly coated with the mixture.
Set aside for about 20 minutes, stirring twice.

Pour the apple mixture into the pie crust, mounding slightly in the center.
Cover with top crust and seal the edges.  Cut several steam vents.
Bake for 25 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 350 degrees and bake an additional 45 minutes.

I remember I was in the grocery store looking at the deep dish pie crusts and thinking "I don't need all that drama!" Well, apparently I did need it. I didn't even use all the apples. I forgot to take a picture of the finished pie with the top and everything, but that's probably a good thing since it was kinda ugly, all lumpy and creepy-looking. I think maybe apple pie just isn't my thing. Maybe I'll try again at Christmas.

Mini Pies!

One of my coworkers was recently promoted to assistant manager, so I asked him what he wanted me to bake for his promotion party. He said blueberry pie. I've never made that, but I'll try anything once. The party turned out to be on a Saturday night at a club, so I waited until Monday to bring the pie. I found a bunch of recipes for mini pies, but I decided on this one. I didn't want to deal with making the crust, filling AND topping ALL FROM SCRATCH.

I don't know why, but the first step is making the topping. Ok. This is the brown sugar, cinnamon and flour mixed together.

I don't have a pastry blender, but I'll probably get one because cutting up butter is very tedious. I'll be honest. I had to Google "how to cut in butter".

Ok, it's supposed to be crumbly, but it isn't. I suspect that cutting up the butter first wasn't such a good idea. Also, I didn't add nuts, and I probably mixed it too much.

Biscuit halves flattened to a 4-inch diameter. I used the top of a grits container to size them because it was the first 4-inch circle I found. The hard thing is getting them to stay stretched out. They started shrinking as soon as I put them in the muffin pan. These biscuits are Grands Homestyle. I know the recommendation was for the flaky kind, but the grocery store's inventory was kinda depleted.

Canned blueberry pie filling. From a can. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. This picture shows 2 tablespoons in each crust. That's actually too much because blueberry filling tends to bubble out.

Ok, this is definitely not pretty. The filling is oozing out and the topping doesn't cover the pie, BUT the taste was unaffected. I'll definitely be doing another batch of blueberry anyway.

This is my second attempt at topping. I took the butter straight from the fridge instead of letting it sit out and dropped the whole stick into the topping mixture. Then I used 2 knives to cut it up. Much better results and much faster!

This is my batch of apple pies. I used the spiced apple pie filling that was next to the blueberry pie filling in the baking aisle. The apples were sliced, so I had to cut them up into little cubes. I used 2 tablespoons of cubes. I wasn't worried about the filling spilling out because there wasn't much sauce.

Here's my second batch of blueberry. I only used 1.5 tablespoons of filling this time, but it still oozed out. I think it's ok because the topping is better in this batch.

Yeah, these are definitely a LOT prettier.

Here's my finished product. I took 16 blueberry and 16 apple to work with me. That should have been enough for everyone who wanted one to get one, but a bunch of people had two. Too bad I'm too lazy to carry more than two containers during my 75-minute commute. I'll consider bringing extras (of whatever I make) this Monday.