Apple Cherry Pie

I made a cherry pie once. I vowed not to do it again until I had a cherry pitter as the last event had resulted in cherry juice all over my whole kitchen, self and dog.

For Chanukah I received a cherry pitter and for the first time since then cherries were on sale so I decided it was time to try again, in honor of the penultimate episode of Dollhouse. Only this time I added apples. I liked the apple cherry combination a lot more than just the plain cherry pie. I like cherries, but I think I like them better as a combination ingredient with other fruit. I had debated about adding blueberries into this mix as well and I think in the future I might try that, but sadly they were a bit pricey this week. The cherry pitter might be my new favorite kitchen toy. I have one made by OXO and using it gives this very satisfying punch to each cherry to push the pit out, sort of like using a leather punch. Someone needs to create one with an automatic cherry loader that would work like a machine gun. The best part of course is that the mess was all self contained.

I had the worst pie crust failure I've had in a long time on this one. I realized in the middle of pie making that I had no cold water in my kitchen and that threw off the timing and temperature of the water I used in making the dough. When it came time to roll it out I managed to get one decent crust out of the dough, but gave up and went for pastry shapes on top. It still worked out to a pretty pie though. The water is still not fixed a day later and the lesson here is always check that before you start cooking and more importantly never ever rent an apartment from Vantage Management if you can avoid it.

The filling is made up of 1 1/2 lbs of cherries, 3 large granny smith apples, 2 Tbs of tapioca, 1 cup of sugar, cinnamon and a few dots of butter.

January 29 will mark the last Dollhouse episode and assuming nothing else comes up, I'm planning the finale of Dollhouse and Pie as well. I started making pie partly for company who came over to watch the first early episodes and I've continued through most of both seasons, so now I'm faced with coming up with a suitable parting pie. It might have to feature red splatter in keeping with the latest few episodes.

Ignoring the New Year's Resolutions

While most people are jumping on the eat healthy and get in shape band wagon, I'm making my first real post in the new year about what might be the epitome of an unbalanced meal: macaroni and cheese and pie. The pie is a pear and strawberry pie.


The macaroni and cheese was inspired by clearing out leftover cheese in the fridge.

Recipe:
16oz box of elbow pasta, cooked
3 cups of white sauce
3 cups mixed of Gruyere, cheddar, mozzarella, and Parmesan
Top with 1/2 cup of buttered bread crumbs (this time I tried Progresso's herbed panko)

White Sauce:
6 Tbs butter
6 Tbs flour
3 cups milk
salt and pepper to taste


Pear & Strawberry Pie Filling
5 ripe pears peeled and sliced
approx 3/4 of a lb of strawberries sliced
3 Tbs tapioca
3/4 cup of sugar