Winter Pies

If you have a freezer you have great fresh food for winter. This is not the kind of freezing one can do in the top of the fridge because it takes up some important room and the fridge freezer doesn’t stay cold enough to keep food very long. If you don’t have a freezer, then you’ll have to drop by some day for pie, I guess.

The first thing you have to do, of course, is get fresh fruit in season. For me right now that’s blackberries, because with the unusual rains we have had this summer, they’re big, juicy and sweet. Paola and I went picking with a couple of teenagers (who went eating) just Thursday, and we each picked about 1 kilo of fresh berries. Paola went home and made jam then ate all of it the next morning! How? I haven’t a clue how anyone could eat almost 3.5 pounds of jam. I did the following. The instructions are generic and apply to all fruit pies, I believe. Our local peaches, both yellow and white, will be ready soon and I’ll do the same thing with some of them. Apples would be next. Maybe I’ll even get enough raspberries to do one. The recipe may vary, but the process won’t.

I washed and then carefully checked the berries. It didn’t take very long, but considering what I found in there, it was an important step. I let them drain for a while in a metal sieve colander.

Into the bowl went 1 kilo or about 4 cups of berries, and then a cup (210 g) of sugar, a pinch of salt, half a teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/4 cup (33 g) of flour went in on top. It all got tossed around until they were coated as you see in the photo above.

I then lined a pie pan very generously with aluminum foil.

In go the dressed up berries and on top about 1-1/2 tablespoons of butter in pieces.

Fold the foil up and over and seal very carefully with double folds. That’s it. Put it in the freezer and the next day you can get your pie pan back. There’s no need, once it’s frozen solid, to sacrifice a container.

When winter gets too heavy for words and August seems only a dream, have some friends over for supper. Make an ordinary recipe for a two crust pie crust and line that same pie pan with the appropriate amount. Unwrap the frozen filling and put it into the crust, then top it just like you would if it were fresh, sealing well and cutting holes in the top for steam. Bake as you would a fresh pie, adding some time for the thawing. How much time varies from fruit to fruit, but the crust should be golden and the filling should be bubbling with juices in the middle of the pie.

American pies are so different to European tarts and crostate that they make a treat that’s both appreciated and a conversation piece. There’s no piece for either of us today, but check back in a few months.