I've reached the halfway point on my 50 pie quest, and I would be remiss if I didn't include a rhubarb pie recipe to pay homage to my father who loved rhubarb.
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By LINDA COCO
If almonds you adore, Amaretto-Amaretti pie you will amore. This recipe is another from pie master Ken Haedrich, but I've taken some creative license with it since I'm nuts about almonds.
With 16 pies now under my belt, I can safely say I've gotten into the spirit of pie making. And since my spirits are soaring with several pie successes, I announce this month's pie theme: spirited pies featuring an infusion of liqueurs and assorted spirits.
My last pie was a throwback to my past, and in that vein I thought I'd try a shoofly pie. I remember the nursery rhyme about shooflies and also remember the song made famous by Dinah Shore, "Shoofly Pie and Apple Pandowdy." I always thought the pie was a homely thing with the added insult of an unappetizing name. Shoofly pie in a pan ... dowdy, indeed.
I was somewhat pie deprived as a child. My Japanese mom did not have a sweet tooth and my dad was a meat and potatoes man from the Midwest. I, however, did have a sweet tooth that my mom indulged occasionally by baking Duncan Hines cake mixes and Toll House chocolate chip cookies.
I loved getting into the theme of things and with St. Patrick's Day recently, I thought a pie featuring Irish Cream liqueur would be magically delicious. Besides, the bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream given to me as a Christmas gift really ought to get used.
As I had mentioned before, my husband loves chocolate. He also loves peanuts. Most of all, he loves chocolate and peanuts together, and what could be a better amalgamation of those two ingredients than the famous Snickers candy bar?
Everyone loves chocolate. Americans certainly do as they spend upwards of $345 million a year in Valentine chocolate candy and consume 10-12 pounds of chocolate annually. Interestingly, 75 percent of chocolate purchases are made by women throughout the year, but during the days right before Valentin
The time has come for me to tackle the dreaded pastry pie crust. Cracker and cookie crumb crusts have proven to be a piece of cake for me, but it's with trepidation that I contemplate the classic pie pastry.
It's minus 22 degrees as I write this next installment of my pie blog. About this time each year, I suffer a bad case of Montana brain freeze. My winter-loving friends are immune to it, my warmer clime friends are clueless about it, but they all know when I've been afflicted by it.
When I lived in Hawaii in the mid 1980s, I sampled the most heavenly banana cream pie. It left an indelible memory that recently surfaced in a conversation I was having with a friend. We don't get together often, and when she asked me how my life was going, I answered using a food analogy.
I would be remiss if I didn't include in my pie blog and column Miss Miranda's original recipe from home economics class circa 1974.
The key to key lime pie is key lime. The end....
Editor's note: We will publish Linda Coco's blog about her adventures baking 50 classic pies over the next year. This is her introductory column and she'll jump in with the first pie recipe next week. Tune into her blog on the Internet at http://goldengirl50.blogspot.com/
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