Pies, Pies, and More Pies!

I LOVE pie. I attribute it to my birthday being on Pi Day (3.14!), but I'm not sure if that's actually the reason. I've almost never met a pie I didn't like (although that could also be said for every type of dessert...), except of course for pumpkin because who wants vegetables in a pie?! Not counting chicken pot pie of course.

I rarely get to make that many pies because someone else in my household (ahem, not me), doesn't love them as much as I do. But this holiday season, I've already made four!  We had a pie night for relief society and several of us volunteered to bring pies we could all eat after we learned how to make a pie. I knew I wanted to make this banana cream pie from A Spicy Perspective because it was the perfect balance between a regular ol' pudding banana cream, and some fancy homemade custard kind of banana cream. It turned out so well! I had several people tell me it was their favorite of the night (I personally loved the cookie dough pie the best..that is totally on my list to make soon!). Unfortunately, the crust didn't stick together as well as I wanted, but that could be due to my extreme dislike for using too much butter. :) I used a banana cream pudding instead of vanilla, and I quite liked it, even though it did have a somewhat fake banana taste. And I didn't use the coconut, but I certainly will if I make it again!

The other pie I made was totally random - I wanted to make something that didn't involve going to the store, and somehow I happened to have strawberries in my house! That almost never happens, so I took advantage of it and made a strawberry peach pie. I couldn't really find any recipe... so mine is very loosely based on this one from All Recipes. I didn't use the cinnamon, used canned peaches and fresh strawberries, and added some sort of mixture of flour and cornstarch...I was just winging it. This pie was the only one that was all eaten at the pie night! I quite like peach and strawberry together, it turns out, so once summer hits I'll do this again too!

And finally, for Thanksgiving I was asked to bring pie to my cousin's house. Pecan is the best (even my husband thinks so!) so I made two of them - both the pie crust and the pecan pie recipe is from the Taste of Home cookbook, and they are super simple (pie crust = flour, shortening, salt, water), but always delicious! If I did it again, I'd make extra filling - probably 1.5 times, since my pie dishes are apparently super deep!