Food Friday: Time for Pie

We are edging toward Thanksgiving. Carefully. Warily. What else can happen? What else can go wrong? More importantly, when do turkeys go on sale? Has the 2024 Beaujolais Nouveau been released yet? (Non! Beaujolais Nouveau Day is November 21st!) Apple pie, or pumpkin? What about Boston Cream? One of the young ‘uns has suggested a purple sweet potato pie. Really? Purple Sweet Potato Pie

I have made Mr. Sanders promise that we will stop at the very first Trader Joe’s we encounter on our 5-hour drive to the rental house where we will be celebrating Thanksgiving this year. I just watched a video of Hope Walz emptying holiday goodies from her TJ’s shopping bags. She had snagged three packages of the Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Peppermint Joe-Joes that I loved so much last year. I had FORGOTTEN about those divine cookies. Hope Walz on Tik Tok I just love holidays with food expectations. Now I feel up to the challenge of herding the cats and going away for Thanksgiving. Gobble, gobble indeed!

Some of my bravado comes from the notion that this year I have the ultimate pie crust recipe. It is uncomplicated, and almost as easy as passing off a store-bought pie as something I personally rolled out, fluted, crimped, washed with egg, and blind baked with professional finesse. You have to understand that my signature pie consists of a cumulus cloud of whipped cream resting on a delicious base of Jell-O chocolate pudding, in a darkly-satisfying, crunchy (store-bought ) chocolate cookie pie shell — just so you have a basis for comparison. I have just never been able to crimp a pie crust neatly, or even roll out a circle of pie dough. My mother’s major disappointment with me – that I knew about – was that I bought pie crusts. That I didn’t have the emotional backbone to learn how to roll out homemade dough. Well, this year, I will not be lurking in the pastry shell section of the frozen foods at the grocery store. I will be baking homemade pies.

This year I have stolen quite boldly from the New York Times’ test kitchens.

Shortcut Pie Crust
By Clare de Boer

INGREDIENTS
1 ½ cups/190 grams all-purpose flour
½ cup/60 grams confectioners’ sugar, passed through a sieve
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
9 tablespoons/130 grams cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
2 large egg yolks

PREPARATION
Combine the flour, confectioners’ sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Add the cubed butter and blitz until the flour mixture has a sandy texture with some pea-size butter bits.

Add the egg yolks and blitz then pulse just until the pastry begins to come together.
Tip the pastry out onto a rectangle of plastic wrap. Using your hands, form it into a 6-inch log. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill, at least 3 hours or up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months. If using frozen dough, allow to soften slightly in the fridge for an hour before using.

Using the large holes on a box grater, grate 3/4 of the chilled pastry directly into your pie dish or tart pan. Working quickly by hand, press the grated pastry into the dish, starting with the sides then covering the bottom, grating more of the chilled pastry into the dish as needed to cover evenly. Pay attention to the seam between the sides and the base, making sure it is the same thickness as the rest of the pastry: The crust should form an even layer that is about 1/4-inch thick. (Save any leftover pastry for another use.) Chill, at least 30 minutes or up to 2 days. (This can be done ahead.)
The crust can take various routes from here; refer to whichever pie or tart recipe you’re using for guidance. If blind-baking this crust, it cooks best at 350°F.
NYT Shortcut Pie Crust

Our friends at Food52 understand that we need shortcuts, and crimping an attractive pie crust isn’t vital to the meaning of Thanksgiving. Food52 Apple Pie

They further understand that when you are ready for pumpkin pie you don’t care about the pie crust. Pumpkins are bold; a gingersnap pie crust enhances the pumpkin experience. Be prepared to have seconds. Food52 Pumpkin Pie

We had friends in Florida who celebrated family birthdays with pies instead of cakes. Be daring. Try some homemade apple pie. Or even a purple sweet potato pie.

“So learn about life. Cut yourself a big slice with the silver server, a big slice of pie.
Open your eyes. Let life happen.”
—Sylvia Plath

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.