Hello hello!  It’s been a while hasn’t it?
Where have I been?  Well, that’s a bit of a long story and it has to do with Cancer.
I’ll save you all the gory details to say that after surgery and several weeks of radiation follow-ups… I’m happy to report that it looks like we beat the sucker in to submission.

The whole ordeal sort of took the wind out of my sails and caused me to, once again, shift focus in my life.  One of the things I try to focus on more each day is appreciating the beauty in life.  Because even when the times are tough there is beauty to be found, be it a bittersweet lesson, a smile from a passerby, hearing a child’s laugh bubbling up from the bottom of their tummy, the sweet sound of birdsong, the teeny peeks of neon green buds on the ends of Winter bare branches, the smell of coffee, the purr of a cat nestled in your lap, hugs, the kindness and love from those who love you.
The simple fact that every single day that we are “here” is in and of itself one of the most beautiful and underrated things on Earth.

So today I wanted to share with you a little trick, it’s not a recipe, it’s a technique.  And it will bring beauty to something ordinary.

I’m speaking about Pie Crusts.
I love a pretty pie, in fact my love of pretty pies goes way way way back to when my Mom used to make her Pumpkin or Apple pies and she would hand cut pie dough ornaments in the shapes of an Apple or a Turkey or a Pumpkin or even Fall Leaves.  She would use a little paring knife with a fine tip while we watched her deftly cut the dough, then she would wet the backside of the cut out with a little water and ask us kids where on the pie she should put it.  We always settled on the center – that way everyone who had a piece of pie would get a little piece of the special cut out.

I followed my Mom’s method when I made my Vineyard Pie several years ago, by hand cutting the dough, forming small balls to make clusters and rolling out thin ropes to make vines, like you see here:

Anyone can do this.  It works the best with any pie that requires a Lattice style top crust.
You can even do this with your kids.
You can make the shapes on your pie crust any shapes you want.  Polka Dots, Hexagons, Triangles, Flowers, Hearts, Leaves, Dog Bones… literally whatever tickles your fancy.

What you will need:
– Cookie Cutters, in the desired shapes you want (or a paring knife if you are the artistic type)
-Parchment Paper (this helps keep the dough from sticking to your work surface)
-1 Cup of Water
-1 rolled out Pie Crust, just use your favorite shortcut recipe (flour & butter base or flour & butter/shortening base  OR you can totally use store bought if you want to and no one is going to judge you)
-Patience
-Egg Wash (optional)

What you do:
Get your pie dough rolled out on your parchment paper, then start cutting out your shapes with your knife or cookie cutter.  Once you have enough cut outs to cover your pie top, you will dip them one by one very quickly in to the water.  Just a quick dip and right back out.
Then you will start to place the cut outs on the pie filling, starting with the outside rim first closest to the crust.
Work your way in, overlapping as you go.
Use any extra cut outs to layer on top for more dimension if you want.
Bake it as you normally would.

Please note:  Juices will bubble up through the cracks, which is OK.  The juices will add a fruity lacquer to your cutout shapes, which just adds to the beauty of the pie.

The pie in the header image is the pie that I made last night to take to my Mother’s house.  She is recovering from surgery right now, and she was craving peaches.  So I made a Cinnamon Peach Pie for her adorned with flowers to lift her spirits.  I transported it unbaked and baked it at her house so that she could enjoy the wonderful smells in her house.
Here is a little cellphone snap of how it looked after it was finished baking:

She’s still talking about the pie today :)

Ever since I started doing these pies, they have generated a lot of Oohs & Ahhs!
I even got some love from Food & Wine Magazine on Instagram & Facebook!

So I thought I would show you some of the other Pretty Pies I have done recently.

For Halloween I did a Pumpkin Pie from scratch, I scattered leaf shapes with tinted egg wash on top to create this pretty little Fall bite, kinda makes you want to dive right in to that pile of leaves:

Then we come to my personal favorite – this pretty little Summer Blackberry Pie, festooned with little flowers.  I love how the juices seeped up on the dough because after the bake it really makes them POP!

And here is that Blackberry Pie after the bake!  A field of deliciousness just waiting for you!

What the heck is a Vineyard Pie!?  It’s grape laden wonderful bliss, that’s what.  Recently, I entered a pie contest for which I will share pictures and stories at a later time.  Since the contest, I have had numerous requests for the recipe of my Vineyard Pie and so everything else must take a back seat while I share the secrets of my unusual grape pie with my friends.  This recipe is entirely original and my own.

So like I was saying, this was a pie intended for a contest but for me it was really an opportunity to think outside the box and do something… different.  The contest rules stated that the fruit had to be in season.  Immediately my mind went towards things such as pears, apples, plums and the like and then something unexpected creeped into my cranium.  Grapes.  Yep… grapes.

And so I started to do some research.  Was it possible to make a pie made of… Grapes?  Well it turns out that it is, and Concord Grapes seem to be a big deal to pie makers in areas such as Maryland.  My mind was already made up.  Grape Pie, here I come!  In researching recipes I found that the process in which those East Coast pies were made, had a very “jammy” interior.

I most certainly did not want to create a pie that was a big crust covered piece of Grape Jam.  I wanted the grapes to shine, taste fresh, sweet and have a cherry pie like texture.  Upon tasting and re-tasting grapes I decided that a mix of gapes was my ticket to success.  Concords lend their characteristic grapey flavor, Red Grapes for a nice sweet tart and firm fruit and Black Grapes for their honey-like sweetness.

***photo by Rasmus Rasmussen

After putting all these grapes together it struck me that I practically had myself a vineyard of grapes at hand.  Then a light bulb went off in my head… Ooooo!  Wine!!  So I grabbed some different sweet wines from my pantry to taste along with one of each of the grapes.  I liked the flavor of the Port but I went with a Blackberry Dessert Wine from Pasek Cellars, which is a local Cellar located in Mount Vernon.  The Blackberry Dessert Wine added a lovely fruity note that was a lovely accent to the Grapes.

So now it was on to prepping and making pie crust.  My pie crust had additions of Almond Flour, Buttermilk, local Leaf Lard and homemade Butter.  This filling would taste really wonderful in just about any crust, because this pie is totally all about the filling.  This filling could even be turned into a successful Cobbler or Brown Betty as well. (I’ll share the crust recipe in a later post about the Pie Contest)

***photo by Rasmus Rasmussen

In the East Coast grape pies, they squeeze out the centers of the Concord, run it through a food mill to remove the seeds… yadda yadda.  I didn’t want grape mush, I wanted these Grapes to be berry-like.  So to prep I washed the grapes, dried them and cut them in half.  Once in half the Concords revealed their little seed and a quick flick of the fingernail the seed was history and I was left with a lovely purple plump grape.  The Black Grapes & Red Grapes were seedless, but I cut them in half anyway so the filling had a consistent mouth feel, and I didn’t want to have grapes bursting in someone’s mouth and squirting out.

This pie was my great experiment.  It has been at least 10 years since the last time I made a pie from scratch, including the crust.  It is the first time I have ever invented a recipe for a pie and the first time I have ever had a grape pie tickle my tastebuds.  This pie has a light yet subtly rich flavor, not overly sweet.  The Grape flavor is not jammy, as my husband Rasmus put it “You can really taste the freshness of the grape.” and he is absolutely right.  The grapes still have a fruity pop, yet their flavors have melded together.

Vineyard Pie

• 1 double crust recipe of your favorite Pie Crust (this filling is great for a Gluten Free Crust)
• 1 1/2 cups Concord Grapes, seeded & halved
• 1 1/2 cups Seedless Red Grapes, halved
• 1 1/2 cups Seedless Black Grapes, halved
• 1 1/2 cups Organic Cane Sugar
• 1/2 cup Dessert Wine or Port
• 1/4 cup Tapioca Flour
• 1/4 teaspoon Black Pepper
• Zest of 1 Orange
• Juice of 1 Orange
• 1 Egg White for brushing the pie crust (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°.  Combine all ingredients together and stir to coat everything evenly.
Put your bottom crust down into you pie pan.  Ladle the pie filling into the unbaked pie crust, being careful not to overfill it.  The filling should form a mound, flush with the edge of the pie pan and rising gracefully to an inch over the rim at the very center.  If you happen to have extras, save them to make small tarts with your leftover pie crust trimmings.
Place the top crust onto the pie and crimp the edges closed.  Cut a few slits to act as vents for your filling.  If you want a shiny topped pie, now would be the time to put your egg white onto the top crust, using a pastry brush.
Place the pie onto a baking sheet, to catch any spillage.  Make a foil “tent” for the top to protect it from over browning, make sure there is at least an inch of spacec between the pie top and the foil so that the pie has breathing room.

Bake the pie for 45-50 minutes.  Remove the foil tent and finish baking the crust until it is browned to perfection, right around 5-10 minutes more.
Let this pie cool completely before serving, as the Tapioca needs time to set properly.

This is a great alternative to Apples, pears & Pumpkins and makes wonderful Fall pie, the colors and flavors… well it’s just down right beautiful.  Hope you enjoy!

***A special Thank You! to Rasmus Rasmussen for taking the shots of me in action.  You are the bestest! Biggest piece of pie is for YOU!