Pie is the magic word around our homes. Just ask what anyone wants for dessert and the answer will probably be the same, "pie": Fresh berry or peach pies in the summer, the first apple pie of the fall or a fresh pear tart, and then there are the favorite winter pies--pumpkin, sweet potato, banana cream, or lemon meringue.
Savory pies for dinner are also popular in our homes. The aromas from the kitchen as these delicacies bake are worth any trouble in getting the ingredients together. Here we offer to you eight pies, four sweet and four savory, for your fall enjoyment.
Do remember that dessert pies, even when made without high calorie sugar, do have fat and calories. The worst part about these pies is that they are delicious and eating only 1/8th of a pie is difficult. Make sure your blood glucose levels are in control and add the exchanges into your meal plan. You may have to give up other foods during that meal, but being able to enjoy the bounty of the seasons rather than just watching others eat something you love may be worth while for you every so often.
First you have to start with a really good pastry crust. We developed a quick and easy, almost foolproof, recipe for our first cookbook. The pastry is made in a food processor, but you could also employ the old fashioned method, using a pastry blender or your fingers. The secret is to have the margarine frozen and the water really cold. Then don't over-handle the dough. If you have a problem rolling out pastry dough, add the teaspoon of cider vinegar to the dough along with the water. It will weaken the gluten in the dough just enough to make it easier to roll out a tender, flaky crust.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Our first pie recipe was one of my favorites before I developed diabetes, and one of the first pies I tried to modify when I began to cook more healthy. Today with sugar substitutes that measure like sugar, taste like sugar with little after taste, and are actually sugar with a molecule changed, baking is much easier and tasty. By the way, this pie is wonderful with pears also.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
In summer, we have fresh fruit from local farms at our beck and call. If you look carefully at the picture of this pie you would see blueberries picked by my friend's grandson, strawberries from another friend's yard, and a peach I picked in a local orchard. To thicken fruit pies, we have tried flour, arrowroot, and potato starch along with instant tapioca. The arrowroot costs almost $6.00 for a small bottle and to tell the truth, did only an OK job. The others were just as good, but the tapioca delivered the best project--a moist pie with the fruit pieces whole in the pie tasting just as you remember form childhood.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Our next sweet pie recipe comes from Golden, Texas, in the middle of sweet potato land where each fall harvest is celebrated with a Sweet Potato Festival. This pie, made by the mother-daughter team of S. and A. Parker, has been a blue ribbon winner in the baking contest. We lightened the original recipe with sugar substitute, reduced fat margarine, and evaporated skim milk with wonderful results. It's different from other sweet potato pies because it has bean egg whites in the mixture, giving the pie a light texture and delicate, mild flavor.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Our last dessert pie is a free-form pear tart baked not in a pie pan but on a nonstick baking sheet. Its rustic look and delicious flavor makes this simple tart just right for a special fall dinner.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Our first savory pie doesn't use pastry for the pie shell. Instead, we've cleverly used a mixture of zucchini and onions, baked to form a crust, then piled it high with fresh tomatoes, cheese, and herbs for a delicious main-dish pie that uses lots of that late-summer produce. During the winter, use plum tomatoes , which are good quality year round. Serve the pie with a salad of thinly sliced radishes, fresh fennel and red onion, piled onto green leafy lettuce and dressed with your favorite no-oil dressing.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Come fall, the evenings become cool and our family wants meat and potatoes. What better way to combine them then in a pie? This version of shepherd's pie comes complete with vegetables so you only have to add a salad and some fresh fruit to have a complete meal.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Our third savory pie is a contemporary and fresh-tasting version of tamale pie, using boneless chicken breasts instead of beef. Tomatillos resemble small green tomatoes wrapped in papery husks. They add a lemony herb flavor to the pie. Serve the pie with a sliced tomato and cucumber salad, sprinkled with some low fat feta cheese. It's an adaptation of a favorite dish served at the very popular Blue Mesa Grill of Fort Worth and Dallas. They cook theirs in individual casseroles and invert them out onto the dinner plate. We took the easy road and baked it in a large round casserole to cut and serve like a pie.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Our last savory whole-meal pie is made with fish-mild, firm-fleshed fish such as fillet of sole, whitefish, or red snapper. It's baked French-style in a casserole, covered with puff pastry. We used a small fish-shaped canapé cutter to cut a hole in the pastry to allow steam to escape. If you want, you can make the pie ahead of time and keep it refrigerated until you're ready to bake it. While it bakes, there's plenty of time to make a salad and a fresh fruit dessert.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
