According to my friend Julianna Rosemarie Henderson* (*name changed to protect her privacy)- everyone and there dog is blogging about cloth diapering and she is tired of poop stories. So my dear friend Julianna Rosemarie Henderson- here is a blog about something else!
i made a pie!
UPSIDE DOWN PLUM PECAN PIE!
Our friend Jonathan had a birthday a while back and his wife, Sarah, informed us that he LOVED any kind of fruit pies. While most people took them to his party- we decided to let me make one on his actual birthday and deliver it to him so he could enjoy the entire thing without having to share!
Anyway, I was searching through my Betty Crocker Cookbook and came across all sorts of pies. Mind you, I have only make one other pie in my life. An apple pie. Why I didn’t stick to just a simple apple pie again… I have no idea. I picked the upside down plum pecan pie. Now, this one required two crusts… again not a fan of making pie crusts. I had the hardest time with these crusts and I was getting frustrated because I wanted it all to look pretty! In my opinion, cooking and baking is half about the presentation as it is about the taste… but moving on.
Right. So I bought plums for this pie, I think I’ve only ever bought plums one other time in my life. I remembered the movie Sweet Home Alambama when the mom said something about rotten plums making the sweetest jam- so I went for the ripe-to over-ripe ones! 
The day of the grand adventure- things went totally bad. The kids were having a rough day, the pie crust kept tearing and only after I had all the plums pitted and diced into thousands of pieces did I realize that I probably should have taken the skin off! However, the recipe just said 2lbs plums- but after thinking about how I would make an apple pie, I was kicking myself for not taking the skins off. I hoped that the presentation and the thought would make up for that fact! So things went a little better as I put the pie together and baked it. John and Jade were over for dinner that night and they can be a witness to how nervous I was to flip this pie over onto the platter! It didn’t look bad from the top and I figured no one else would know it was supposed to be flipped over, but I went ahead and did it anyway and tada! It was B-E-A-U-TIFUL!
I still have no idea if it tasted good or not… the Windham fam was gracious enough to tell me that it was good! But I need to get out of this habbit of trying new recipes on other people and try them on our family first!
Then this week I made a banana cream pie for my dad for his birthday. My grandma had sent me a “no roll pie crust” and I tried it and enjoyed it a lot! It was easy to make and tasted great! My dad said that it didn’t taste like a regular pie crust- more like a cookie, which I agree. Here is the recipe if you are interested.
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Easy No Roll Pie Crust
Ingredients:
- 3 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 2/3 cup cooking oil (I like to use Canola oil)
- 1/3 cup water or milk
Directions:
Measure all ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir with a fork. Pat into pie pan with fingers or use the back of a spoon. Use with your favorite pie recipes.
This recipe will make enough for:
- 3 eight-inch one-crust pies (or)
- 2 eight-inch two-crust pies (or)
- 2 ten-inch one-crust pies (or)
- 1 ten-inch two-crust pie with a generous crumble crust.
To make the crumble crust, use half of the mixture for the bottom crust and then add 1/4 cup brown sugar to the remainder and sprinkle on top of your pie filling.
For a baked pie shell, bake the crust at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until light brown.
Way to get creative with the name, Leah!
Oh, and I will testify that the pie was really delicious. So delicious in fact, that it was once (ok, ok, maybe even twice) consumed for breakfast. Shh.. don’t tell anyone.
Hey, very nice post. Your pie looks gorgeous. I read every word of this post.
J.R. Henderson
J.R. Henderson- so glad you enjoyed it! Sarah- I love dessert for breakfast too!
But I won’t tell anyone! 
I was just asked by my daughter to make a french silk pie…but i said no…cuz the crust and all seems very intimidating….but if a busy mom like you can manage, i guess i could give it a shot. Pretty sure i may eat all the filling before it goes in the pie crust though.
you can do it Tash! seriously, try the no roll pie crust… it was so much easier!
I strongly recommend the no roll pie crust or if you want one that tastes like a “real” crust- flaky and all- get the refrigerated Pillsbury ones.
A few years ago I planned to bring pumpkin pie (my favorite!) to my family Thanksgiving. It’s usually made by my Grandma, but I figured I’d try to be an adult and contribute in some way. I tried three different pie crusts and could not get a single one to work. They’d end up too sticky and I couldn’t get it up off the mat or they’d be too dry and crack and crumble when I tried to transfer to the pan. Finally after several calls to my Grandma (who told me by the way that she thinks the Pillsbury one’s are so good that she doesn’t waste her time with pie crust anymore), I got a pie crust to work. I put in the filling and and stuck it in the oven. About 20 minutes later I realized I’d forgotten to add the evaporated milk to the filling, and had used just pumpkin in it. By this time I had spent about 3 hours and I was so frustrated I just went out and bought the refrigerated crust and a can of pumpkin pie filling so I all I had to do was dump and bake!!