Pear Pie

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​PEAR PIE

     I didn't know if there even was such a thing as pear pie. In fact I still don't know if there is.
​    But the thing was, my daughter and I both  went to  Kroger's on the same day and each of us came home with a bag of ripe pears. 

      I figured chances were that if we tried hard we could nosh our way through all those pears before they crossed over to the dark side. Or, thought I, I could do something with them.
       But then it struck me: What else, besides eating them straight up, can one actually do with pears? Apples, peaches, pumpkin, can be made into pie, as can a surplus of cherries, blueberries, or strawberries. I once even tried making a grape pie, but I wouldn't recommend it.  
       You don't slice pears on top of your cereal. You can put them into a fruit salad, but that requires at least a few fellow fruits. 

      You can also puree pears into baby food, but that requires a baby.

      And so  I circled back around to the idea of a pear pie, the grape pie experiment notwithstanding, 
      Now that I'd decided to make a pear pie, the next decision was how to construct it. 
      Now, when it comes to fruit pies I generally - not always, but generally - follow one of two models: There's the Apple Pie model, which involves a fruit filling between two pie crusts:

...and the Cherry Almond Streusel Pie model, which involves encasing the fruit in a crust on the bottom topped by a butter crumb and almond topping.

     I went back and forth between the two options, until I happened to look into the freezer and came across a single pie crust left over from a one-crust Cherry Almond Streusel pie I'd recently made.

     I also found a bag of almonds in the back of the fridge. 

      This meant that I had everything on hand to make the Cherry Almond Streusel model.  So a Pear Almond Streusel Pie it would be.  

      Here's the recipe, as I figured it:​
​
Pear Almond Streusel Pie    
The Pie:
 A couple pounds of pears, or enough to fill a pie plate
 2 tablespoons of quick-cooking tapioca
 1 cup of sugar
 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
 1 9-inch unbaked refrigerated roll-out pie crust

     Peel and slice the pears.

      Mix the pears  with the tapioca, sugar, and cinnamon.  Let stand for 15 minutes. 

​The Streusel:
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup slivered almonds
​     Mix the flour and brown sugar then cut the butter into the flour and sugar until the mixture is crumbly. 

       Mix in the almonds.

    Roll out the pie crust, place it in a 9-inch pie pan  and spread the pear mixture into the pie crust.  Spoon the streusel mixture over the pears.

       Bake at 375 degrees for 45-50 minutes, until the filling is bubbly and the topping well-browned.
​
       The pie came out of the oven looking quite nice.

     But, of course, the proof is in the taste, and so  in order to give it most benefit I served up the Pear Almond Streusel Pie with full regalia.

     Then came the tastes test.
     Tom declared it delicious.

     Theresa proclaimed it outstanding.

      Me, I thought it was...I don't know...Sweet. Crunchy in a nice way.  Juicy. It tasted good enough. And yet there was something about the flavor that was kind of elusive. I couldn't quite put my finger - or rather my tongue - on exactly what my Pear Almond Streusel Pie tasted like.
     Still, it was a whole lot better than that grape pie.