Of course if pie were actually the remedy for troubled times, then what the world would really need now would be pie, sweet pie. And lots of it.
But then even if it doesn't end up solving any of our current national and global worries, what’s not to like about a slice of good pie even in the worst of times?
And so I suggested that during our visit to Chicago I make a pie to cheer us all up during these troubled times.
The consensus was that this would be a splendid idea,
Cherry Almond Streusel Pie
The Pie:
2 cans of tart red cherries.
2 tablespoons of quick-cooking tapioca
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 9-inch unbaked refrigerated roll-out pie crust
The Streusel:
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup slivered almonds
Mix the cherries and their juices with the tapioca, sugar, and cinnamon. Let stand for 15 minutes.
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 cherry mixture into the pie crust. Spoon the streusel mixture over the cherries.
Bake at 375 for 45-50 minutes, until the filling is bubbly and topping well-browned.
Since in times past I’d not succeeded in finding canned tart cherries in any of the supermarkets in Claire and Miguel’s neighborhood, this time I brought the cherries with me from Columbus and also a box of Minute Tapioca just in case that item likewise proved elusive. I figured we could find the rest of the ingredients locally.
So on Friday morning pie-baking was on the agenda.
Right after breakfast.
As Miguel had to work and Tom was spending the day visiting a friend in a Chicago suburb,
But we’d passed another place along the way called The Cozy Corner that Claire had never been to,
Claire liked the idea of having an apple pie as well, but admitted that she’d prefer a regular two-crust apple pie.
This meant that we’d have to buy a second package of pie crusts for the apple pie, which would bring us back at where we started, still with an extra crust.
To solve the recurring quandary of the extra pie crust I suggested that I make one more one-cruster, maybe a pumpkin or pecan pie.
Claire immediately cast her vote for a pecan pie, so pecan pie it was to be.
The only snag was that I’d never made a pecan pie before and so knew neither how such a pie was made nor which ingredients we needed to purchase. But that problem was easily solved when Claire pulled out her phone and pulled up a pecan pie recipe from online, from which we learned that the only additional ingredients we’d need to buy were pecans and light corn syrup.
Our shopping done, we headed back home laden with the necessary provisions to bake not one, but three pies. But it was all right. We’re living in times of extraordinary worry and anxiety.
These are definitely three-pie times.
To be continued…